Weigh In 47, 48, and 49...

The passage of time never ceases to amaze, and sometimes surprise, me.

In what seems like the blink of an eye, it has been 3 weeks since I posted on here. I feel like I was writing the post for Week #46 just yesterday.

On the other hand, 3 weeks ago seems like such a long time with respect to work. After pulling a very long week (near 100 hours including the weekend) and delivering several new things/features, it seems like it was ages ago that it all happened.

Throw in extended travel up and down the East Coast for 8 days and I'm all out of sorts when it comes to keeping track of time.

Whew! But what does that actually mean in the end? Well, for me it means that I can easily get "too busy" to keep track of everything in my life. Now, many of those things that I can't keep track of in the busy times are not important or critical and it's OK to let them drop or slide.

But what I notice about myself is that I get into a rationalization pattern where I can excuse just about anything (that I do or don't get done) based on how busy I am. Because, in the justification center of my brain, Busy = Important.

To be honest, that is not always, or even often, true. Going back to the discussion on "abiding" (See John 15:1 - 17), many times the most important things to do are the ones that aren't considered "urgent" by everyone else. I've learned (the hard way) over several years that people, in general, will typically take everything you have to give and then come back to get more. So if you are prioritizing your life and activities on what other people want, you will always be too busy for other important things.

I'm not sure who the wise person was that originally said it, but I like the quote: "Saying Yes to one thing is saying No to something else." If you say Yes to everything that comes your way with no regard to what is actually important, you will have no margin to say Yes to things that come to you later. Your dance card will be filled up by the time the main show starts. And you'll be left wondering why you can't get/have/do this other stuff.

Trust me and don't ask me how I know....

On to the part that I'm finding most people skip to anyway... :-)

I actually weighed in the morning of Aug 13 (Week #47) and the number was

231.0

Because of travel, I wasn't home to use my "official" scale for Week #48, so no number there. I will say that I kinda fell off the wagon between the Week #47 weigh in and this week so my guess is that the number would not have been one I liked for the missed week....

But, getting back on track this week, I weighed in this morning. I was very nervous to look down and see the number on the scale's display:

231.0

I felt a mix of relief and disappointment. Relief because I didn't gain weight after my "week off". Disappointment because that means, in the end, I lost 1lb in 3 weeks. That's going to be hard to overcome as I try to knock of 21 more pounds by the end of the year. Which, by the way is only 4 months from now leaving me with at least 5lbs a month. Not impossible but not easy either.

I plan to be back on track with info on fund raising, Love146.org, and #FreedomFriday next week.

See you then...

Photo credit to beggs.