Big Fat Fatty McFattersons

That's me. At my doctor's office this past week I weighed in at 254 pounds. Now, that's a perfect weight if you're a 6'8" power forward in the NBA. If you're just under six feet tall and spend most of your day standing in one place or sitting in one place ... not so much.

It is the most I have ever weighed. In all of my 49+ years on the planet. I am appalled at myself.

And it must go. I must lose weight. And not just lose it, but take it out deep into the woods and set it free someplace where it will never find its way home again.

And you're going to help me. I hope. Your job is to provide tips, advice, and most of all, encouragement. I'll post a monthly update here on the blog and I expect you to use the comments section to keep me going. Here are the targets:

225 makes me a happy guy.
200 makes my doctor a happy guy.
180 makes my insurance company happy people.

Behavioral science tells us it takes three weeks of repeating an activity for it to become a habit, and that's the impetus behind the "Change One" Diet Plan. Change one thing about your lifestyle or diet for three weeks, until it's locked in, then change one more thing. It's a gradual lifestyle change in hopes it will be a lasting lifestyle change.

I'm going to give it a try. Starting today - the day after Thanksgiving - I'm going to attack this weight problem and cure or at least alleviate some of the ills that plague me (hiatal hernia, diabetes, constant fatigue).

My first step is to begin a food journal. They say when you write down everything that goes into your mouth, you wind up eating less. I guess it's because you're more aware of what you're doing. At any rate, I start today.

That means you're on the clock with me. I thank you.

The Cat

Usually being the first one up in the morning, I stumble into the bathroom with the cat fast upon my heels, having apparently missed the company of humans for all of five or six hours. And there we are, the cat rubbing up against my legs, purring, meowing, telling me her food bowl is empty and I'm the only one in the world who cares about her and WHY HAVEN'T YOU FILLED IT YET???

Meanwhile, I'm telling her, "Look, I don't bother you when you're in the litter box, so leave me alone." To date, she has never understood this.

Many times when my wife comes around a corner of our house, the cat will bounce on her feet for a moment, then move away. I am constantly hearing her tell the cat, "It's me. It's always me. It's always going to be me."

Lately though, I confess the cat seems to be mellowing out a bit. She's over three years old, now, and she'll actually let me lie down on the bed - disturbing her nap, mind you - without jumping off and running away. We'll actually even nap together. I'll always wonder if she thinks my snoring is just my way of purring.

The other day I was staying home with my daughter, who was ill and didn't go to school, and while I was at the computer, she actually jumped up to my lap and curled up in the crook of my elbow for about 45 minutes, until I had to put her down and see if the joint would still work. Getting old sucks.

A Pile of Potpourri

That deep rumbling you heard last night was the country, moving to the left.

My personal preference is to have Congress balance the White House. Republican president? I'll take a Democratic Congress. Democrat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Gimme a Republican House and Senate. That way whatever laws make it out of D.C. are bound to be ones *everyone* wants, and that's the only way to play this game we call politics.

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My parents flashed me an emergency email prayer request, so I'm passing it on in that spirit of an "eCommunity of Prayer" (see the blog index to your left). It seems that during the years my parents wintered in Texas, they made some good friends. One family (Ray and Pat F.), just passed on a prayer request about Chad, who was shot in the head while riding in a HumVee through Fallujah in Iraq. He is currently in critical, but stable condition, waiting to be stable enough to transport to a better medical facility in Germany. Please pray for a complete recovery.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF FINISHING YOUR MEDICATION: You know how you catch one of those ucky respiratory infections and your doctor gives you some pills to make it go away? Take all of them, even if you feel like you've gotten better. My daughter had the creepy-crawly crud a couple of weeks ago and when she got to feeling better, we stopped enforcing the pill routine. Well, her infection wasn't completely gone so guess what? It came back in spades and the pills we made her start taking again didn't help because her body had built up an immunity to them. So now she's missed three days of school with a temperature over 100 degrees and she's on a heavier antibiotic ... and you can bet your proverbial bippy she'll finish ALL of those pills.

