We Are The Hansons

Meant to start this yesterday, but a pesky quick trip to the ER for some meds to deal with the Strep Throat I’ve got messed that up. When your face starts swelling from fighting something, you know it’s time to get professional help. Already feeling better!

2024 was a rough one, all around, I won’t even go into the details, but it was just challenging, at every level. Really hoping 2025 can build off of that and be fantastic, though. A few goals:

• Get more fit – been pushing this off too long, I’m no spring chicken, gotta get movin’!
• Work on those advanced job skills – I’ve let things fall off the last few years, gotta get back in technical shape too
• A clean house – When you have 7 people in one house, that’s a tough one. Always is. But it doesn’t fix itself.
• Eat healthy – This is a big one, for the whole family. Not talking crazy diets or anything, just well rounded home cooked meals. We slid a bit last year, and I regret that. Love to cook, re-learning my love of vegetables, and excited for this one.
• Focus on the backyard – This is still hibernating, but in 2024 we kind of just ignored the backyard. And I can feel it in hindsight. Need more outdoor focus for the spring-fall period.

Those are probably the big ones I can think of right now, but they all matter. I’m also going to try to focus on keeping this regularly updated, along with other areas around the ol’ internet. Hope your new years went well everyone!

And Plug My New Project

I put up a couple of posts here, and then got distracted by my DadMetrics blog, and by twitter, and etc. etc. etc. I’ve decided it’s time to start utilizing this again, along with my DadMetrics blog, AND a new thing I’m working on, that I call Fit For 50. In one day I’ll have made 48 trips around our sun, and like all too many people in the US, I need to lose some weight. A fair bit really, for numerous reasons. I’ll cover that more on that blog, but needless to say, I decided I’d put the journey to being fit online, as a way of sharing information, knowledge, experiences, and anything else that might be useful to someone someday that stumbles upon it.

My goal is to hit my target weight, sizes, and capability by my 50th birthday. Given that 2024 is a leap year, that means I’ll have 731 days to get there. Should definitely be doable, but the effort is of course still necessary. I want to try to track on there:

• My weight as it’s going down – motivation
• The exercising that I’m doing (not random little things, but structured stuff) – helps keep me on track
• The foods I’m eating – who knows, my cooking might be more interesting than the weight loss
• Any other things I’m doing to help with gaining fitness
• a countdown to the target day

I’m excited to begin this journey, and I’m pretty sure I have enough of the tools and ‘stuff’ at hand to make it happen. We’ve got a home ‘gym’ built into half of the garage, next to my ‘den’, also in the garage, and I already cook most nights, so it simply becomes about cooking and eating better, AND putting in the sweat and effort in the gym.

As for the rest of this blog, this is where I’ll share stuff about family outings, and our kids, etc. We just spent a week at Sunriver, for example. I’ll try to put up some pics and share some of that trip this weekend hopefully.

Thanks for reading!

Christmas Tree Hunting

Had a great time taking the girls out to go get our Christmas tree over the weekend. We decided against a tall one, like the 12 footer we had last year, after having to tie lines to the wall to hold it in place, and the massive burden it was to get the tree into and out of the house. As Lorelai put it, we weren’t getting the tallest, and we obviously weren’t getting the shortest, so we were looking for the ‘mediumist’. If it’s not a word, it should be, because little kids come up with the best words. 

We got our directions and the layout of the farm, and grabbed our saw and cutting pad, and made our way out. During our brief time there we managed to find the only sunny period all weekend, I believe, with both girls putting their hoods up due to being warm. Makes sense if you are a small child, I suppose. Right away, we found some good trees, right in the proper ‘mediumist’ range of about 6.5 feet, and after using the girls as measuring sticks and a picture home to ‘Mommy’ for approval, a quick cut, drop off in the roaming tractor, and the long hike back up the hill for some cider. Of course, the cider was too hot for either girl to actually end up drinking any of (although Lorelai did take a sip, then proceeded to spit it out right in front of me), and I couldn’t convince Lexi it was ever truly cooled off. More for me. Tree got shaken (not stirred), bundled up, and we paid, loaded, and were on our way back home, just as yet more rain was approaching over the ridge. 

A great afternoon, good quality time with the girls, and a good tree in the end. Fantastic!