Where Am I Now?

A few things have transpired since last I took time to compose a post. Some significant, others very much not so, but here is a bit of a recap.

My grandmother passed about a week before Thanksgiving. It was mercifully quick and relatively painless. I had the fortune of spending some hours with her twice very near the end and am eternally grateful to my boss for allowing me the time to do so. She was a wonderful woman and will certainly be missed by all who knew her. I chose not to eulogize at her funeral. It was a decision that I thought long and hard about as I certainly have many wonderful things to say about her and I had spoken at my grandfather's funeral just a few short years before. However, it occurred to me that the primary reason that I spoke at his funeral was for her sake. Not only to verbalize some of the things that I didn't get to say to him before he passed, but to let her know that those things were in my heart and to hopefully let that be some comfort to her in his passing, which was more unexpected than the warning time we had with her. At her funeral, I chose to simply relish quietly in my memories of her while others spoke. She is the first person to pass that I have spoken to who knew the end was near and was ready for it. She had her mental faculties in check throughout, and for that I am thankful. I cannot say that it was good to see her go, but I can say that I was more comfortable with her passing than I have been with any others and hope that I can grant a similar level of comfort to my loved ones when it comes time for me to go. I could certainly type for pages more, but as I chose to go silently through her funeral with my memories, I will choose to cease posting about this event accordingly. Farewell, Mamaw. May I find it in my soul to even remotely reflect your love and compassion in my own life.

And switching gears to an entirely unrelated note, I began NutriSystem today (see weight loss graphic to the right if I can ever get that thing working) in an effort to get myself in shape. Yes, I realize that I did Weight Watchers a year or so ago to the same tune, but that actually worked out pretty well. I just failed to stick to the program after I reached my goal. The one benefit of NutriSystem is that it's pretty much prepared food delivered by mail to your door, unlike Weight Watchers where I had to find the right foods. It runs about $11/day, but blowing an average of $7-$9 on lunches at work, considering that it includes breakfast and dinner along with snacks, that's not so bad. You have to supplement with fresh veggies/fruit/dairy, but it still will come in under the $13/day limit, I'm thinking. I'm kicking off the effort weighing in at a record (for me) 203.5 pounds. My goal is to get back down to 180 pounds, around which I have spent most of my adult life. No clue how long that will take, but I'm banking on 2-3 months if I can stick to the program. One thing I can already attest to, drinking a gallon of water/day adds quite a few restroom trips to the regular routine. So, keep an eye on that chart and hopefully you'll see it keep sliding in the right direction.

On another note, we have Christmas decorations around the house. Pretty exciting that we actually have a yard and such to decorate. Killian is very excited about seeing the decorations when we are out driving around the neighborhoods and continually points them out to me. He was all geared up about putting up the tree and decorating it with mommy. It's fun because this will also be the first time he's actually excited about and involved in the whole Christmas package. Potty training continues with a mix of successes and failures, but hopefully we will be able to say goodbye to diapers, other than the overnights I'm sure, soon. I can't wait. I am soooooo tired of buying (and changing) those things. His speech is so much better and continues to improve every day. I'm sad about losing some of the cute mispronunciations as he improves, but it's all for the greater good. :)

I signed up for LinkedIn the other day. I'm not sure of its longevity, but it's a unique social networking site for business folk. If used appropriately and if it doesn't fall victim to becoming a MySpace fiasco of an environment, it's a pretty spectacular concept in my opinion. I was surprised by how many of my colleagues were already signed up when I joined. I was really behind the ball on this one.

My fun time occupations of late in the gaming world have been: Deadlands RPG with a couple of friends, for Xbox 360: Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect, Skate and - sort of embarrassingly - Puzzle Quest, and, of course, my weekly boardgaming at the store which covers lots of different games (see the All Fun & Games blog for more info on what I've been playing there).

One positive thing that came out of my grandmother's passing was my longest visit to Newport News since my move to Raleigh. We were there for a full week and I got to spend time with many members of my family. I even got to check out an AHL Norfolk Admirals game while I was there - hadn't been to an Admirals game in probably 15 years or more - and as a bonus, they *destroyed* the visiting Philly team in a huge upset victory. In any case, it was nice to have my immediate family with me visiting extended family for an extended period of time.