Exercise is no friend of mine.

Frankly, I hate to exercise. I can not understand why some people get a “high” from exercising. Perhaps, personally, I just haven’t achieved that particular level of exercising.

When growing up, due to my vision, I was not allowed to play any contact sports. This caused me to focus more on music by participating in concert band, chorus, and marching band during my formative years. I was fairly active by playing outdoors with my best friend and/or my siblings. In college, I became less active (and ate less healthy meals) in my day to day routines. Needless to say, I started packing on the weight.

Since college graduation, I’ve tried several diet fads … such as Atkins. I would have some short term success. However, the long term success always eluded me. Part of that reason: Although I would make extreme decisions of what I ate, I would not balance it out with exercise. Why? I don’t like to exercise.

After going on a familiarity trip to Israel, I decided it was about time to get serious about my weight problem. I didn’t like what I was limited in doing or how I looked in those pictures.



Following a friend’s recommendation, it was at that point that I joined Weight Watchers in the fall of 2005. My starting weight? 236.6 lbs. Explains the picture? Thought so. My goal? 140 lbs. Now for those of you who are not familiar with WW, it is a healthy but slow way to lose weight. It teaches you the basics that you need to know on how to lead a healthy life. When I found out I was pregnant in August 2007, I was less than 20 lbs away from my goal.



That two year weight loss journey was filled with lots of ups and downs. Yet through all of that, I still did not walk away with a love of exercise…. Hell, I didn’t even walk away with a comfortable feeling with exercise.

As you can imagine, I gained some of my weight back while I was pregnant. This past July, I decided to re-activate my membership with Weight Watchers. I started off pretty rocky but been pretty good with my weight loss since the New Years. I am now within 30 lbs of my original goal (give or take a pound or two). I know in my mind that I need to incorporate more activity into my life but how do I let get my heart to follow suit? Please tell me if you know the sure way of doing this.

Today, I went for a walk with two of my co-workers during lunch. It wasn’t a long walk but it was nice to get out there with the sunshine and mild temperatures. I can’t say that this will be a regular thing. I don’t dare put such a goal on it for it would surely fail (like New Year resolutions – which I also gave up making). In the meantime, I am going to have to take small steps incorporating exercise into my life. (No pun intended.) I don’t want this long journey to end once I achieve my goal.

Going completely online….

I just made a decision this morning on how I am going to keep up with my personal finances. I think I am going to switch everything so that I can pay my bills online. (Not automatic withdrawal mind you… let’s not go crazy).

Screw me once… shame on you… Screw me twice… shame on me.

What happened that prompted this decision you ask?

I’ve had now three bill payments (two different mailings) lost on me. I generally pay bills on Monday evenings. I will go through to see what is due the following week and make sure that the payment gets taken care of. For example, last night I took care of bills that are due the week of the 23rd. This process has served me well for a very long time. Last December, I had mailed out a group of bills like normal. As the next round of bills came in, I noticed that two checks of the several payments made did not clear. The companies never received their payments. So, they promptly charged me a late fee, etc. I was a bit annoyed but I could understand that mistakes can happen. I called these two companies and explained what happened. They were nice and waived the late fee charge because I am in good standing and had a history of making payments on time. So, nothing was lost except time on the phone.

Well, it happened again. I mailed out a bunch of payments on February 24th. I came home after work and found one of my payments on the far side of the driveway in a snow bank. I picked it up and looked around my yard as well as my neighbors to make sure there no other miscellaneous outgoing mail hiding. I couldn't figure out how that happened since the mailman pulls right up to my mailbox with this car. I put it back into the mailbox, and went on my way. I received my next round of bills and realized that another payment has not reached its’ destination. It was not even the one that I found on the ground a couple of weeks ago! That one made it and cleared my account as well as the several other ones that I mailed that day. Luckily, it was also not one of the two companies that I had talked to before. I called this particular bill company and explained what happened. I also noticed because of this my interest rate went up an additional 9%. That’s right… 9%. The customer service rep said that they will issue the credit for the late fee and I should see it on the next billing statement. However, I still need to pay the minimum due (which is the missing payment, plus the current payment, plus the late fee, and finance charges) to get my account into good standing. That’s extra money that I simply do not have. Plus, I can’t request for the interest rate to go back down until the payment is received and the account goes back into good standing (despite my long good history that I have with this company).

Needless to say, I am not at least bit happy about this. I did the right thing in paying my bills on time. However, the postal service is proving to be less and less dependable. I can’t afford something like this happening again. Not during these times, where every single penny that I make is going towards bills. I am trying my very best to get our family out of debt. On top of this, they are raising the rates on the stamps once again. Of course, they are… their business is slowing down. They are proving to be less dependable than the online services that are out there.

Well, I’m afraid they have lost one more regular customer. I’ll be switching to online payments for all companies that offer that service.

Best laid plans of ...

Normally, we let the Little One sleep to whenever she felt like waking up on the weekends. However, with the parade, I thought it worked out better with feedings/naps/etc. if we stick to her weekday daycare schedule. So I was up bright and early Saturday morning with the Little One. Besides of having to wake up to an alarm clock (which I absolutely hate doing on the weekends), we had a pretty good morning together. Everything seemed to click into place as the day progressed. The Hubby and I were able to take showers and get ready for the parade while she was down for a nap. A friend of ours joined up with us to go to the parade.



Everything perfect, right? Wouldn’t you know it? The Little One passed out within 20 minutes of the parade starting. Out cold despite the toy horns, bagpipes, sirens of the fire trucks, and general crowd noise.



Frankly, I was quite amazed at her ability to sleep through all of that noise. It turns out that she wasn't the only one. The family who was watching the parade next to us was also guarding their stroller as their 1 year old was sleeping.

Amazing...