Just a quick post to let you know of a couple updates / changes to the site:

• Slowly but surely (surely needs an “h” in it! — it makes sense to type it “shurely” — English is weird)But I digress…  Slowly, but SUREly the website is being revamped.  The latest update includes a “Gallery” in the menu up above. Right now it only has an old post of my “dance videos” (which needs to be updated…  *sigh*) but soon, very soon it will have
  • Tales of skinny-ness and fat-ness past (picture in other words of me as I gained and lost and gained and lost and…)
  • and whatever else qualifies as a “gallery”  Haven’t quite decided… maybe my favorite “dance” photos Yeppers!  That will DEFINITELY be there!  Woot!  Watch for it in the coming days
• For some reason my my really cool map with all the dots (look over to the right hand column . . .  See it?  Cool.  well, it stopped working.  So I had to put new code in the box and BAM, all the 108,000+ visitor’s dots that were  there are now gone.  The good news is that enough time has now passed since the “reboot” of the map that there are quite a few dots.
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• Two additional menu choices up top:
  • Tony’s Take on…  will take you to an archive of my “review posts” where I give you my opinion on various fitness and health products or just general “stuff” that I use and thought I’d review.  🙂
  • Tony’s Tips will take you to an archive where the short “tip” posts that I’ve started doing are archived.
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• SHOP has been updated.  I added links to:
  • My “online garage sale”  I’m doing a bit of “spring cleaning” in the fall — In complete honesty, I need the cash folks.  The truck payment and insurance is due!
  • My eBay auctions — where I’m selling some of that garage sale stuff…
  • TxCowboyDancer Designs — my custom-built “I did this” storefront for my Zazzle.com store is now ready for prime time…  you’re probably wondering why go to Tony’s storefront when you could go directly to Zazzle?  Two reasons:
    • — By going to my “store” then buying something not only do I get the royalty if you buy one of my products, I also get a referral credit for sending you to well my own product.  And the referral credit is actually MORE than I get from the royalty!  Wierd
    • — I have spent HOURS paging through THOUSANDS of really BAD graphic designs on Zazzle.  Trust me there are a LOT of people out there who THINK they are a graphic designer.  Well not to pop their bubble..  POP! or anything like that but THEY AIN’T!  Their stuff stinks!Then on the other hand, there is some REALLY AWESOME designs on Zazzle.  So on my site, I’ve selected what I think are the best designs in the categories which interest me.  THUS saving you all that time.  You can just go to my site and see FABULOUS designs instead of wading through all the crap on Zazzle to find those awesome designs.
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• COMING SOON:
  • Featured Articles Menu Option– where I highlight some of the best posts from this blog’s past. Things that are as good today as the day I first wrote them.

So, that’s it for now.

See ya on the dance floor.

Small steps are getting me there…

It has been a long day and I’m really tired so I beg forgiveness in advance if this post is not up to my usual level of silliness and is a wee bit more direct.

At the end of July, I read an article  which had a profound effect on me.  In it was information which provided me with the final piece of the puzzle that I needed to get me started toward being fit and healthy.

(watch for a series of posts that will talk in depth about the article and its impact on me)

For the first time in my life, I am not working to “lose weight.”

I’m working to be fit, and healthy, and most importantly I’m working to make this a permanent part of my life.

Why is it different this time?

I’ve been on the weight loss roller coaster ever since the early 1990’s.  Up down, up, down, around and around we go, down then up, but ever and always…back up; always further up with each time around on the ride…  Nothing worked.  Nothing I did seemed to make a difference.  There seemed no way to break the cycle.

Finally I have a tool that is making a difference; I have a way out.  A way “off the weight loss roller coaster.”

I know that this time is different; I can feel that it is different.  The ride is over.  The track of the roller coaster has been straightened out and it has become a train with a destination.  The journey is starting.

If you’re reading this and saying “Yeah, right, suurrrrrrrre it it’s different!” then I understand.   I do.

To my close friends of many years, to my friends I’ve met through the dance world, and to those of you among my readers, who know me only through my writing here on this blog and on Squidoo, I understand completely that you may have doubts.  After all, I’ve been here before; I’ve even said “this time is different” before.

But it is.  A couple days ago, I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and I was trying to explain to my very best friend, who happens to be my room mate, what the difference was this time around.  And candidly, I was having a very difficult time articulating it.

Yeah, I know… me?  At a loss for words?  Did the earth just shudder in its orbit and tilt off its axis?

As I spoke to him, trying to find the right words to explain, it dawned on me that what I’m doing this time which is different, what I’ve been doing since the first week of August is making choices not for the coming week, or the coming month or even the coming 18 months.  I’m planning and making choices for the next 30 years, perhaps 40 or even 50 years if I’m very lucky.

This time, it is the SCALE of my outlook which has changed.  The nuts and bolts of getting in shape haven’t changed. What has changed is the time frame for which I’m planning.  This isn’t some “project” that I’m working on as one part of my life.  Nope this time it is my life, my whole life.

De Plan!  De Plan!

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