Todd's Blog

So one of my friends, Brent Worley has offered up a Fitness Challenge starting January 2nd ...

We're going to follow the eating plan in the The Abs Diet book ... he just got it recently, I've had it for a couple of years now.

And ...

There's also going to be a daily workout .. he does P90X, and/or Insanity .. I don't think I'm quit there yet, so I'll probably just start with the workout from the book.

The biggest thing for me is, Brent's going to start a FB group, or at the very least a thread on his blog, where those who participate can report in on our progress ... this will definitely help ... in that it adds an element of accountability to the goal ... and that's generally the key missing element for many of us, in any goal setting we do.

So ...

If you're thinking about making a "fitness and/or diet" oriented New Year's resolution, you might want to check out Brent's site (Get Fit With Brent) and consider joining us on his chall…

Last I checked December 21st was the first day of winter. Well, it's currently about 84 degrees at Fort Hood, Texas. Not that anybody's complaining ...



We are currently about 23 degrees warmer than it is at my parent's house .. just north of Tampa, Florida.

This has already been a weird winter, and it hasn't even started yet.

That being said, I'm not going to gloat too much ... this being Texas and all. I'm working in the evenings on Christmas Eve, and Christmas day; and I expect by the time I get off work on the 24th, the wind should be blowing, and the temperature should be dropping pretty good. It will most likely be below freezing by morning.

No chance of snow though.

In fact, with this being a La Nina year, it's entirely possible we won't see snow (or much rain for that matter) all winter long. The long term forecast is warmer and drier than normal for the next 3 months. Judging just by today, we seem to be off to a pretty good start on maki…

I'm going to try a little experiment here on this blog ...

As of today, I will not be utilizing the wordpress commenting system. I've disabled new comments on all posts older that 1 day, and on any new posts, there won't even be a comment box down there.

Instead, I'm going to use facebook comments. If you're not logged in to facebook, it will look something like this:



If you are logged in, you can just scroll down the bottom to see what it looks like.

So why am I doing this?

Glad you asked ...

Here's the thing, this is a personal blog. Most of the people who regularly comment on my posts are either already my facebook friends; or at the very least, they're people I wouldn't mind becoming facebook friends with. In addition, since I already share all of my posts on my FB wall, many times that's where people leave comments about my blog posts anyway.

So I figured I might as well make it easy for all of you. ;-)

Now instead of separate "like"…

It's cheap, it's quick, and it's easy to make.

From a guy's perspective, those are pretty much the criteria for a "perfect" meal.

Just sayin' ;-)

Seriously though, I love fried egg sandwiches. I make them in the morning when I don't have PT (not fun to run on a full stomach). I sometimes make them as a nice late night snack. And every once in a while, we even have fried egg sandwiches for dinner ... on those nights, I could probably write a whole separate blog post entitled: "how to feed a family of 7 for about $4".

The version of the sandwich that I've been eating lately, I discovered sort of by accident, when I couldn't find the ham in the fridge on day.

And because I sometimes like to share "recipes" here on the blog ...

INGREDIENTS:

2 Eggs
4 pieces of bread
Butter or Margarine
2 slices of roast beef
shredded mozzarella cheese


STEPS:

Heat up the pan, and spray generously with PAM
Put bread in toaster (preferably 4-slice vari…

Justin works at McDonalds.  Every Sunday he is on an 11am to 7pm shift.  Since I have to drive him anyway, it's become kind of a habit for the girls and I to spend a couple of hours every Sunday at the Micky D's Play Place. (Note: it's a nice indoor one here in Killeen). For Jaiden and Jasmine, this is usually one of the highlights of their week.
It's hardly suprising to me.  McDonalds, especially the Play Land, has pretty much been a Morris family "tradition" for as long as I can remember. 
When Justin, Haley were little, their mom worked at the McDonalds in Opp, Alabama.  I would bring a book, buy a large Diet Coke, and sit at a table with baby Haley, while Justin played .. sometimes for hours.  I suppose playland was sort of "daddy's babysitting helper".
Even at that young age (2-3 yrs) Justin knew exactly where we were.  It got to the point, where even when we were travelling, he could spot the golden arches from about a mile out.  Seriously, …

I've been playing poker for something like 7 or 8 years now. Back when I was first learning, we didn't have cool programs like the poker training network; so I turned to books as a way to increase my knowledge, and improve my game.

Here are three books that I found particularly helpful:




Small Stakes Hold 'em
Winning Big With Expert Play

Amazon.com Widgets

This was one of the first poker books that I ever bought. And as it turned out, it wasn't even about the game I was trying to learn. I was playing no limit Texas Hold 'em, and this was a book about Limit Texas Hold 'em.

None-the-less, I learned some very valuable lessons from this book .. the most important of which was when the "light bulb" went on for me ...

