Today I hit 310.6; tomorrow I will see 310 at the rate I have been going.  I am assured that the amount should start increasing as I add more and more exercises and stretches, nothing to tax myself into pain at first but enough to get my body forming itself into what it needs to be.  I didn't blog yesterday as I had a troubled heart and mind and the words would do no one any good to see them, not even me.

"I want what I can’t have, and ignore that I do have.  I will lose that I have for the desire of something I cannot have.  I am a fool."  That runs through my mind over and over.  I am that little dog in one of Aesop's Fables, whose desires get the best of him.  The story has many versions and this is how I tell it.

One day a small dog was rewarded with a lovely bone by his master.  That little dog took it to his favorite chewing spot on the top of a hill.  He had to cross a river to get to that favorite spot.  As he crossed that river he looked down into the calm blue waters and saw another dog with a lovely bone.  Oh how he desired that bone, it was lovely.  It sparkled from the waters at him, calling to him, enticing him, he thought.  He must possess that bone forgetting he had a lovely bone of his own.  He barked loud and the other dog dropped its bone and his own bone disappeared into the calm blue waters of that river.  The dog realized in his own haste for a mere reflection he lost his own prize.  He did cry.  He cried aloud, "Woe is me.  I am fool to chase after phantoms and lose my own prize.  I am without now and have nothing."

I too bark at phantoms and will surely lose my own rewards.  I am a fool.  I was a foolish young man and I have grown into an old fool.  I must learn to be happy what God has blessed me with and let those things I can never have go.  This is hard, harder than losing the weight.

Christmas of  '13