I have lived in Texas for six years now. I am proud of this. My community is a great place to live. We know our way around now, which is a feat all in itself. We have found a church we love and are doing our best to get involved. We love where we live.

I am also proud that we have made it six years for a much different reason…the weather. Yes. You read that right. We have survived six years of heat, more heat, extreme cold, rain, heat, more heat, winds, heat, and you guessed it…more heat.

Truth be told, I was used to most of this as I lived in Oklahoma for 38 years before this. The only thing I haven’t seen as much down here in Texas is Tornados. Oklahoma can keep those.

I love the weather down here. It is temperate most of the year. Summers are brutal, but the rest of the year is usually very bearable. There are times when you have to dress in a coat in the morning and are in shorts by the afternoon. It is weird, but you get used to it.

Why a post about the weather? To me it is another reminder that we get to make choices. Do I have to live somewhere that I don’t want to? No, I don’t. I can make plans to move. If I haven’t made plans to move, I am by default making plans to live where I am. I recognize it as a choice that I have made. That gives me control over my attitude and my outlook.

This is a critical part of being content. I have the power to choose. Even the power to choose to enjoy the heat, because I love where I live and the heat is just part of it.

Tomorrow is the start of a new week in my journey. Today is day 35.

I want to pause for a moment and be satisfied, I have done this successfully for five weeks. After struggling for months and years to gain consistency in this area of my life, this just feels good. I only want to pause for a moment though. The moment is now over.

As I get into this next week, I am very close to being down 15 pounds since I started. I want to achieve that goal this week. These incremental wins are becoming very important. They make whatever perceived loss (not getting the food I want, exercising more than I am used to, etc.), much more bearable.

I started with seven core goals :

1. Take a daily photo to show progress.

2. Exercise daily

3. Track my food and my calories.

4. Drink 100 oz of water per day.

5. Read or listen to a chapter of a book every day.

6. Encourage someone/anyone every day.

7. Write down my thoughts daily.

I have achieved all of these for 35 days in a row. Let’s go for 36. 100 Days Strong, here we come.

I have been called a character more than once in my life. Many times by my mother. I think she meant I was full of life and a little off the wall. Someone she enjoyed watching, even though she found some of the things I was doing strange. I always took it as a compliment. I may have just been weird. Whichever, I was just trying to be myself.

Over the past year I have gotten involved with the drama department at my church. I am currently rehearsing for my next show with them. The character I get to play is selfish and sneaky. Not traits I want to emulate in my own life, but it is fun to play the character, knowing that good wins in the end.

This summer I played a different character. I got the awesome gift of playing Maurice in Beauty and the Beast. I have been watching this story for almost 30 years now. I thought I knew that character well. He is an oddball, but lovable. As it turns out, I got to dive a lot deeper into what it meant to be him, which was more than I would have expected.

Maurice is an eccentric inventor. He is extremely smart, but a bit absent minded. He is a widower that is doing his best to raise a strong daughter who can think for herself, but also be part of a strong family. He works hard and provides for his daughter. However, he misses his wife dearly. He knows love and loss. He is a very interesting and admirable character.

What does that word mean?

Character (noun) – the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

I think it is fitting that we call the subjects in stories characters. They give us pictures of traits and actions that we can either emulate or avoid. The show us positive and negative ways to be. They give us a picture to aspire to.

There are many things in Maurice’s character that I admire. One that I will highlight. When he daughter was in danger, he went to every length to rescue her. Though he was not successful, he was willing to pour out every ounce of himself to accomplish it. That is a character trait I want to have.

That is how it always starts. It was just a normal day and then…fill in the blank. Good or bad. There are so many instances of this. I understand this very well when it comes to the weather. I lived in Oklahoma for almost 38 years. There were several normal days that turned stormy in a hurry.

What is normal? it is an adjective that means: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected. The word expected is what caught me here. As expected.

Usually when we expect one thing and get another, we haven’t been paying attention. In my example above about the weather, had I been paying attention to the forecast I would have known what to expect. I would have planned my response in advance based on those expectations.

I think we choose normal, because it’s easy. We get into our routines with the way we like to see things, and everything else flows out of that. The problem comes when we find ourselves in a bad situation and don’t really know how we got there. whether you find yourself lost or overweight or in a bad relationship…

I don’t wanna be normal. I don’t want to move through life, unaware, just floating, like a leaf on the breeze.I choose to keep my eyes open. I want to know what to expect, and therefore have to pay attention. I have agency in my life, and I choose to use it.

If it were easy, everyone would do it. It isn’t. It is hard. Only a few will make it through. Will you be one of them?

Will you put in the time day after day? Will you make the right choices? Will you ignore the distractions? What you want is in front of you. You can see the path. WIll you walk it?

Will you block out the negative voices? Will you keep putting one foot in front of another when you don’t want to? Will you let go of what was so that you can grab on to what will be? Will you find joy in the struggle? Resistance is the only way we get stronger. It is true in all aspects of life. That is why it isn’t easy.

When you come out the other side, you will be different. You will wear the victory with dignity. You made it through. You stayed the course. No, it wasn’t easy. This is what distinguishes you. You don’t need easy. You were built different. You were made for more.

If it were easy, everyone would do it. You are not everyone. You are one of us. We do hard things.