Happy New Year!

All is well -- very, very well -- in the land of BMGS, and I hope with you.


It's a little after 6 a.m. and I've been up for about half an hour, which means that I slept longer than usual, a solid 8 after Betty and I began dozing off a little less than halfway through Nashville, around 9:30.


My first act of 2010 was a weigh-in, central to our themes here. 251, which is what I weighed on June 29, 2009 and is 25 pounds less than I weighed on January 1, 2009, so 2009 was a good year in that respect.


And my enterprise here is to make 2010 even better -- to make it my healthiest year in years -- by doing a few simple things:

• keeping my calorie intake below 2,000 calories a day
• swimming daily
• getting my weight under 225 and keeping it there
• making and following a medical plan that includes addressing my knee and ankle problems, even if they require surgery, as well as submitting to some of those pesky 50-something bodily inquiries that I have managed to avoid for the first 9 1/2 years of my fifties.

I guess we can call it BMGS 3.0. These things seem to come in waves.

But while I focus on the physical, I will also continue to build upon the blessings that made 2009 a truly wonderful year:

• I'll enjoy my three children and my grandson and be a good Poppa to them.
• I'll continue to get to know and love the wonderful woman I met at Starbucks on a Sunday morning 362 days ago.
• I'll focus on the essential things about my work that made the last few months of 2009 so successful, while keeping an eye on where my work and I will be at the end of 2011, 2013, and 2015, and trying to avoid taking on projects that take me away from long-term goals for a few short-term bucks.
• I will meditate in the steam room each day after my swim, and I will find my way back to a regular GA meeting (because whether or not I need it now, a daily could certainly come when I need it, and in the meantime I have a lot to give).
• I will cherish my friendships with Betty, Larry, Ned, Rena, Nick, Deborah, and Steve, and re-connect and be a better friend with Stewart, Bill B, Jim, René, Ariane, Pete, Rick and Emmy, and others.
• I will continue to get my financial house in order.

So, like the oysters, I will polish my pearls.

Happy 2010.