Why Michigan's Awesome, part 2

Biggby Coffee

Formerly Beaner's (ah, inadvertent racial slurs), this East Lansing based coffee franchise is wonderful.  In southwest Georgia any coffee chain is difficult to find.  Our little town had a nice distributor of fair trade coffee with an afterthought of a shop.  It was nice, but there's something about the transcendent nature of a chain that's comforting.  As I travel about my new stomping grounds, I'll occasionally see a big B (clever name, huh?) and smile.  "I could go for a grande Nutty Irishman," I'll think.

Of course, I don't act on it.  I'll need a job before I can do that.

More to come . . . .

Why Michigan's Awesome, part 1

Culver's

Since the home of the Butterburger is Sauk City, Wisconsin, being near a Culver's is a taste of home.  A taste we've been away from for five years.  It's good to be near one again.

Tennessee got one franchise in Murfreesboro about a month AFTER we left.  Georgia is still devoid of the greatest dispensary of fat-guy-food ever.  Poor Georgia.

Phoebe has adapted quickly and now recognizes a Culver's location by sight as we drive by.  Poor Phoebe. 

Actually, she makes better choices when we go for a treat.  She gets the corn dog (38% less calories than a cheeseburger and 33% less fat), white milk, and applesauce.  Those are HER choices by the way.  Of course, she does get a dish of custard with her kid's meal . . . .

Meet Phoebe Darkness

I don't get it. My daughter has decided she should be called Phoebe Darkness.

I don't get it.

Tonight Mthr. M-G, "Darkness", and I were invited to a banquet for the high school women's swim team.  GO LADY REDHAWKS!! We were introduced to the room and Phoebe loudly declared, "I am Phoebe DARKNESS."

Needless to say she was a hit with the high school girls.  She even got to take home a balloon.  Red?  No.  White?  Are you kidding?  Only a balloon as black as the tortured soul of its new mistress could come home with Phoebe Darkness.

Tomorrow she and I will be listening to Disintegration and practicing our glowers.

Welcome to NEWvember

Ahoy!  As you can see, Phoeb-a-loo was decked out a pirate last night.  Not just any pirate.  Phoebalicious was adamant that she was, in fact, Izzy for Disney's Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  This is the first year she decided what she was going to dress up as.  An interesting side note, we had all of those costume pieces on hand.  What does that say about us?

Oh wait!  Someone just pointed out that there's an elephant in the room.  I guess I wasn't aware.  Okay, so I've been failing big time on the update front.

This is a new month.  We're living in a new house.  (A new state even!)  Mthr. M-G is in a new church.  Today I'm renewing my my commitment to updating this blog daily.  I'm also restarting my weight loss journey.

The new button in the sidebar links to The Hacker's Diet homepage.  The Hacker's Diet is a no BS approach to losing weight and maintaining a health weight.  I think of it as weight loss for nerds.  It doesn't offer a "magic formula" for getting skinny.  It lays out a system for applying what we all already know.  Eat less.  The system is all about data analysis.  Nerd heaven!  Best of all, it's free.  I'll be posting my daily weigh-ins via that snazzy button.

Also, I'm in the middle of a MASSIVE update to the Phoebe photo album.  Check out the old (sorry, it can't all be new) button in the sidebar.

UPDATE: The photo upload is complete.  There are 349 new pictures of Phoebe in the album.  Enjoy!

What's a Quarter of a Year?

Here's a picture of me writing this blog entry.  Why?  Because I have feared writing a blog entry for over three months, and I believe facing one's fears is a legitimate way of overcoming them.  (Also, I couldn't think of an image that when with this entry.)

So I've been gone for three months.  No biggie, right?

WRONG!

My weight is up about 18 pounds since I last checked in with the Internet at large.  I have a lot of contributing factors.  There was stress of traveling with a three-year-old girl for final interviews for Mthr. M-G's next position.  There is the stress of none of those THREE trips involving four churches panning out yet.  The heat here in south-western Georgia has been cranked up to eleven so I haven't been walking.  Additionally, I've voluntarily been off of work for this "Transitional Summer Quarter" which leads to me filling my days with food.  (Stupid, I know.)

The good news is that I'm still 30 pounds lighter than when I started back in January.  Last week Mthr. M-G asked me for help tracking her weight with the trending I was applying.  That got me on the scale.  That made me put my foot down.  I've picked up books instead of carb. heavy snacks in the afternoons.  (I'm tearing through The Legend of Drizzt series by R. A. Salvatore.)  Damn it!  Tomorrow I'm going for a walk.  I don't what the temp and humidity have to say about it.

Now to reset my alarm.