2017 & 2018?

As I have stated several times over, I am a terrible blogger.  I pick it up with every intention to keep it going every time but then fail miserably.

Let's see if I can recap 2017 & 2018 and even lead into 2019.

My last post was drafted on 7/31/2017...just forgot to hit post. It should have some details up to there.

The latter end of 2017 was a roller coaster.  Work moved me back to the main Evendale location away from the Ivory Tower that was Downtown Cincinnati, which obviously had an adverse effect on my daily commute.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Several other work related things happened over 17/18, but not anything worth sharing at the moment.

Yonatan had a lot of developmental milestones. I think 2017 was when he got his glasses. The first pair was really cute, blue. However, when he has tantrums, he would whip them off and out would pop a lens.  Surprise, surprise, surprise, in late 2018, he did it one too many times and we couldn't find where the lens went.   Had to go about 2 months before we could get an updated replacement script (in 2019).   His vocabulary grew greatly over 2017-2018. Especially in late 2018, when he started preschool.   He is growing leaps and bounds and brings a lot of joy as well as frustration.  He blesses us.

A lot of church related things happened. I was elected Section 2 Kentucky Missions Director. Wonderful to be part of the Kentucky Missions team. A couple of families left our church for other ministry opportunities, others joined. Lots of change, but sometimes change can be the catalyst for growth. Looking forward to great things in 2019!

August 5, 2018, 2pm. We were taking the exit ramp to get on to Dixie Highway when someone doing about 20+ over the speed limit, while either on their phone or looking behind them, ran a red light and struck the driver tire area of my mom's car.  I was driving, Roxy was in passenger seat, Mom was behind me and Yoni in his seat behind Roxy.  I may write more about this later, but everyone but Yoni received "minor injuries" that we are still dealing with. The claim has not yet be closed out and I'm still being treated medically.  Yoni only received a few scratches and have still trouble getting him into the car seat.
More on the accident and recovery as things unfold.

The following month begins a chapter of life that I wish was never brought into.
The day before Thanksgiving, my mother called me saying my dad (who had not been eating well) agreed to go to the hospital, but needed my help to get to the car. 

Long story short, he had a 10 day stay at St. Elizabeth, during which time we were told that his dementia and myotonic dystrophy have ran their course and that he didn't have long to live.  Hospice was called and physical therapy options provided.... We had hope and opted for the physical therapy. He spent the next 24 days at a nursing home/physical therapy facility that we were not thrilled with. Then we took him home to home-hospice care.

[During this time, I had a few health scares. Thankfully, the one major scare was a false alarm and there is no cancer. Other things I am still dealing with and waiting to get into a specialist for.]

Dad said he didn't want to ruin Yoni's Christmas, and then the same for Yoni's birthday on Jan 28th.  We were able to celebrate Christmas, Mom & Dad's anniversary and Yonatan's birthday with Dad. I should have asked him to not ruin my birthday...but I didn't get the chance.

Near the end of January, Hospice told us it would be about a week with the signs he was giving.  I made arrangements at work to work from home on certifications and maybe even FMLA until... Well the following day, I was working on my certification training and got a call that the heat was out at mom & dad's, that he was being transferred to the hospice center.  An hour later I get a call from my mother's mobile phone, but it wasn't my mother speaking, it was someone from hospice.  I received notice that the wonderful man that raised me, that I looked up to, that I loved, my Dad..has passed from this life January 31, 2019. I will have at least one other post about this...it will include what I said at the memorial service.
We are still dealing with the paperwork over a month later. Obviously, it will be a long time to be dealing with the emotional and other repercussions.
We have stayed the night every since, essentially slowly moving in with Mom to make certain she is okay.

Within 3 weeks of Dad passing, Granny (Mom's mom) also passed, at age 92.

I'm sure there is more to share, but I can't seem to remember it all. For obvious reasons, my memory isn't as good as it has been. It will get better. 

