Some new features

At the request of LMH, I am adding a new category for posts to this blog. LMH and son participated this weekend in the Susan B. Komen walk for the cure and I am so proud of this mother, son team and their actions to support a cure for breast cancer. Please post pictures from your walk and let us know if this helped shed some additional pounds in the process.

I am also interested in stress reducers. Life has been full of stresses of late, both at work and at home. We are still acclimating our 16 year old to our home, I am finding the demands on me at work have increased of late and M's work is also picking up. Our basement is under remodel, from the intake of water last spring, and we desperately need to put siding on our house and do some serious landscaping. I know that many people get much stress relief from home improvement projects and from gardening, I find neither of them particularly stress relievers or really that enjoyable.

Stress causes me to be careless with what I eat and what I do. Not a good state of mind to be in for the purpose of this blog. But, I will find a focus and find a place to put my thoughts that are happy and productive and relieve some of the stress that I currently feel.

Tomorrow I attend a funeral for a former neighbor of our family growing up. Dolly was one of those women from a generation ago, that defined what it meant to be a neighbor of the 1970's. I have the fondest memories of sitting on the neighbors deck, our mothers in nightgowns and kids in our pajamas, eating popcorn, drinking "zooper doopers" and laughing a lot. Dolly was a part our my childhood, a good friend to my mother and witness to many "incidents" in the life of our family. Thinking about her in a fond way, has already worked a bit of stress from my system.

I had a long talk with Linda last week. She called to check on the wedding plans of M's oldest. Wedding plans have become a source of stress, but Linda's listening ear and understanding response was just what I needed to relieve it for the moment. She's planning to be in Nebraska for the wedding in August, and I can connect her with other B-Hop'rs while she is here.

I am ready to update our spreadsheet. At last count, about two weeks ago, we were at a net loss of 73 lbs - wherever you are, please let me know and I'll update it again. I'm back to where I started and looking for ways to focus and get back on track to lose my 20lbs by August. Ditching some stress along the way is bound to help.