Ever have this sinking feeling that says, "Don't take this for granted?"

I've been promising myself that I'd write some kind of two-month summary on the workouts. Admittedly, the weight loss is sliding in right before the deadline, but changes really do happen in sixty days. My blood pressure and resting heart rate have dropped (the latter, significantly). I've dropped two full dress sizes. My hair and nails have begun growing with a vengeance that I have not seen in many, many years.

Conversation today:

Me: "Hey, it's, like, a moral imperative that I get new shorts to work out in."

Misty: "Did your pants fall off at the gym today?"

Me: "Almost! I looked down and there was this nice big stretch of purple and I thought, 'Oh, that's REALLY not supposed to be there.'"

(Black shirt, denim shorts, nothing purple in the outerwear list, you get the idea.)

I love to cook, but I love my laziness more. Most of the time, this intersection of personal interests yields little of interest, but every now and then, I have a eureka! moment that's worth sharing.

In the past couple of years I've come to appreciate the goodness of an off-the-cuff pan sauce. A bit of stock, a bit of wine, some aromatics, and then a bit of thickening agent (either some kind of fat, or arrowroot starch dissolved in water) for a good mouthfeel. Reduce, plate, eat.

I take a great deal of satisfaction in saying that I think Jeff and I have finally found the trainer that we need to be working with. Only after I communicated this fact to a few friends did I realize how worried they were for me as I struggled to make it through the workouts of trainer #2, Becky. They were afraid that I would assume that my bad experience with Becky was my fault, not hers, and quit two months in.

In the world of the gym, there are rules. Rules, I say!

…and I thought about how sometimes I go to such pains in my writing. If I have made any promise at all to myself, it is that I will not live an unexamined life; I will not stumble blindly from event to event, from year to year. Even then, with that promise in hand, I find myself more often than not standing toe-to-toe with truths I don't always like—and more often than not, I'm the one to back down. It's easier to choose humor over honesty.