Happy New Year!

Ok, I know that I'm a day late in wishing everyone a happy new year, but I was at the in-laws' house this weekend and we didn't get back until late last night. I suppose I could have slipped off into the other room at their house to use their computer, but that would have been rude.

Anyway, we are back. Mel and I had a pretty busy day with our day off from work. We went to the Coral Ridge Mall to do some shopping. Mel needed to return a gift she had received from a friend to Dillard's but we don't have one in Cedar Rapids. We spent quite a bit of time at the mall. Besides exchanging the gift she had for something else, we bought some calendars on sale and a few clearance Christmas supplies. We stopped at Best Buy. Mel had wanted to buy the fifth season of CSI on DVD, but Best Buy was charging $99.99 for it! She wanted it, but not that badly. Fortunately we were able to find it at Target for about $65. She felt that was a much more reasonable price. Of course, I'll still end up spending about $100 myself to buy the second season of Star Trek. But I am going to wait until I get a coupon for 10% off on DVDs. I also received quite a few Best Buy gift cards for Christmas.

I didn't end up getting many presents that I needed to return. One thing that I do have to return however is the extra copy of Monty Python's Life of Brian that I got this weekend. I got it from both my parents-in-law and from my sister-in-law. Both of them had ordered it from Amazon.com, so returning it is going to be a bit of a pain. I need an order number from one of them, and then I'll end up eating the shipping cost of sending it back. I think I will end up sending everyone a different list next year to avoid duplicate gifts.

Now it wouldn't be a proper new year if I didn't make a resolution or two. One of my resolutions for the new year is to get back into losing some weight, and maintaining the weight loss once it is achieved. From May 2004 until January 2005, I managed to lose 33 pounds. I kept most of it off until the spring when Mel and I moved into my parents' house after selling my house in Waterloo in anticipation of moving to Cedar Rapids. Now my weight is back up to just eleven pounds below where I was before I started watching my weight. My goal is to lose 33 pounds between now and August 21, bringing my weight to under 200 pounds for the first time in quite a while. That will mean that I need to lose just one pound per week. But that's not enough. I then have the goal of maintaining the weight-loss for the remainder of the year.

In order to achieve this goal, I am going to need to get back into exercising regularly. Today Mel and I cleaned up the room in our house that has the Bowflex in it. It still is being used as a shelf for a few things, but by the end of the week, I should be able to use it to exercise. I've been using the fact that it's winter as an excuse not to go walking, but the weather hasn't really been all that bad. I could probably go out and walk some. That is part of the reason that I bought the iPod nano after all.

I should be able to accomplish my goal of weight loss if I commit myself to it. I made it a realistically achievable goal and it is a measurable goal, so I should be able to do it.