We will once again be garnishing one little girls wages

Some of you my recall this story: http://kecoproductions.blogspot.com/2008/09/we-will-be-garnishing-one-little-girls.html.
Well here is kind of a sequel.
So the other day, Connie needs to go somewhere in the van and she goes to look for her keys and can't find them anywhere.  We'd lost our spare key some time ago, so those keys were the only ones we had for the van.  For days we searched and prayed to be able to find those keys.  Gracie would pray especially hard every night that we could find the missing keys.  It was so cute.   Finally we resigned ourselves to getting new keys.  We called the dealer and they wanted some ridiculous amount of money for a new key.  Something like $50 to tow the van to the dealership and $160 for a new key (the keys are expensive because they have some kind of chip thing in them that the car recognizes).  Well we thought this was way too expensive.  So we decided to try a local locksmith who would come to our house and get us a new key for $150.  This key worked out fine and we thought all was well.

So 4-5 days after this, Gracie came upstairs from the basement all excited.  She had found the old keys.  For some reason they were under the slide in our basement.  We figured Jonah must have somehow gotten a hold of them and dropped them there or something like that.  We were a little pertubed, but figured oh well, these things happen.

But then the story continues.  Connie tries to use the old key and the van won't start.  Then she tries to use the new key, and the car won't start.  And we are thinking we are just having bad luck with cars.  So we call our mechanic and have him tow the van to his shop, because we think the electrical system is shorted out or something.  He spends a lot of time try to track it down until finally he figures out the car won't start because somehow when we got the new key the van was reprogrammed to recognize the chip in it, but then when we started using the old key the computer got all confused and ended up not working for either key.  So then we had to ended up having to take the van to the Honda dealer to get the computer reset and get some more new keys and our grand total cost for losing the keys  ends up being $400 (including the $150 from the first new key).  So we grit our teeth and say, GRRR, I guess these things just happen.

But that is not the end of the story.

A day or two later, Gracie confesses to Connie why she was so excited to find the keys, "Mommy, I really wanted to find those keys because the other day when Montie (her cousin) was here, you said he had to go home and I didn't want him to go, so I hid your keys so you couldn't leave.  But then I couldn't remember were I put them".

The funny thing is, I just can't get that mad at her.  She knew she did something wrong and she did her best to fix the situation.  And she was so happy that she was able to right her wrong that it seems like it would send her the wrong message to give her a harsh punishment when she had already done all she could do to fix it.  So I guess in the end, instead of thinking of it as $400 wasted, we can think of it as $400 invested in learning about repentance and making things right.  And we got a fun story out of it too.

Trying to lose my clydesdale status

I have never had some one come up to me and say, "You are big fatty!" or even gently said, "You know, you would probably feel better if you lost a few pounds".  In fact, most of my life, if I had said to someone that I was overweight, they probably would have accused me of having some sort of eating disorder or weight loss fetish.  Even now when I tell people I am over 200 lbs some of them look at me and are like "what?!? no way".  But it is true, I currently weigh about 207 lbs.  According to BMI tables (which really are not that useful) I am overweight.  According to my questionably reliable body fat measuring scale, I have 20% body fat, which puts me on the high end of what is considered healthy.  Now most people, if they were to see me would say, "You are not overweight, you don't even have a gut", but there has been more than one person who hadn't seen me for years who said, "Wow, I didn't recognize you, you are so big".  Now, I like to think these people didn't mean that as an insult, I think they meant it more as "you are not a scrawny little stick anymore".  But even if they did mean it as an insult, and even if the BMI says I am fat, and my scale says my body fat percentage is a little high, I still think I am pretty healthy and don't have any weird weight self esteem issues.

Me as a stick. I have no plans to return to that state

Except for one.

I hate getting my $@%#$ kicked when I ride uphills on a bike.  It drives me crazy.  People who having only biked for a short time will leave me in the dust on a hill.  I remember once when I thought I was in good shape, I was puffing up a long hill and this old white haired man in his street clothes on a granny bike passed me and I was like "What the #%@&#^$?!?!?!?".

So this year I have done something to force myself to change that.  I have signed up for the Park City Point to Point mountain bike race (http://thepcpp.com/).  78 miles of single track with 14,000 feet of vertical gain.  That is freaking 2.5 miles of vertical gain.  If it was on the road it would kill me.  Being on single track, it will completely and utterly obliterate me.  And I don't want to be obliterated.  So since climbing is all about your power-to-weight ratio, I am fixing to lose me a little weight.  Not a lot.  But enough to no longer be in the Clydesdale category (In most races, the Clydesdale category is anyone 200+ lbs).

So here is my crazy weight loss plan:  Quit eating so much.

I still have to work out some of the details.  Like overcoming the fact that I really like eating food and I eat  even when I am not hungry but I just want to taste something good.  And the fact that I don't really know how much food I eat now, because it too much trouble to keep track of it, so I don't really have any way knowing if I am eating less.
So I think how I am going to overcome these obstacles is weigh myself everyday and that that constant reminder will help me have second thoughts about eating when I am not really hungry.  I know that this "plan" probably won't work for most people, but I know myself I and I know if I have a constant reminder of what I want to do, and where I am relative to that goal, I can self flagellate  myself to get it done.
So my weight today is 207.  Tune in soon to see if my willy nilly weight loss plan has been effective.