Things might be dark in this season, but God is my light. I will make it, we will make it and we will be blessed.

Until Next Time,
TRP

What happened to 2015/2016?

The rest of 2015 and then 2016 came and went with many changes, some great and some terrible.

Let's start with some of the bad. I fell off my wellness wagon, pretty hard. I think it started by picking up soda again.  This ended with me reaching the highest I've ever weighed in my life.  I decided I had to do something more. I found what I wanted to do that didn't involve shakes or mixed or strict calorie counting. We didn't really start that process until April of this year. More on this later.  Suffice it to say, I ended 2016 hopefully for a better wellness journey, but little effort toward the goal.

Some neutral-to-good news.
After my last post in 2015, my wife and I resigned as Youth Pastor of the Lighthouse after nine years of service in that roll. A bit bitter sweet. With as much time that has passed since, my opinion of the decision keeps changing. Time has a way of tainting our past choices. However, I stand by it as it has allowed my wonderful friends to assume that role since. They have done an amazing job since and I cannot wait to see what God does in their ministry!

Two weeks later our Pastor W.I. Smith resigned from the church he founded and faithful pastored for 34 years. I'm happy for him and his wife they have been rejuvenated in the time off since, enjoying their children, grandchildren and greats.
The church unanimously elected our (at the time) assistant pastor, Samuel Diedenhofer to be our new pastor. I'm am happy for him and his family. They have been faithful and have been rewarded for said faithfulness. I pray the Lord continues to bless them!

In December of 2015, my role at work was relocated to be much closer to home. Downtown Cincinnati has some interesting things and people. I'm enjoying working down here.

Some good things.
My son has been growing up into a wonderful child. He is pretty clever, opinionated, and stubborn. Just like his dad. He had to have a couple of corrective  surgeries on his eye and had a few ear infections, but otherwise pretty healthy.

Several ministerial options arose in 2016. At the end of all that, with much prayer and leading of the Lord, I was made Assistant Pastor of Lighthouse Ministries under my Pastor Samuel Diedenhofer.
It is an honorary to serve this body.
There is a video of the installation service available on both my YouTube channel as well as the one for the church., If you are interested.

7/31/2017

Wellness Update :-)

On January 15 of this year, I decided to to start my path to wellness. And yes with the birth of my son, I've really been distracted from updating and keeping an accountability record for myself on this journey.  So here is a brief update of the last 2.5 months.

As planned, I've cut out soda. This is HUGE for me. I had to take a tiered approach.  Water at home, and soda when at restuarants or meals, was step one.  Next was to cut out soda when  eating meals.   After a few weeks of not having soda, I tried some with a meal and it ended up making me ill.  I've tried once again since ,and same result.  Thus, I am soda free.   The only downside is I am still drinking some lightly carbonated energy drinks, which I know I need to desperately get rid of and get back to me teas. That is my next step on that front.  However, I feel I can still check off the 'Cutting Soda' from my to-do list.

Now that I am drinking mostly water, am I staying hydrated? No. because I am not drinking enough water.  I am admittantly only at about 1-3 of my daily water goal...which honestly, if I were to hit, I would likely not need energy drinks. I've been down that road before and found that to be the case.  I need to press harder to hit that goal.

How about the portion control teamed with what is being eaten? Well, the wife and I are working on that.  I would say that while I am eating a little better, but not like I could/should.  I've been looking at some great recipes that would help.


Honestly, the next step will have to be exercise.  Not likely to go much more forward without it.


So onto what the results have been.  My clothes are fitting better.  As a matter of fact, when I went to buy a new belt, I had to drop a size lower.  Actually I will not wear out this belt by the time I have to drop another size. :-)  So other than a few inches shaved away, I've dropped a total of 29.9 lbs.

Making progress.

Next time I might also talk about our son, but at this point I won't likely put any photos up until we have gotten a nice family photo. He is doing great and being a wonderful little two month old. :-)

Until Next Time,
TRP

Welcome To Wellness

Time to get serious.