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I see the Detroit Tigers hitting coach - Don Slaught - fell on his sword over the team's woeful hitting performance in the World Series and he resigned. A shame we can't blame the *real* culprits. Golly, you'd think paying someone - several someones - $12 million a year would mean they could hit a ball where the defenders aren't every once in awhile. Ah well, let not this miserable ending to a fantasy season detract from Detroit's accomplishment in achieving heights in the baseball world no one could have ever predicted.

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Hey, it's time to start making supper so I gotta run.

Keep Going

In Wednesday's Mark Mail post, the "Wonder for Your Week" is: If ceased means stopped, does that mean a deceased person keeps going?

The answer is yes, most certainly.

One thing people just have a hard time wrapping their heads around is the fact that we are eternal. Our bodies may be temporary, but the stuff you can't see inside - the soul, the spirit, the essence of US - lasts forever.

I wonder (and, I confess, occasionally worry) about retirement. Do we slow down? Do we stop doing things? Does the central thread of our lives begin to unravel? I applaud all of you who are busier in retirement than you were during your occupational years. For two reasons: because you're now busy at what you want to be doing - which is always more fulfilling - and because you understand the eternal equation.

Death is only a speed bump. And I want the speedometer of my life to be red-pegged when I hit it.

I want to keep going ... right on into eternity.

An eCommunity of Prayer

Many times those of you on the Mark Mail list will write to me. I always enjoy that. Sometimes we even get to strike up a wee bit of an "efriendship" though we've never met face-to-face. Some of you were already friends before I began sending this stuff out about eight years ago. It's good to hear from you, whether in my Inbox or the Guest Book of my website or on the Comment boards here at the blog.

Sometimes you folks will share a prayer request with me. Like the ones I got this weekend, from list member Pam W. about her husband, who just had surgery for colo-rectal cancer; or the one from list member Carolyn W., who is fighting her own good fight against cervical and ovarian cancer. Then there was the time list member Lee J. sent me an email about some family members who were in a tragic automobile accident and killed and would the list pray for the remaining family members?

Sometimes the prayers come closer to home, as when my own parents were in a collision this past summer, or when you prayed for my wife's appendectomy in 2004.

I guess the point is, prayer works. Revelation 5:8 talks about the prayers of God's people rising as incense to the Lord and filling up golden bowls in heaven. I like that concept ... that our prayers are heard and received and kept and, I believe, answered. Our job is to fill up those prayer bowls.

So why can't my list and this blog be more than just "yet another spot on the Web to toss my thoughts into the abyss" and actually be useful for one another? Let's turn this little corner of the Internet into an "eCommunity of Prayer" - at least periodically - and let's pray for one another.

I invite you to use the "Comments" link at the bottom and offer up something - let's keep it to just one thing per person, if you can - that you'd like us to pray about. And as you read the comments, read them in an attitude of prayer and intercession. And know that at the very least, *I* read each and every comment and I'll certainly be praying for you as I read them.

Gastroscopyville

So I had a gastroscopy today. You get the idea from the photo at the left, right?

They started an IV drip, hooked me up to some oxygen, strapped a plastic cylinder into my mouth, rolled me onto my left side and started a sedative. Next thing I know I'm feeling a little dizzy and the very next thing I remember is waking up with a sore throat.

A really, really, really sore throat.

And a hiatal hernia.

For which there really isn't any surgery, from what I can discover on the web. Just need to take it easy and make a few lifestyle changes. Like the way I stand, the way I eat, and everything else about the way I live.

Hmmm, this may take some time.

Life's Little Rules

In my other body of work - Mark Mail - I've gone over "Life's Little Joys" and "Life's Little Nuisances" which will eventually make a decent coffee table book.

