Moving on

We are not coming back to church and we believe that we have been given the OK by God to go. Last night was Jackson and Reid's last night at Awana.

There is just not that sense of caring about others, overall, that there was 18-months ago. Because Steve is so self-centered and the cause of situations of conflict himself (as well as his wife), the flock overall has a tendency to follow the leader. That Wednesday night after the Heather's dad's service, very few said anything to Heather as to how she was doing, what is left to do, etc. when she was there for Prayer Meeting. Not even Steve. All he said was "Glad you're back." Only one person during that week sent her an email asking how she was. That whole week between getting home from the service and then turning around again that next weekend to go back was chaos. We needed to get to the store but had household things to take care of, work, kid activities, etc. That really was the week we needed supported but no one was around and that hurt. (EDITORIAL: that statement is not directed at anyone but just as a example of the bigger issue) To see what Steve has done to this church in just 18-months is incredible. Plus Steve has had another run-in with someone chewing them up and down over the phone and Donya talking down to Heather while yet saying she was sorry about the whole Angelia issue last summer when she should have been speaking in humility. It is not there. And when someone who has no ties to the church says "Oh, is that the one that is going Calvinistic like Highland?", that is not good either. The word is out.

I and others have tried to handle our conflicts as biblically as we could and came no where. The cold-treatment that we have been receiving by people because we have stood up combined with everything else just pushed the limit of tolerance. There are people who will not talk to us anymore! What is wrong with this picture? If it were just Heather and I, we would try to stick this out but we have to look at what is best for Jackson and Reid. Jackson is the only boy in his class and Reid is the only 3-year old. The last two Sunday's we have visited First Baptist and was just amazed at how distracted we had become and how nice it was to listen to a sermon that was teaching; not condemning. To have that weight lifted was huge.

This is not to say that there are not people that we still love and care about there and that we don't want to come back, but we just can't. It is bad when going through preparing for and dealing with a death is less stress than the situations we were in.

We are not moving our memberships for now. But it will take years to undo the damage Steve has done. And we don’t have the luxury of time to wait for the sake of Jackson and Reid.

More recent updates

The last couple of months have been rough.

Heather's dad was diagnosed last year with lung cancer and there were some medical issues that came up as a result. We moved him to an apartment at a retirment village that could help him as he needed. There were issues along the way and the chemo (maintainence dosages) was conrolling the cancer but things really took a turn almost 3 months ago. We moved him from the apartment to the Assisted Living part of the facility because the facility stated that his capabilities had deteriorated to where he did not meet the criteria to stay in the apartment. About 2 weeks later, Heather received a similar call that his capabilities had deteriorated to where he needed to be moved to the nursing home care wing; could not walk on his own, they were having to feed or help feed him, etc, etc.etc. 1 week and 4 days later he was gone. It really seems that it was natural causes, not the cancer, that took him. Over that 3 month period we had been in Winfied, KS (where he lived) on weekends and home during the week. I may sound callous but it was a relief when he passed. His life over this last 6 months was not how he (or really any one) would have continued to live. And we could then quit wondering what the next phone call was going to bring. We miss him but he was not the same person for the last 6 months that he had been the last 78 1/2 years.
So it is weird being 35 (and 39 for Heather) and my dad being gone as well as both Heather's parents. Something is not right. I feel like Jackson and Reid are the ones getting short changed. Time will move on and there is nothing I can do for Heather about it but it still sucks.

So on to other things. Heather A. wanted a pic of the "new" car. And here it is. 2007 Honda Pilot EX-L.

I don't buy brand new cars; I cannot justify it. Yet. Once my kids are older, then we will talk. But this we could not pass up. The lady who owned it bought it brand new. She lives here in Bartlesville but teaches at OU. So she would drive to her apartment in Norman on Monday then back on Thursday afternoon and to get groceries. That was it. 32,000 miles of highway driving. She traded it in for a new 2009 Pilot Touring just because she could. Her loss, my gain. Price was $3000 better than I was finding in Tulsa for a similar Pilot LX (base model).

So today I took Jackson to get a haircut at a place called Kiddoos. This place is crazy. There are TV's with PlaysStations for when the kids have to wait and a TV playing a movie. Plus at each station, there is a TV and a PlayStation with a small selection of movies or games the kids can play while they are getting their haircut. And for the littler kids, there are 2 Powerwheels cars attached to the chair lifts that they kiddos can drive and stomp the pedal (the batteries are charged and wheels will spin). There is a Hummer and a Mini Cooper. Too darn funny. There is a Glamour Gals area where Reid (who is almost 4) can get a little manicure. For Reid a haircut and a manicure would be $25 or so.