Wellness starts from within. Wellness is more important that weight-loss. When you try to lose weight, it tends to just be a diet fad.  You must determine that you want your health to be better overall, not just to dodge a fee from insurance or to fit into some old clothes you have laying about. You know, the ones that you keep, just in case.
When you get into a wellness mindset, you begin to not just worry about losing weight or fitting older clothes and you make better choices.

Why am I doing this?  It took two years, but I have gained back all of the weight that I lost, and actually went a couple pounds (2.7 actually) beyond where I have been before. I've decided that I am going to be healthy, not just for me but for my wife and son.

Primary reasons for me getting into better health is that my wife and son deserve it.  They need me at my best, so I should be my best!  There are also other reason that I want to get healthy.

1. One is that my insurance company will be adding a 20-40 per check charge for not being within their ideal range of bio-metrics. I'd like to get that gone. :-) 
2. Being able to buy a suit at Walmart would be nice. Okay, this isn't saying that I actually desire a George brand suit, but it means, less time looking about at the specialty stores and maybe even being able to find something at a Goodwill or Thrift shop. 
3. I do have some older expensive suites that I would love to get back into. LOL
4. Better health means a better me.  I know for a fact that losing a bit a weight and staying away from certain foods will make me feel so much better. Breath easier, less other health issues and genuinely enjoy life much more fuller. When you feel better physically, it helps emotionally and spiritually.  I plan on being a healthy example for my son. 

So, whats the plan?

1. Count Calories / Portion Control. This is were MyFitnessPal will be used a bit. I'm going to get back into the habit of using this cool tool, and possible others like it (SparkPeople, LoseIt!, etc). This one will help me cut weight pretty quick, until I reach a certain plateau. However, to help prevent that.....
2. Exercise.  Yeah, You cannot lose weight without at least doing 20 minutes a day of some sort of cardiovascular activity.  I have some steps here at work that I will start taking instead of the elevator (three floors ain't much, but its a nice start).  Then I plan on walking for the rest of the 20 minutes a day.  Then at least 2-3 times a week, I will be taking a hike...or at least a 5k walk. It just so happens that the distance between my current abode and the local Kroger is just over 5k (5.18 kilometers to be closer to accurate), so this will work well for me until we move.  Also, not to say that I will ONLY walk, I will be doing some other exercises from Wii-Fit. Before you laugh, this combined with calorie counting is what helped me lose 40+ lbs a few years ago. Then I plateaued and didn't do anything else, eventually I stopped doing all of these things and well, slowly lost the lifestyle that kept me low.  After a little over 2 years, I've gained it all back... so I will continue on.
3. Not just cutting back what I eat, looking closer at what I eat.  Cutting back on starches, sugars and sodium could help quite a bit. Again, the goal isn't just to drop 155-200lbs, it is to also be healthy.  I know some of the chemicals in my food are "safe" per the FDA and what not, however, I have seen how they work on the human body. It is one thing to say that this item will not kill you, and another to say that this wont have any negative impact on your life...
4. Stay Hydrated. It isn't enough to drink water, you have to drink the right amount.  Too little or too much can both be harmful.  There have been signs here at my work for a bit over a month now that talk to how much water you need to drink.  Essentially it is half of your body weight. For example, if you weight 200 lbs (I wish), you would need 100oz of water a day or roughly 5 bottles of water. 
5. Cutting Soda.  Honestly, I will have a very hard time with this. But in the long run, getting rid of the sugars, sodium, and other chemicals there are in soda, will do me good. Again, it is part of looking at what I consume.
6. Plexus Slim.  Before anyone starts screaming about MLM and how its a trap.   I briefly used it before, and it did help me a little.  It was what was left of a sample pack that my wife got, after she stopped taking it when she became pregnant. Not only did it help me, we are fairly certain that her taking it is what allowed us to have our wonderful child who will be born in the next couple of weeks. I'm not trying it as a 'weight loss' tool.  I like the fact that it helps maintain healthy blood pressure, as well as cholesterol and lipid levels. If it helps with weight-loss too, that's cool.  But again, I'm going for total wellness, not just dropping pounds/inches.