Now it's time to tackle "Life's Little Rules." Here's my Top Ten:

10. Spring ahead, Fall back, Winter where it's sunny.
9. Never pass up an opportunity for a good hug.
8. Never leave a restaurant empty-handed.
7. Sleep until you wake up naturally; trust that your body knows.
6. The only thing more important than a good education is a good heart.
5. Oil changes every three months or 3,000 miles really do work.
4. Pay your bills.
3. Understand that time is the true currency of life.
2. Do what you can and leave the rest up to God.
1. There are never any endings; only beginnings in disguise.

So what's your version?

>Hic< cups!

I wrote in a recent Mark Mail post about the hiccups (or hiccoughs) and a cure for them.

They're caused, as I understand it, by spasms of your diaphragm, which is the muscle that sits right on top of your tummy. Most hiccups last less than three minutes, though I did read about one documented case where they lasted nearly 60 years. Really.

The folk legend cures that we've used around our house are the classic "drink a glass of water," which also works for a few of you, according to what my list members sent me. We've also tried holding our breath and eating a spoonful of peanut butter.

Then I asked for your cures. Here's a sampling:

"Take a deeeeep breath very, very, v-e-r-y-a-l-m-o-s-t-p-a-i-n-f-u-l-l-y-s-l-o-w-l-y. Hold it for two or three seconds, then exhale just as slowly. Repeat three or four times, and that's usually enough to get those pesky critters gone. What it does is work that spasming muscle much like you would walk off a 'charlie horse' in your leg. It gently and slowly allows the diaphragm muscle to relax. Works like a charm every time."

-- Susan B.
Mechanicsville, MD

"Our favorite cure is taking a spoonful of sugar and placing it on your tongue. You cannot open your mouth until the sugar is dissolved. Works every time. When I first told my pre-teen about this, I thought she'd 'get the hiccups' just so she could eat sugar. It never happened and now she hates to put the sugar on her tongue when she gets the hiccups, but she knows it works."

-- Liz M.
Conway, AR

"When my children were small I used a remedy that my parents had used on me as a child. I would ask them to remember the LAST white horse they had seen. They would go deep into thinking and then finally come up with an answer. They were then surprised to learn that their hiccups had disappeared. I guess the moral of the story is it is difficult to concentrate on one thing while you are seeking another."

-- Bonnie D.
Roy, UT

"If you place a straw lengthwise between your teeth and drink water with the straw in place ... the hiccoughs will stop!"

-- Tippy H.
Martinsville, VA

So there you have a few more cures to try. The web was full of them ... as in pages and pages and pages. I'd still be interested in hearing what works for you. Please leave a comment!

We Clean Up Good

My wife and I at a friend's wedding in mid-July ... we clean up good, don't we? I was actually standing up with the groom, hence the tuxedo. But the whole experience - plus the fact my son has a steady girlfriend - set me to thinking about my own marriage, and questions I wish someone had asked me before I got married.

No doubt nothing would have changed, Bonnie's a wonderful woman and I have ABSOLUTELY no regrets, but these are some things I wish someone had made me at least think about before we knitted and knotted our lives together.

Do you understand everything will change? Can this person change with you?
Between the ages of 18 and 24, everything changes. Every. Thing. The way you look at the world, your social circle, the way you handle money, the way you look at the rest of the world, the way you eat and sleep, your views on religion, politics, sexuality, and every other big issue and in the middle of all this change you have to figure out where you fit in to the big picture of life for the next 50 years.

There's an old joke that says "a man marries a woman thinking she'll never change, and a woman marries a man thinking she can change him ... and they're both wrong." At the time most people get married, their life is already in a constant state of flux and growth and change ... and now you're adding another whole life into that mixture. You'd better both be sure you can make those changes together and come out the other side as stronger, happier versions of yourselves.

