Sometimes death just plain sucks

A great human being died this past Monday. My friend, Mark, who had been battling leukemia for several years finally lost the fight. He was a strong and mighty man, full of vigor, and the disease had to do its best to claim him. He fought on when most would've thrown in the towel. He was a man with a heart of gold and who spread kindness wherever he went. He had a twinkle in his eye whenever I saw him.
I got to know Mark years ago through church service. There I found out that Mark wasn't just a good man, but a great one. I loved him like a brother. The world will miss this guy, and so will I.

My personal fitness challenge

Remember a few weeks ago when I started my personal fitness challenge of being down to 185 pounds by July 1st? You probably also remember all the setbacks I've had during that time. Still, I think I started at 192 and I'm now down to 188. That's a loss of four pounds in two months...not great, but considering all the illnesses for both Ann and I, it's definitely progress. Now, I'll be shooting for mid-August to lose the rest. Wish me luck!

Life is still awesome!

With sputters and starts, this week has gone amazingly better. First of all, it has been great that Ann is home. That is the most important thing.
I also was able to get back to exercising, though with a hitch on the first day back. About 15 minutes into my run, I pulled a muscle in my calf. That was on Tuesday. That night, I started filling the remaining two of my raised beds. I worked for an hour, then a friend showed up and we got all except 1/2 of them full before he had to go home. I needed to quit anyway, as I was beat. I took Wednesday off from exercising to finish filling my raised beds with soil and had that done at about 9 p.m.
Thursday was my day off and it was supposed to begin raining in the afternoon. My goal was to go and buy my plants and get them in before the rain began. I got that done.
I ran again on Friday, with just a twinge of pain in my leg. Saturday, I tried it again and sort of re-injured my leg. I'm thinking I'd better stick to every other day for a while, until I'm sure it's healed.
Either that, or hobble for the next few weeks. At any rate, the last couple of weeks have been an understandable setback from my July 1st deadline of getting down to 185 or lower. I'm still going to try and do it though. Last night I weighed in at just shy of 191, so I've got about six weeks or so to lose six pounds. I think that's possible.
And, it has been a better week. The Lord has blessed us with the rain (we have not had to water our lawn yet this year), and especially with Ann being able to get well enough to come home.