If you follow my this blog via the blogger page rather than on my website, you will see that the MyFitnessPal counter has been reset to zero. I'm going to take a picture and measurements...Then I shall begin my journey to a better me. 

Let the games begin. :-)

Until Next Time,

TRP

What's New?

Hello friends! It it been several months since my last update. :-( Not for lack of things to say really.. To be honest some of the things that I wanted to talk about I purposely refused to blog about. You will understand my hesitations later on.

Last time I mentioned life and it seemingly coming in like a flood and keeping me busy. It seems to have not only NOT slowed down, it may have even increased speed.  That is somewhat good and somewhat bad. I shall explain.

If you do not follow me on social media, on July 20th, we announced that we were going to have a child via a YouTube clip.  You can find the announcement video here. I had been hesitant to really blog about it because of our previous loss. I assume that it was mostly fear about letting myself get excited about it then something tragic happen again, taking my joy again. I am weird in that manner, yes, but we are definitely talking about this exciting time now. :-)

On August 18th, we then revealed the gender with an illusion, because we thought it would be a cute exercise in my amateur illusionist talents. That video can be found here.

Then finally, after much thought and consideration we picked a name. A week later on October 3, we share our child's name with everyone via yet another YouTube video. Feel free to watch it before continuing.

So now that you are caught up with our latest news of awesome, let's review some other happenings. 

Work: I did eventually get converted to a 'permanent' employee and got the raise and benefits associated with that.  That's awesome, its busy and its work. I did move out of the dusty dungeon-like location I was originally located in to a nicer, yet more open, cubicle space with a great window view. It is a little further drive, but I like the location a bit more. I'm hoping to catch the next opening at the downtown location, which is a beautiful location and would be a much much shorter drive.  Time will tell.

Writing: Despite not keeping up with my blog, I have been able to focus a little more time on writing. I do hope to finish a rough draft of my first book before my child arrives. I may even start writing some articles too, that way I will have a sort of established base of 'being published' ahead of time.  I am very passionate on many topics and could easily "word-vomit" about any of those topics, however I would want any of my writings to be more than just a heartfelt rant or brain dump. I hope to be inspiring, informative and well written. Time will tell. :-)

Housing: With the soon coming arrival of our child, we have to move. We have looked at our budget, and after weeping a little, we know our price-range and will be looking extensively to be moved in by December. Help us pray about that.

Education: When I first learned about our blessed gift from the Lord, I thought that my plans to further my education were gone. I still do have a passion to further my education so that I can provide for my growing family better (by getting a better job). We will be prayerfully considering how to proceed, especially since every job I've looked at require a BA or BS.

Life is in full swing...but then, isn't it always? ;-)

Until next time,
TRP

Where Have I Been?

To be quite honest, I am a horrible blogger.  Not that I do not try to utilize vocabulary or wit, but it is my inconsistency of steady posts.  As with many other things, consistency is the key.  So pushing forward...Allon-sy!

To be fair though, this time around life came rushing in flooding all around me, keeping me quite busy. However, this  is mostly a good thing. I've got some great updates to share, and I hope to spend some time telling you about what  has transpired in the last few months.

First off, we have a 'new' car! We acquired a white 2007 Honda Accord with roughly twelve-thousand miles on it.  This  was at a ridiculously low price of $5,000. Words cannot express how greatly appreciative I am for this amazing blessing. It did need about $400 worth of repairs and maintenance to have it ready to roll, but that is a small price to pay to have this blessing.

What about the 2004 Chevy, you ask? We still have it, however we are trying to sell it. It will be a tough sell with all that is wrong with it, unless a grease-monkey would like a fixer-uper. I need to actually call a couple people back about that actually. I have three people that have been interested, so, hopefully to sell it soon.