What goals do you have in life? Can this person help you achieve them? Can you help him or her achieve his or her own goals?
If not, better to wait. Because marriage is forever. At least it's supposed to be. You want to climb the Himalayas? Does he? Does she? If not, there's a dream gone bust and a regret that will simmer in the back of your heart until an innocent disagreement over the way you brush your teeth erupts into a full-blown marital World War III.

Old hurts and missed chances have a way of popping up and ruining a relationship unless you are able to thoroughly and completely let go of them. And that's a dang hard thing to do.

Do you make each other laugh? Can you carry on a conversation all night long? Apart from the snuggling and social activities and dates, do you long to be near this person?
In short, is this person your friend? Your best friend? Because the passionate flames will turn to smoldering embers soon enough and there's only so much money to keep you occupied with activities and dates ... in the end, there's just the two of you. If you can't find happiness - and by that I mean true contentment, the joy of just "being" - with this person, then perhaps you still haven't found the right one for you. Keep looking.

How do you feel about children? When do you want them? How many?
It's amazing to me that most couples only have a vague idea for an answer to this question. "Yes we want children. No, not right away," are about the only answers I hear. Do you understand how much wiggle room is in those statements? Define "not right away," for starters. One year? Two? Ten? Is this how the other person defines it?

See earlier paragraph on being able to change with one another.

Finally, can you keep your word?
Because that's what it all comes down to: making a commitment to this person for the rest of your long, long life and sticking to that commitment through thick, thin, and all the gooey stuff in between. The marriage vows kind of cover all the territory here: richer-poorer, sickness-health, better-worse, forsaking all others until death do you part. Those words should strike terror into your heart that only a complete and utter trust in your own fidelity and integrity can quench.

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Those are the questions I wish I'd been asked. From this end of the calendar I know the answers. 23 years ago, maybe not so much. But I sure would have liked the chance to think and talk about these questions with my fiancee. Who knows how she would have answered? Who knows what would have happened?

What kind of questions do you wish you'd been asked?

Independence Day, 2006

I wrote this in Mark Mail today:

I never quite know how to feel on patriotic days. I am an American by birth, a Christian by second birth, and those two sometimes walk hand-in-hand and sometimes, by necessity, are poles apart.

As an American, I'm proud of our accomplishments, ashamed of our excesses, horrified by our abuses, and yet confident of our future.

As a Christian, I feel much the same way, actually, only with a good deal more humility and not nearly so much pride, and I am more than confident, I am absolutely convinced of an eternal destiny and a bright, heavenly future.

I saw a sign outside a church I passed yesterday that set me on to this thinking. It said, "American and Proud, Christian and Humble." That is the unique dynamic in which we find ourselves - Christians, I mean - living.

Personally, I'm not sure I know how to do that. Any ideas?

What I Saw in Mackinaw

Photo of the Day: My girls, Amanda on the left and Bonnie on the right, in something of an extreme closeup. We've had an awful lot of fun up here in Mackinaw City the past four days. We rode on a ferry, rode on a horse, rode in a carriage, and walked until our legs were sore. Personally, I'm still recovering from that stupid horse.

I tried to upload some vacation photos to my website, but the Internet connections here are just not cooperating long enough to do anything. Watch for them to be there by Sunday evening.

Today we toured the Mackinaw Point Lighthouse, climbing 51 spiral stairs through four floors and 11 rungs on a ladder to reach the tower top. The lighthouse ran from 1892 until 1957 when Mackinac Bridge opened. The Bridge has flashing lights at the top of its towers, which rise 552 feet into the air, making the lighthouse obsolete. The Bridge also has its own foghorn. Five men were killed in its construction, though we were told the builders expected to lose a baker's dozen. It was built for $99 million and in three years, coming in under budget and on time. It is the country's longest suspension bridge. There will be a picture of it on my website by Monday.

Then we hiked over to Fort Michilimackinac, which was built by the French and occupied by the British until 1779, when they moved the whole thing over to Mackinac Island and a better defensive position. The fort was carefully reconstructed and today is the site of the longest ongoing archeological dig in Michigan. A dig that began in 1955 we took pictures of today.

