First things first! This weekend is the first weekend where I finished the weekend at under 190 lbs. Woo-hoo! I am losing at a rate of a little under five pounds per month. Some tell me that losing weight at that rate is optimal because when you lose rate a lot faster than that, it is harder to keep off. All right. I can buy into that. Still, it tells me a couple of other things. The bad news first. After looking at my weight chart, I can see that I make good progress during the week, then blow it on the weekend. That tells me that I am not nearly so disciplined as I would like to think. The good news is that, because of Bryan, Lyle, and the chart, I have stuck to this thing better than in the past. The upshot is that tenacity, returning to good eating habits after having blown it, and low intensity exercise (I am currently walking four miles per day) works better for me over the long haul than any kind of fad dieting or intense exercise plan. I do plan to return to weight lifting as soon as time permits, but that is because I like it and it is good for long-term health, not because it will help me lose weight.
When I posted my old blog post from April 16, 2004, it got me to thinking about doing a homeschool family business again. The purpose of the homeschool business is to teach the kids responsibility, to earn some money for college, and to teach the kids about how to keep books and run a small business. Raymond Moore and Dorothy Moore highly recommend starting such a business in their stellar book The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook, subtitled “A Creative and Stress-free Approach to Homeschooling”. We have talked about this a lot over the years, but have never really done much about it because we have been so focused on academics. Lorena is fundamentally more entrepreneurial than I and would be great at doing this if I helped with the bookkeeping and some of the logistics. Lorena just loves to make and sell things and she is a very hard and dedicated worker. The old blog post is a timely reminder that I need to refocus on this part of our homeschool education. I think Audrey and her family are particularly good at this, so we might consult them if we come up with a good idea. I will post our thoughts and efforts on this as we move through this school year.
April 16, 2004 – Homeschool business?
April 22, 2004 – Trip to South Carolina