My reading has slowed down again. I think I've only read one book since my last post. Unfortunately, I've also picked up a few more books. Once I adjust to my new schedule (more on that in a bit), I plan on getting back into the reading swing.  As I've said before, no new ones for a while until caught up.  By caught up, I think going through at least one of the three piles of "read soon" books. :-)

Now why do I have a new schedule? That would be because I have a new job. I've moved on from a 'safe' job with a company that I worked with for nearly nine years and pushed into the unknown  [insert super scared face here].  I am very happy to have shaken off the shackles of retail bondage. I've moved to an entry-level corporate IT contract position. The company I work for has me assigned to a fortune 10 company.  I am making about 25% more than I was previously. This job has better hours, better pay and some freedom that I've not had before.

What is really cool about this job, is that it is not the same mundane thing every single day.  Each day comes with new challenges and IT problems I have yet to encounter.  I am free to think about creative resolutions that get things back up and running as quickly as possible.  I have to put a lot of effort into learning more of the network/server resolutions.  It is more than reimaging and swapping parts....Gone are the days of 'grade school IT,' I've moved on up to the 'junior high' level. LOL   Honestly, I thoroughly enjoy it.  There are many perks that I will worry about later, but the big thing right now is that I am home before 5pm on the average day. This frees me up a bit more to spend time with my wife, spend time ministering in ways that I've not had much time for in recent years and more time for studying.

Speaking of studying, with this extra time and extra cash, I've been seriously considering heading back to school.  Yes, I know I've said that before but I think I've actually decided on which school. If all goes well, I would be able to take credits from there as well as from my AAS, and apply those toward a BA at another school for much cheaper than jumping straight to that other school.  It is the middle of a semester now, so I still have some time to work that out.

Then there is the desire to move.  We have both wanted to move for a good while now, but I know she REALLY wants to move soon, I'm going to put some serious thought and prayer into it. It isn't going to happen until I've been at my new job for 90-days (when insurance gets cheaper and a potential raise happens), but it helps to plan ahead.

I had more thoughts, but they have escaped, so I will wrap this one up.

Until Next Time,
TRP

 Running On Spiritual E

"Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands." - 2 Timothy 1:6

Anyone that has ever run out of gas knows how time consuming, not to mention how frustrating it can be. While I can't say I ever remember running out while driving, I've seen many a people walking from or to their vehicle carrying a gas can. I do have to admit, I have coasted up to the fuel pumps a time or two because I tried to put it off, fit more miles in my day than I had gallons in my tank. After all, 'there is always later.'

The same thing can happen in our spiritual lives. We face so many situations and so many battles our days get cluttered and we push to tomorrow things we wanted or even needed to do today. All the while we do not take the time to refuel our tanks, spiritual.

My 'new' car has a little orange light that comes on just before the needle gets to E. The manual states that at this point there is roughly 1.2 gallons in the reserve tank. This is the first warning sign my car gives me. Like-wise, there are warning signs when we are nearing spiritual empty.

Our time 'reading' the Word is replaced with listening to it or sermons, or cut out entirely. Prayer time is reduced to complaining or demanding of God, if we even speak to Him at all. Our giving and attendance is not a priority as we reason to our selves that we don't need it all or things can get by without us. We don't get involved with ministry or project 'x' because we are occasionally involved with 'y,' and that's all we feel we need to do. This is the little orange light of burn out, spiritual empty is on its way.

My car's orange light flashes if the needle reads half way through the thick red line marked E, meaning there is a half-gallon left. Essentially, telling me that I've squeezed all I can out, I'd better refuel or there will be consequences.

Paul said to Timothy to stir up the gift; another translation says to fan into flames the spark. I don't know where your spiritual needle is, whether it is beyond full and you can go for a long while before the needle even moves, or whether that burn out light is flashing and you barely sputtered in today. Let me encourage you with the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 11, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Don't give up! Refuel today!

-TRP