Tomorrow we start for home, much to the chagrin of everyone. I only hope our builder finished the bathroom remodel....

Of Forts, Fudge, and Ferries

Photo of the Day: That's me and Midge. Midge is the horse. Midge had a mind of her own. I'm wondering what I'm getting myself into. We went horseback riding on Mackinac Island at the insistence of my daughter. Next time I'm renting a bicycle.

We spent Wednesday on the island, enjoying a carriage tour and Fort Mackinac and the ferry ride over from the mainland, and we've even had a little bit of fudge. There are at least four fudgiers (is that a word?) who claim to have the state's best fudge. Fact is, you mix that much sugar with that much chocolate and it's hard to tell the difference.

I put a whole bunch of other vacation pictures up at my website. Have a look if you'd like.

There are only four vehicles with large combustion engines on Mackinac Island: one ambulance, one police car, and two fire trucks. Everyone else gets around by horse or bicycle. During the winter, it's either a horse or a snowmobile.

And we found the reason Mackinaw/Mackinac are pronounced the same. The Ojibwa Indians called the area "mishilimakinak" ... which means either "great turtle" or "many turtles" depending on your interpetration. The island was given the name Mackinac by the French fur traders and when the English settled the city in the 1880's, they gave it the more phonetic pronunciation for a name.

We spent Thursday in the city proper, having a good look around, playing some miniature golf (Bonnie won), and then we slipped across the big bridge into the Upper Peninsula and journeyed over to "Mystery Spot" in St. Ignace, which was founded as a tourist attraction in 1955. It's claim to fame is that gravity seems to work backward in this little 150 square feet tract of land. My wife claimed she grew lightheaded upon entering the "spot" so maybe there's something to it.

Tomorrow we're off for a tour of a lighthouse and the colonial land-bound fort here in the city, before taking in a Beatles look-alike show in the evening. Should be fun.

Mackinaw City

My mother's condition has stabilized, allowing us to go ahead and take our family vacation, as originally planned.

So here we are in Mackinaw City and today we're bound for Mackinac Island. Can anyone tell me why those two are spelled differently, but pronounced the same?

So far the word we've coined most often is a concoction of my daughter's: "purtiful." It's a combination of pretty and beautiful. The scenery in northern Michigan is certainly purtiful.

I'll try to post a "Picture of the Day" later this evening. My Internet connection here at the hotel seems to be a bit dodgy, but I'm more determined than it is.

In A Heartbeat

This is my Step-Mom. Hazel Esther Raymond. It's a pretty good picture, isn't it? My nephew and amateur photographer, Chad, snapped it recently. Just by looking at the photo, you'd never believe that she'll be 87 years old this November, would you? She's a petite woman, coming in at just under five feet and just over 100 pounds.

I wish I could show you the picture I took two days ago in the hospital. It paints a gruesome portrait of a woman suffering dearly from an automobile accident that may end up claiming her life.

My dad and mom were driving west on a Michigan highway in an Olds Silhouette minivan, with the cruise control set to 55 m.p.h., when a car driven by a 17-year old (carrying three other teenagers) attempted to cross the highway directly in their path. My dad barely had time to tap the brakes when they hit. The passenger side of the other vehicle was driven nearly to the center of the car and into the ditch. Inside the van, the impact was so sudden and hard that the seatbelt broke my mother's sternum as the airbag deployed and smacked her in the face (saving her life in the process). Both her hands smashed against the dashboard and when the van spun a complete 180 degrees, Mom was thrown against the arm rest, breaking a rib.

During the same time, my father was thrown into his airbag, bruising his nose, and his head was thrown back so violently he fractured the C-2 vertebrae in his neck, as well as bruising both legs against the steering column and dash. Being a larger man, the seat belt merely bruised his torso rather than breaking anything. Again, despite any damage caused by the airbags, they are both alive to tell you this story because of them.

