Lisa and Michael

We painted Shelby’s room this weekend and while moving furniture around, ran across this picture of Puppy when he was, well, a puppy, along with his brothers and sisters, from nearly 13 years ago. Puppy is the cute one in the middle. And like me, he’s also Canadian. How cool is that?

A few weeks ago, Lisa and Robin took off for a couple of days to Pagosa Springs, CO. That left me all alone and in need of a little adventure.

How about a nice day trip to the San Mateo mountains south of Magdalena, NM? Unfortunately, Forest Road 330 at 8000′ is not suitable in a downpour with a two-wheel drive vehicle. So I relucantly turned around and checked out Ladron Peak instead, and to see if the Rio Salado was crossable.

A fun but tiring day.

New Mexico state highway 107

Ok, maybe we’ve done too much relaxing.

By the time we left for our wedding, I had dropped about 29 pounds in the previous five months, courtesy of the physics diet – less calories in, more calories out – so damn simple. Lisa didn’t need to lose anything, but did maintain her weight to stay in the size 2 dress we bought in December. We were both quite happy with the results all around.

Fast forward about two months since we left for the Bahamas, and I’ve given back about 7 pounds. Lisa, just a few, maybe. That’s actually not bad considering how bad we’ve eaten (steaks, beer, Golden Pride, etc.) and how lazy we’ve been. Even Junior is getting his gut back.

So, it’s back to our diets. My motivation is simply that I don’t want to be a fat tub of goo again. Plus, I’d like to live for a long time, get lower insurance premiums, and just feel good. Dieting is actually a no brainer. Get a lot of exercise while at the same time quit eating crap. No pills, juices, books, or surgery is required. Only motivation and will-power.

Eating right is also a hell of a lot cheaper, which contributes to the budget diet we’ve also been on for a while. We have been getting rid of old books through Amazon, selling tons of stuff via Craigslist, riding the bus, clipping piles of coupons, and using the library, just to name a few.

I haven’t sat down to calculate our savings yet, but I do know that riding the bus alone saves us over $200 per month in fuel, parking, insurance, and wear-and-tear. Plus, we regularly get 30-50% savings at the grocery store using coupons. Nice!

Now that’s relaxing.

I like the look of that.