Other than that, I cannot think of much else. Oh, yeah. We lost our minds today. We adopted a 8-10 month old chocolate AND yellow Labs. What were we thinking? Beethoven, our 11-year old daschund/basset hound mix, will just go toes up when Maggie and Lucy get here Tuesday. Maggie is the chocolate.

I'll post more pics when we have them both. It will be fine. We went to look at Maggie and saw Lucy and just could not make up our mind. Jackson was really wanting to name one Sparky but we kind of vetoed that. Just cannot do that. So now, I'll have a dog, or dogs, I can take running with me. Beethoven is thankful since he moves so little around the house that I am certain that his heart only beats a couple times a week just out of necessity. He is that pathetic.

Kids say and relate the funniest things

So the other day Reid was getting out of the new car. As she is crawling down, she sees the door scuff plate.



She states, "Oh, Cheez-it's"



Look closely at the little items on the packge. How can you not laugh?

Sidelined again...

So the ankle is acting up again. Guess the running will have to cease for a bit. Back to the bike. YUCK! Oh well.

So an update, I am 57 pounds down. I waiver between 206 and 207 and really have not budged much. In time it will change, but still sucks. I can just taste 199 and it kills me. That means that when I hit 200, I will still have like 20 more pounds to go; totally awesome on one hand because I am that much closer to goal but also it is like "I still have 20 more!!!?!?!?" Oh well.

Things with church have continuted to dicentigrate and I really think we are going to leave. Really do not want to but not sure there is any choice. "Tune in tomorrow for another episode of Days of our Church."

Jacks started 4th grade today. How is that possible? That means that DD will be starting Pre-K next year. That is more than wrong. How again did I get to be 35 and with a kid who is over half-way through elementary school?

Chaos and family...

So things have been crazy. Swimming lessons every night, Heather's prayer group on Monday's, my bible study on Thursday.

Then Saturday was Jackson's birthday party. We showed up; the staff didn't. So while I call into work and try to get mobile numbers and end up calling the boss of the boss of wellness and fitness services. Give her the rundown all while standing outside and loading people back into their cars to come over to our house which was not clean. Dishes were in both sides of the sink. We punted and it has all worked out.

So in the middle of this, my grandmother passed. That morning. So while we are scrambling around with the party, my mother calls with this. OK, great. Nelda was 88 and was really in bad shape because of her dementia. In a lot of ways, it is a blessing. She had no quality of life. I feel bad for my uncle. He has had to do this by himself. He is the only one left. His dad, his brother (my dad), and now his mother are all gone. I think that would be hard at any age but Don is 56.

Now the family part. We drive over to Stillwater Monday afternoon (where my uncle lives). We get over to the house and talk a little bit with my aunt and uncle and all of her family. It was nice to be around all of them again. And then there were two conversations happening in different rooms of the house and we are sitting there feeling ignored. There was no way to get involved in these conversations. Now I understand that Polly doesn't get to see her cousins much but talks to her sisters all the time. We had not been over at the house for 5 years. Then there is all of these questions about how my brother is doing (he had surgery) on his knee. I said that I really didn't know because we really don't talk. I come away feeling like the bad guy because everyone cannot understand why.

Long story short, I want Jackson and Reid to have them involved and have that in their childhood (the family gatherings) like Heather and I did, but at the same time I don't know how to make it happen. Especially with them. It is like everyone gathered around Ryan when dad died and I got dropped and I really don't know how to talk to my uncle. There are some conversations that need to happen but I just don't know what to do about it.

It's an anniversary.

Today marks 6 months since I made the commitment to change. Today is 6 months since I stepped on the scale for my first weigh-in. That is how long I have been getting my person in order. There have been successes, observances, and revelations.

There have been visible successes: 53.4 pounds gone, 6 - 8 inches off of my waist (from wearing 44s to 38s), large shirts instead of XXL, the ability to run 3 miles in 30 minutes over my lunch hour, resting blood pressure and pulse 90/50 & 45-50 beats/min instead of 120/80 & 70-80 beats/min (I am curious about my blood chemistry) and other things that come along with the physical changes.

There have been unexpected observances: being able to tie my shoes while sitting on the bed and not ready to pass out from being bent over afterwards, noticing that I cannot lie on my side with my knees together because it hurts (there is actually bone in there, who knew?) I practically bound out of bed in the mornings (once I do get up), how more space there is between me and my steering wheel (seriously) and that the body will do what it wants day to day. And there is the big one; keep reading because it falls as a observance and revelation.

And then there are the lessons learned (aka the revelations) along the way. Oh my, the lessons; where to start. Should I even start? Yes, I guess I shall because that ball is already rolling.

