In my efforts to lose weight and get my health back, I opted for an impromptu hike nearby last weekend. We’ve tried to hike at Black Rock twice before but our timing wasn’t the best (frigid winds in the winter). I came armed with my map found at the CT DEP‘s site. We headed up the blue trail on the western side of the park.

As usual with CT, it starts off gradual for about 50 feet and then up! This is a deceiving “short” hike. The funniest part was on the way back down we passed several people in their 20-30′s who said, “good grief I feel old”. I’m guessing too many of us sit behind our desks and computers too much. Then there was one guy who was pretty lean and limber and was doing the loop, up and over the mountain and back down, he passed us 3 times. Pretty damn impressive.

I’ve kept up with eating vegan and exercising minimally 3 times a week. My total weight loss is 12 lbs so far. My short term goal is another 8 lbs. The next goal is 45 lbs from that point. The final goal is another 25 from there. I’m sure there will be plateaus and I’m preparing already to mix things up.

I’m a bit behind in seeing this, but what awesome work from the Providence St. Vincent Hospital in Portland, Oregon. I’d love to read more on how this came together and how many people actually participated. I could definitely see Danbury Hospital doing something like this. I wonder if they’ve seen it.

Craig and I were having a good discussion tonight about his take away from reading the book The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka. One thing he mentioned was the concept of your life being like a movie, and then having that feeling of why am I in this movie? If you’re answering with “I don’t know”, then it’s pretty clear something needs to change.

Several years ago, that question went through my head quite often. I had considered what life would be like without me in it and just wanted a break. It seemed like the weight on my shoulders was too much to bear. I’m grateful to say things turned around and particularly this year I re-inspired myself to not lose another 10 years to doing for everything and everyone else. Because at the end of the day if I’m not happy with my life and who I am, what else do I have.

In that spirit. I happened to love the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. I always found it funny and cathartic. It’s a great metaphor for what many of us do, sometimes without even realizing it. We make decisions that are not ones towards a life we’d love but rather slow chips away at ending the one we’re in. But amazingly like the movie, changing your perspective, removing culprits from your life that bring you down, can make huge steps towards being in a life you actually like and want to wake up to and be alive for. You always have tomorrow as an opportunity to change the path.

Find that road not taken.

There are some great tips to avoid creative blocks over at Inspired Mag‘s website. The one I have the hardest problem with is #5 self-doubt. Which lead me to remember Leah’s post about Self-Employment: The First Six Months. She mentioned previously feeling guilty when a potential client would say they couldn’t afford her services. I’ve had that feeling many times, and foolishly buckled to bringing down my rate to something where it was no longer respecting my time and services. She summed it up best, “…let go of the guilt that I can’t help everyone.”

The other tip in the article that I need to follow more is #3 Take a Walk and #6 Get Away for a Day or Two. Staying home and just not going out is not the same. My home is my office, and it’s filled with personal projects that also peek at me from behind their boxes and I feel like I should at least be doing those. I remind myself to just go look at my OmniFocus “Due” perspective and only worry about what is there.

Walks are so underrated, I had forgotten how cathartic they can be. We took a peaceful, albeit very cold walk yesterday along the river. It reminded me how much I like what I do, along with memories of our days driving up Route 7 and planning out our future. It gave me hope. I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but somedays it’s what I need to be reminded life is about. The dreams and reaching for them.

Thank you to my dreamer, who constantly reminds me to never give up.

Love this! Found at Living Vicariously.

“If they can afford to pay for the high payout bonuses, they can afford to back the American people.”

Ever since I read an article back in the mid-90′s about the CEO of Aetna I believe, living down in Fairfield County, getting a 7 million dollar bonus, I thought, ok there’s something seriously wrong here. How can someone heading up a company who’s supposed to be helping people, but denying many basic coverage, be walking home with that much money. Really you need a 6,000 sq ft house? Since when, did people need 6,000 sq ft houses and multiple cars. Is it nice to have? sure. But how do you sleep at night? What have you done to improve humanity?

In the same thread of thought, banks and their upper management, just for a year be better humans. I’ve gone for over a year with a partial paycheck. They can’t go for a year without a bonus?

This picture and those vines feel like a metaphor for my life currently, well the past 9 years or so. We (Craig and I) had such clear dreams and plans for our lives back in 1998-1999. Then starting in 1999 it got chipped away at slowly and sometimes fast, over the next 10 years. Craig literally dealt with having his spine twisted at one point. Our efforts to keep the plan going seemed to get more and more complicated and frustrating. Here we are 10 years later and feeling like we’ve almost broken free from the vines and twists that tried to take over.

People reflected on the last 10 years with sadness of the financial crisis, housing crisis, political crisis. I looked back and said, “holy shit I survived it”. I really didn’t think I’d live to see 30. Between all the stresses over the past 10 years and then just my own health which I had put on a back burner it seemed inevitable this was going to be coming to an end. I don’t mean to sound doom and gloom, just felt like, really what else could be thrown at me.

It was probably earlier this past year I saw someone post their daily photo with DailyBooth. I didn’t think much of it, but I’ve seen more people posting lately and then today Gary Vaynerchuk’s job posting even mentioned it as a possible requirement. Since my thing is photography, I figured I’d give it a shot. Might also be a good reminder for myself to see the progress of losing weight this year.

Friend me up if you’re on there.

I’m so glad someone made this movie pulling in “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Craig and I started watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” annually about 4 years ago. For some reason neither of us had really been attracted to it when we were younger. Now having lived through the DotCom crash, 9/11, job losses, credit card debts and watched friends and family go through financial hardships, we could really identify with George Bailey. It’s saddening when you realize how many years ago that movie was made, and how much it holds true still today. If not even more so.

I’m happy to say when I went to the website to see about lenders in our area who were community banks, we are already with one. We’ve had our accounts with them since the 90′s. Ironically both the banks we used to work for got swallowed up by Bank of America and Webster.

Visit http://moveyourmoney.info for more information.

Thanks to @kellysims for the link.