Jere Van Patten

With the start of not only a new year, but a new decade I thought it was time to start blogging.  Seems to me that everyone else in the free world has a blog so why shouldn't I right?  I'm going to give this a try and see how it goes - if itsucks, or I just don't have the time for it, then no harm no foul.  If it's successful then hooray beer!  So, here goes. . .

We just got new bikes and it's been my goal to ride it every day.  That being said, I'm in quite a bit of pain in my naughty-bits area as I've not been on a bike since I was around 14 or so, which by the way was 19 years ago!  So, I've got to "break in" my grundle and embrace the pain and just keep going.  I took a day off to give myself a break, but that wasn't such a good idea because it seemed to hurt a thousand times more the next day.  UGH!  Here's for hoping that the insanity stops sooner as opposed to later.

As you read in our New Year letter on the home page I've lost 150 pounds - thank you gastric bypass.  I had my surgery nine months ago and I've seemed to hit that ever famous wall where my weight loss has stoped and now it's up to me to do the rest.  This is the part that they try to prepare you for prior to your surgery.  This is that point where, "this isn't a quick fix, it's a stepping stone" and now the responsibility is all mine.  I feel a bit scared and a bit excited at these new crossroads.  For the past month or so I've been bouncing back and forth between 257 and 263 so I know that I've hit that preverbial wall and now the hard part comes - hence, the bike.  My sister-in-law Dixie is a personal trainer and runs her own site (visit by clicking here) and sent me an article she found about a 500+ pound guy who lost a bucket of weight all through riding his bike.  Well, of course there was diet change as well as a lot of other outside factors put into things, but his exercise came in the form of bike riding.  I've wanted a bike since I started ASU this past August, so I'm excited about my possibilitites.  I'll keep you posted on things.

School starts up again for me one week from today.  I just found out I've been dropped from one of my classes due to a "D" which will hold me back from moving forward with things as planned.  It's completely personal and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it at this point but suffer through the course again with the same woman who's been making my life hell.  BUT, the silver lining is that once I'm out of the course I won't have to see her again as that is the only course she teaches.  So, now I'm off to find some creative scheduling for the spring in hopes that I won't be adding another whole semester to my time at ASU.  There are two courses I'm very excited to be a part of and those are Elements of Design and Playwrighting.  Hopefully I'll find that I'm met to be a writer and make millions sitting at home on the couch.  =)  HA!