Cathy Zielske was making a comment about how she needs to be thinner. I understand the whole "I need to be thinner thought". I'd swear I had invented the concept. I have said for the last couple of years that I need to do something and was not going to be like this at 40. And I half-hearted tried. I meant it and started off well but in the end I just wasn't at my breaking point where I was totally committed to change. The "commitments" were temporary at best.

But this last December I turned 35. And I found myself saying that I have 5 more years to get myself together. But then over the next week or so I had a real conversation with myself realized that 5 years would essentially mean never going to happen. So I changed my statement to not be 36 and like this. I signed up on Jan 10, 2008. But this time was different and I knew it. My whole attitude about it was different and the reasons why were too. I was doing it for me. Not for my wife or for attention from other people, but for me. I was putting myself on the list of priorities. And it felt good. It still feels good to be on that list; everyday.

Also, I cannot believe how much I was eating before at a meal. While on vacation, each day I would start off with the right intentions but was off by dinner. One night I felt so bad because I ate so much at dinner that the only way I felt better was to go run a quick 9-minute mile at 10:30 PM in the hotel gym. By the time we left to come home I felt so bad physically from all of the eating out that I was ready to get back to the routine of home and my WW web tools. The experience has taught me that I have more than adapted to the plan and how much better I feel from the better food choices.

Lastly, I was looking through pictures on the computer the other night and found this:

There is a lot to say about this picture, yet at the same time there is nothing that can be said. There is no way that I was that big, but there it is. What is the phrase, the camera doesn't lie? I didn't think that is how I looked. This is what 263 looks like and it ain't pretty and wasn't happy. And I just didn't even know it. I though I was but was basing all my happiness off of others; if they were happy I was happy and if they weren't what was I not doing. I often wondered how someone can get up 300, 400, even 500 pounds and they not realize how big they are? Wouldn't they realize that they are wearing pants the size of a person (50- inch, etc). Oh, sweet irony we meet yet again. Here I was rendering a judgement yet I was 4-inches from 4 FEET AROUND and not too far from 300 myself. I have no explanations or justifications for my judgements because there simply are none. None. And nothing would be acceptable. If you are or were one of those persons, I am really sorry. You don't know me and may have never met me, but I'm sure you run into me everyday.

With that, this is a new chapter in my life.

(I know, bad picture.)

The previous chapters have been printed and are not available for editing. Not even if I wanted to. All that I can do is learn from the last 6 months and the years preceding, offer apologies to friends, my wife, and my kids and keep moving forward (onward and downward as the WW GoaDies would say). They are better than I have deserved.

Taking stock

Church issues still are still going on that I won't get into but lets just say that several of us are not getting fed.

So I and two other men are working on setting up our own men's study. We are doing this for ourselves and not doing this as a church-sponsored Men's Ministry event, but we are telling people around church. If our pastor feel like he wants to be involved, then fine. If he wants to use Men's ministry money for this, then fine. But we are not asking for it. Then Men's ministry was kind of a mess and there are those who want to distance ourselves from it.

Yesterday during the morning message for Father's Day, I wasn't really following where the pastor was going, but one thing that he said was interesting. He asked can your childeren tell that God is a priority or important in your life? I thought about that.

So after church we went through BK and so I asked Jackson what he thought was important to me. We told him there is not a right or wrong answer and thta I just wanted his opinion. Honestly, I was a little nervous about his response because you don't know what will come out of a 9 year old. His answer was family and friends. That made me feel good.

Later Heather and I were talking and that I can see why he would not say God was important. For one, when I read, he doesn't see me do it. I do that after he and Reid go to bed. We are not good about praying before meals, etc. I can fully admit that am usually stagnate and not moving forward. My own issues and no one else to fault. But with this lesson, especially if I lead it, I have now where else to go but up.

Quick update

As of this morning, I am down 44 pounds since January 10th. So that is about 2 pounds a weeks over the last 22 weeks. Go me!.

Renovations, vacations and other such nonsense

So the other nonsense first.

I have taken 2 minutes off of my 5K run time and actually added distance. So instead of 34 minutes to do 3.1 miles, I can get up to 3.25 miles in 32 minutes and I can easily get that in over my lunch hour. So, I'm pretty stoked about that. I can also report that I am now down 43 pounds. So I'm on tract to be down about 80 pounds by my birthday in December. Awesome.

Now, renovations. So, 2 months ago we discovered water in our bedroom. Yes, water. Lovely when it is in the bathroom and more specifically, in the shower. But in the bedroom, not so much. Especially when it is running under a wall and soaking the carpet. Well, the shower pan cracked and that was the cause of the problems. So since then we have all been using the hall bath (aka the kids bathroom). Now here we are this week we are in the middle of the below scene:
Yes, that is tile you see on the ceiling. More to come after they finish that later tomorrow. So by next week after it is all grouted and sealed, we can have our bathroom back.

