New Book and a quiet Sunday and today a day off.

Since it's Veterans Day today, let me start this post off by thanking and blessing all those who have served.  Thank you all for your, and your families sacrifices to serve our great Nation as a member of the armed services.  Our Nation owes you a debt that we cannot repay and all that any of us can do is say thank you and God Bless.

Well yesterday we attended worship service at Benson Baptist Church.  It's great to hit the 8:30 am service and be out the door by 9:30 or so and have a full day to enjoy on a Sunday.  Pastor Paul told about his recent trip to Bolivia and about the people and churches that they visited there.  It was a very interesting and humbling presentation, as the folks in the third world do as Paul said "So much with so little" and as he went on we "Do so little with so much".  Paul and the other ABC Pastors that went with him had a great experience and it will be interesting to hear as he continues to share those experiences in his weekly sermons.

The rest of the day I spent cleaning and arranging things in the barn and garage.  This was a project that I sorely needed to do and just haven't had the opportunity for many months now.  The weather was beautiful and we had no other obligations (for once) so I was able to haul out and discard somethings and rearrange and store some others.

I have some larger paintings that I want to do and so I needed to get things set up again to do some work in the garage as there just isn't room anywhere else to work on them.  Now that the space is ready hopefully I'll be able to get these projects underway this week sometime.

Today both Gail and I have taken as a vacation day.  We really don't have any set plans other than spending a quiet day together, we'll just do as we like to do on days off and play it by ear.  The only thing I have on my agenda today is hitting the gym this evening, and maybe stopping by and seeing my friend Brandon Stewart at New Dawn Nutrition.  Brandon was out in California this weekend competing in the Natural Mr. Olympia Physique Competition.  This is an International competition and Brandon was able to bring home the big win to little ole Omaha.  He's an amazing athlete having also played professional football (as a kicker) before going into Bodybuilding and then into Physique.

It was a big weekend for competitions with my niece Makayla Ring competing in a Women's Physique Competition in Oklahoma where she took home third place in her class.  Makayla took quite a bit of time off from the gym since her last competition and this was the beginning of her 'comeback'.  She looked good but still needs to make some gains as she has moved up from Figure to Physique and that means she has to sport more muscle.  I'm looking forward to seeing her progress and hopefully this time she has her head screwed down tighter and won't need to back off and sort things out again.  One has to put real life first though and kudos to her for understanding that and doing what needed to be done.

My own training is going along well.  I have relaxed my diet for the last few months and along with training with extremely heavy (for me) weights I am now I believe, the strongest I have ever been in my life.  I am however within 10 lbs of also being at the heaviest body weight I have ever been as well.  Now in the eyes of the general public, I'm a long ways from being 'overweight' but in this subculture in which I live part of my life, I'm too heavy.  I don't like weighing this much so I'm tightening the diet up a bit through the end of the year and at that time I'll go on a full blown 'cut'.  It will be hard on my ego to have my lifts going down but ultimately in this hobby of mine you're always seesawing back and forth between the opposing goals of looking your best or being your strongest.  Especially at my age it's nearly impossible to do both at the same time.  

This week I pulled a book off my shelf entitled "Saving Jesus from The Church, How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus" by Robin R. Meyers.  It cannot be an accident that I pulled this book off the shelf to read as we are coming up on the second anniversary of the passing of my Mentor Jesse.  This was one of Jesse's books and this author truly shares a great many of Jesse's personal beliefs.  Much of what I am reading are things that Jesse and I discussed during our times together.  In fact as I am reading it I cannot help but hear the words in my head in Jesse's own voice.

Depending on what Gail and I decide to do today, I may well finish this book and be able to move onto another this week.  After reading this book I'm anxious to get to a couple others that I have not yet read but I know that Jesse thought highly of.

May this day and week find you all well and ready to serve our all loving and gracious God.

In His Absolute and Undying Love & Grace!
Roy