Poker is about MATH

My approach to the game has been entirely different ever since the day I came to that realization.

I would highly recommend this as the first book someone new to poker should consider purchasing. And actually, along those same…

Let me tell you something Todd:

"Chicks Dig Candles"

That's a quote from a conversation that I had with my friend Mike more than 10 years ago, when he was helping his wife with her new candle business, and for some reason felt the need to justify himself to me. I will admit, I was kind of wondering how a guy could credibly market something like candles. At the time, I was still hawking a much more "manly" product ... waterless car wash. But Mike's explanation of why, especially a single guy, might want have some candles around, sort of made sense.

Fast forward a couple of years later ...

I was a divorced guy in my 30s, and I now sold candles. I did a lot of retailing at the time, so I kept a decent sized inventory ... usually at least one of those big bookshelves, filled with a variety of different scents.

Ok, so where am I going with this?

Well, I remember this one evening. I had met a girl, and took her out to dinner. After dinner we decided to stop back…

I was glad to have my hat, gloves and fleece on the way home this morning.



It was definitely in the low 30s here at Fort Hood this morning ... and it felt every bit that cold. Of course, I can't complain too much, as most of the rest of the country is even colder.

Actually, you know what, now that I think about it, it's pretty darn nice to live in Texas in the winter. Even though it's bit chilly this morning, by later this afternoon, the temperature is supposed to climb up to about 68.

That's darn near perfect. :-)

[todd-sig]

At 7 1/2 months, it's time for baby Joey to start taking her meals sitting down, from a spoon.



Apparently, earlier, while taking her afternoon meal; in the manner to which she's been accustomed since she joined us in April; someone almost got dropped on the floor. I didn't catch all the details, but something about "those darn teeth", "ouch", and "that was the last time".

So, as of today, no more "boobie" (or breast feeding for you formal types) for baby Joey.

From now on, she's gonna be a high chair and little plastic spoon kinda girl during the day. And a baby milkshake fan at night.

So far she seems to be taking pretty good to both the spoon and the chair. But to be honest, it's hardly surprising to me. After all, she does have a couple of big sisters who are only too willing to teach her everything they know ;-)



Keep havin FuN!
[todd-sig]

Tonight, I am thankful for my creativity.



That glob of wax you see burning in the picture above used to be one of our Mia Bella 16oz jar candles.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to have another yard sale, and whenever we have a yard sale, we always have a table of candles set up too. We had a good day. Sold some of our "junk", and a few candles. Well, in the afternoon when it was time to clean up, we were hauling stuff inside to put it back in the closet, when 2 year old Jaiden decided that she wanted to "help" ...

Not surprisingly, she promptly dropped a couple of jars right there on the driveway. Fortunately nobody was hurt. However, a couple of the candles did get nice big crack in their jars ... woops, we won't be selling those.

My first impulse was to just throw those jars away. Then I got an idea ...

I took both of the damaged candles over to the trash can, but instead of throwing them away, I used the curb near the trash can to break away the rest …

Day one of my new picture a day project (told ya I wouldn't be able to wait).



This first one is pretty easy ...

I'm thankful for peek-a-boo, and tickle monster, and big smiles from little girls who are happy to see their daddy first thing on a Sunday morning.

I appreciate footie jammies, thick wool socks, and the fact that the heater kicked in before I came home.

As for the good stuff, well I think the fried egg sandwiches and chocolate chips waffles that I'm about to make for breakfast should qualify.

And just for good measure, I'm pretty darn happy to be such a lucky guy that it's not even 9am yet, and I've already found so many things to be grateful for ... without even having to "hunt" very hard at all. :-)

Hope you're all enjoying your weekend !
[todd-sig]

Last year, I made a valiant attempt to participate in Project365. It's a flickr group where you agree to post 1 picture a day for an entire year. I made it all the way until June (which is longer than I expected). It was a lot of fun, especially when I was in Iraq, to bring my camera with me every day and take a picture of something interesting. I kind of petered out on it once I got back home, and didn't have as much time to process images, and write blog posts in the evenings. Even so, all-in-all, it was a very positive experience.

So ...

I'm going to try to do a Picture a Day project again for 2011.

But with a twist ...

My picture a day, will also be my "hunt the good stuff".

Every single day in 2011, I'm going to post a picture of, and maybe write a few lines about, something I appreciate, something I'm thankful for, or maybe even something that's just plain "good".

I'm going to hold myself to very few "rules" ... othe…

It was Justin's 18th birthday today. He's a bit camera shy (like his dad), so there's just the one picture of him.



Fortunately, he's got a couple of much younger sisters who are more than happy to pose for the camera:





Gotta run ... more pictures coming soon

[todd-sig]