Well, Dad could tell you. Mom is still lying in the neurological ICU as I write this, an oxygen tube in her nose and a fluid tube down her throat. Her arms are black and blue from the elbow all the way down into the palms. She cannot talk. She suffered a mild heart attack late Sunday night, but because she was in the Intensive Care Unit, they were able to administer aid quickly and now she's in stable condition. Pneumonia and/or congestive heart failure remain very real possibilities. Her life hangs in the balance.

We may never know or understand why the other driver felt it was safe to cross that intersection. Was the sun in his eyes? Did someone or something distract him? Did he think he had time to cross? Was he more concerned about impressing the three girls in his car than he was about driving safely? All we know is that of the four people in the car, the front passenger broke her leg severely but everyone else walked away with bumps, bruises, and lacerations ... despite the fact they were trapped so badly in the mangled automobile that paramedics had to cut the roof off the car to get everyone out.

In a heartbeat, my parents lives have changed. Perhaps irrevocably. The only "blessing" that can currently be found in this situation is the outpouring of love from all those who have been touched by my mother and father's ministry in life and are lining up to offer their help, support, and encouragement. It has also brought my stepsisters and I closer together. And I got to spend most of last week with my Dad, helping him adjust to life in a cervical collar. We haven't spent that kind of quality time together in, literally, decades. It's an honest shame it takes such a tragic event to trigger these "blessings."

In the end, only God knows and time will tell what roads this story will take.

Miscellany

Just a few scattered thoughts today. The picture is from my wife, taken this morning as Tregilgas Tree Service went to work, owned by the husband of the daughter of some good friends of ours. Networking! Wes is lopping off one of the branches and then he did some tall acrobatics for us, which are not pictured. We'll have plenty of "before" and "after" pictures, but I'll probably put those up on my website.

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Our builder also dropped off our siding materials and he took some more door measurements as well. He'll start in earnest tomorrow. The materials are being stored in our garage so one of our cars has to park out in the street for about six weeks. Eh, a minor inconvenience.

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I saw the very definition of "uncouth" the other day. I was in the restroom at my postal unit, and there was a man using the urinal ... talking on his cell phone. Ewww! And then HE FLUSHED, leaving the caller *no doubt* about where he was and, more grossly, what he was doing. People, people, people, let's conduct our affairs with a little more decorum, shall we?

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The concerts this past weekend were a blast. The guys of "Big Daddy Weave" are all really nice and I recommend you run out or go online and purchase all of their CDs. We got to have a bite to eat with them in the "green room" before the show and had some time to chat. The sound company was over an hour late, so all the sound checks were rushed and we were feeling a little anxiety about that, but we just decided to leave it in the hands of the Lord, play with confidence, and have fun. And boy, did we!

Someone in the audience came up to Bryan, our lead guitar guy, and told him how much she enjoyed our music and that "she heard our stuff on the radio all the time." Bryan had to let her down gently and let her know we don't have anything on the radio, we just cover popular music in our band. Still, a nice compliment.

The Lapeer Art Festival was also nice. The weather was gorgeous, we got to play twice as long as we did the night before, and there were some really creative artists and their works on display along Nepessing Street, which is the main thoroughfare through the business district in Lapeer. We played on the lawn of the courthouse, which is the oldest courthouse in the state of Michigan.

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We've finished making our vacation plans. We'll be heading up to Mackinaw City and over to Mackinac Island in a couple of weeks for a few days. We were supposed to be going on tour with my daughter's community choir, but that fell through when not enough kids (or their parents) were able to commit to doing the tour. So we decided to make it a family week. I'm looking forward to it.

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Well, the tree service folks have got their commercial-grade chipper up and running again, just outside my office window by the curb, and it's nearly dinner time here, so I'm going to run. Thanks for reading, as always.

What are YOU doing for vacation this year?