Now the cruel irony. We bought this house after it had been redone and all we had to do was move in. Yeah, now. Not so much. Tonight...we are standing in the master bathroom looking at the in-progress renovation/repair of our shower and decide with the new tile going in the wallpaper has to go, the floor in the bathroom really needs redone to match the new shower, and then, and then, and then. So we will see what we do next when we have the money to do so.
Oh my, this is the beginning of the end. Just shoot me now cause here we go.

So vacations. Vacations are nice. And so is this place: Great Wolf Lodge. Here is the outside:

This is is just the lobby: This place was just incredible, from the lobby to the water park to all of the details they take care of.

The room...

We had the Kid Kamp Suite and the kids had their own "camp" in the room. They slept in bunk beds in their "camp", had a little window, their own TV. one of the funnier things about the trip...throughout the day, at dinner, etc., you would hear the staff start a wolf howl, kind of like the wave in a crowd. One would start it and it would go all over the lobby, water park, etc. Our kids picked up on it and when they heard the wolf howl, they would howl. Reid's howl just too cute. In the end, the kids were beyond over the mood. More like over Saturn.

The Grapevine location had an 80,000 sq. foot water park (inside) and another water park area outside, something like nine water slides, a small kids area, a wave pool, a lazy river, hot tubs, a huge three-story water fort, and several other play pools. With our one night reservation, we were able to play in the water park for two days.They also had an arcade, restaurants (the spinach artichoke dip was to die for), an adult spa, a kids spa, and a thing called MagiQuest. You buy a wand for like 10 bucks and then go all over the hotel looking for clues to the Quest. There are pictures, treasures chests and crystals spread out throughout the hotel and when a kid would point their wand, the picture/chest/crystal would light up and give the next clue. We didn't have time to do it, but it was really, really cool.

That is about it for now.

I'm 40. 4-0, fourty, 4ty

So, alot has happened since my last post. Get ready this will be long.

The biggest news is that I am officially down 40 pounds. Actually 41.5 pounds since January 10. That is about 2 pounds a week. Pictures will come later of before/current.

So my idea to run the Tulsa Run as changed somewhat. At the first of May, the Wellness-Fitness Services at my work sponsored a 5K run. So after enough people asking me if I was going to run it, I succummed to the peer pressure and registered for it. I ran it in 34 minutes. My overall goal is to be able to it in 30 minutes so I was pleased. I wished Heather and the kids would have come to it seeing how it was my first one. But earlier in the week Heather had said that while I did that the would hold down the beds. So I didn't push it but the irony was that as soon as I started to back out of the garage, everyone was up. So Heather thought about coming to it, but didn't know where it started and I didn't have my phone with me for her to call. Oh well. OK, back to Tulsa Run. There are just a lot of people that run that race. But the same month there is a run sponsored by the Tulsa Zoo. Less people and flatter ground so that is more my pace.

So the pains that I was having for the diverticulitis went away but then came back. So I got to have a colonoscopy about a month ago. You know that it is not a good thing when the doctor comes back and tells you that you are only the second case he has seen in his career in a patient under 40. How special for me. You know how a child draws Christmas lights on a house when they are drawing? Yes? Good. Take that and put it around both sides of my large intestinge and that is what his drawing looked like. Turns out, I have diverticulums (weaknesses) all along the whole run of my large intestine. He basically said that it was a genetic issue and that even if I had managed to eat worse than then typical American diet, this would not have occurred.

Jackson as started baseball. Jackson has gotten really good this year. The other night he hit a triple and also scored once and was on base 2 times of of three at-bats.
Jackson has also taken off the training wheels from his bike. He is doing awesome with that.


Last week Heather and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. Hard to believe that it has been that long. So we took the day off on Friday the 16th (anniversary is on the 17th) and went to Tulsa. We bought the kids some clothes, me some shoes and a new case for my iPhone, and some clothes for Heather. Then on Saturday morning, we drove over to Arkansas City, KS to go see Heather A, Price, and Emmerson. She is cute. We went out to eat and for what ever reason, Price had a melt down. I mean huge like I have never seen from him. So we brought Heather and Price their dinner because Heather decided that they needed to leave. Emmerson slept through the whole thing.

Really, the only other things are that we are going on vacation this week (Yea!). I haven't taken a whole week off since August and I can tell I'm burnt. Running to Dallas to watch Jonathan graduate and play at Great Wolf in Grapevine. We (OK, I) also bought Wii Fit. If you have not heard about it, it is an add on device and game that you use with your Nintendo Wii to work on strength and balance activities. Basically, it is a way to get people off of the couch and not realize that they are "working out". It has been pretty fun but it can be difficult.

See you all later!