Dreaming of a Life Less Ordinary

Grateful for the Miles: Steal Your Face Kit & the Hancock Prep I listen to more Grateful Dead than I have since I went to school at IU. The last two weeks I have been listening to Reckoning on repeat. The only acceptable version of China Doll is the Reckoning version. The music makes me happy and calms me. Happiness has been my driving focus since I left my work behind.  That leads me to this week's cycling kit! Finally, the Steal Your Face jersey has come out of the closet. It wasn't the matching socks, which arrived on Tuesday, that I swear had nothing to do with it. The Grateful Dead cycling gloves have been on tour with me previously; but they really do complete the kit.  Happy to announce that I reset my nutrition this week. To subtract, I added, and counting occupied my daily attention. Made sure my meal's core component was protein, then fiber. Two pounds melted away. I went back over 100 down in the last year. Well, technically, 360 days, but who is counting? ...

  Out Cycling the Scale (In my Brand New Day Outfit) 43 miles, four hours, 1909 ft elevation gain Saturday was the first time in 10 months the scale had gone up in back-to-back weeks. After working really hard to get fiber into my diet, working out steadily, and feeling superb, it was a sort of soul-crushing experience to be up on the scale. However, it was only crushing for a minute or two. I work really hard to try not to let the scale bother me. Especially in times of radical change. Part of me thought that as soon as I resigned and the stress of working went away, the weight would just melt off. The stress is gone, but the weight isn’t melting. However, that is because life changes.  More free time gives me more time to snack. Bags of baked Lay’s and peanut butter-filled pretzels get consumed and not logged. Popsicles disappear faster than they used to. As much as I would like to say I have popsicle gnomes who come and steal my popsicles. I have been eating more popsicles....

  "On the Road, On the Path" August 10, 2026  I was in the car on Thursday with Kona. We were going to get ourselves a cheeseburger and me a Coke Zero. This is typical after a bike ride. I was thinking about how I had spent my last week: working out and editing my work.   Then the phone call with my cycling coach, Jen, replayed in my head. That I could be ready to chase a dream by next summer. That freaked me out, but fantastically. I was ready to get back into the game of triathlon and push the limits of my body. It was going to take hard work and dedication, but I was back, baby!  It was then that my face split with a smile that was so big, I could not contain it if I had wanted to. It was at that very moment that I realized one thing. I was living my dream. Can you believe it? Do you have any idea how powerful that feeling is? After 27 years of doing battle with the voices in my head. Trying to prove to whomever I could that I was not lazy. It was at that ver...

  More Than a Progress Pic: What 180+ Likes Taught Me About My New Beginning Like most things in this life, it really started off as an accident.  I was trying to get my dog to come and nuzzle with me, and when she wouldn’t, I looked at my phone, and a photo from August 1, 2021, showed up in my history.  In the photo, I was as clean-shaven as I had been since 2009, so not very much; I was rocking my favorite Darth Vader T-shirt.  My journey had started already; I was 80 pounds down or something like that; I can’t really remember. Numbers over a six-year span blend.   Immediately, I wanted to contrast this photo with my cycle kit photo in full Punisher gear from the week before.  The journey needed to be seen side by side as I felt like it was coming full circle.  Using AI isn’t really my strong suit; people at work made fun of me for it.  I don’t have the patience for it all the time, and when I got a photo, I so...

July 19, 2026 I knew I was in trouble when Vicki took my hand and led me to the front of the meeting. If it's possible to be two completely opposite things at once, I was: a) terrified, and b) so happy! Yesterday at WW, I received my 100-pounds-down award. As it turns out, that award comes with giving an impromptu speech from the front of the room to the entire group. It isn’t the first time I’ve had to speak on the fly, and I think I did okay. I spoke straight from the heart about my WW journey. I decided 325 days ago to join WW again. The last 325 days are only a part of my total weight loss story, but honestly, it is the first time I started a journey where the results on the scale weren’t my main objective. I distinctly remember telling people back then that I was going to WW for community. I wanted to find my tribe. And I did. If you would have told me 325 days ago that I would lose 100 pounds, I would have said, “Great!” If you would have told me I would find my tribe, I woul...

  “A Cookie Monster Loose on the Cropcircle" I won’t lie to you I was a little nervous heading out to Cropcircle Road yesterday on Phantom.  It was not because at least in my mind they had named the road Cropcircle because of some alleged alien sighting or even a Cropcircle.  I mean, it is southern Indiana and as far as paranormal states go, Indiana is up there, but my guess is they called it Cropcircle because like most things in Indiana it is around or near a Corn field or bean field, so the name is pretty fitting.   So, no, I was not worried about aliens yesterday, and I certainly was not worried about little green men kidnapping a cookie loving monster and probing him relentlessly, although, I would be lying if although I’d be lying if I said that imagery didn’t keep popping into my head.     I have not been out to Cropcircle since 2024.  What I remember about Cropcircle is it is not flat to get there.  There is a little up from Clear Cree...