Three Words

“Go Red Rider!”

Every time I heard those three words I would feel a lump in my throat and a boost of power in my body.

Yesterday I rode in my 2^nd ADA Tour de Cure bike ride.

The weather was perfect and the setting was beautiful. Out by the beach the entire time with the sun shining down through a cool breeze that made the ride fantastic.

And those words, those three words made me feel proud of my little accomplishment. It made me feel good each time I could ride next to a Red Rider and say those words to them.

Thank you to everyone who donated and encouraged me to do this. And thank you Team Ninjabetic for supporting me and riding with me!

The plan is to continue riding so next year we can take a longer route, raise more money, and have an even bigger team!

Thanks again for all of your support! I could not have done it without all of you encouraging me and believing in me. And I definitely could not have done it without those words…

GO RED RIDER!

THANK YOU!!!

Seriously? I don't even know what to say except thank you so much for your support.

For those of you who helped me to reach my goal I want to thank you for lifting my spirits when I was feeling pretty down at the beginning of the week. Thank you so much for that.

And for those of you who donated to my ride back when I first announced it, I apologize for not doing what I set out to do, what I told you was going to do. I hope you can forgive me. I promise to be more realistic in the future so I don't let anyone down.

For those of you would like to donate to my ride, there is still time! Click on the link below.

I cannot wait to ride and represent Team Ninjabetic once again! 

Much love to you all!

Diabetes Court - Ninjabetic TV

My good friend Brad and I made a new short for Ninjabetic TV called "Diabetes Court." Imagine taking your pancreas to court and suing it for pain and suffering. Well that is exactly what Brad does and I wonder what Brad's pancreas has to say for itself?

I hope you like it! It was a ton of fun making it.

Check out other episodes of Ninjabetic TV by visiting NinjabeticTV.com

Help Needed!

I really wanted to do it. There was nothing that was going to stop me, nothing to stand in my way. And I can’t do it. I know I can’t.

The Tour de Cure is this coming Sunday and with life being crazy and my motivation non-existent I am not prepared to do the 32 mile ride I signed up for.

Like I said yesterday it makes me feel like a failure. But a comment from Karen made a lot of sense to me. If I only do the 8 mile ride, that will be 8 more miles I will ride than if I didn’t do it at all. And that is a distance I know I can do although still going to be hard in my state.

Maybe it would be better to take a little slower? Maybe not trying to push myself too hard in a hurry is a good idea? Maybe not hurting myself should be part of the plan? Now I sound like an idiot for feeling the way I did!

Still, there is a level of embarrassment for me. Physically I look like I should not even get on a bike but deep inside this bulky skin suit is someone with the desire to be active. I know it. I can feel it.

So now I have 5 days to hit my donation goal or I don’t get to ride. I had a goal of $2000 I wanted to reach but now, I have to reach $200 or I cannot ride. A whole zero has been removed. Yikes!

So if you are willing and able, would you please consider donating to my ride? Team Ninjabetic will be there riding to raise awareness and raising money towards a cure.

Please pass this on too if you know someone else who be willing to help a ninja out.

Thanks and GO RED RIDER!

Cave Dweller

I don’t want to be that blogger. You know the one who has lots of stuff going on in his personal life and sort of abandons all interactions only to pop in one day, apologize for being absent, and then vowing to stay put online so his friends don’t think he disappeared off the face of the earth.

I don’t want to be that blogger BUT I do feel like I owe a lot of people a lot of apologies. Life has been… well, life I guess and with it comes some things that seem so overwhelming I would rather not have to let them out or let go of them just yet.

It’s like when you hear horrible news and you feel awful about it but when you have to tell someone that same news you heard it hits you in a way you never expect. That act makes things more real and unavoidable. Maybe I was taking my time to do that? I don’t know.

The fact is that I was hiding out and I am sorry to anyone I may of caused worry or upset.

That being said I am not going to vow to some schedule or swear I will never take some time away. That is something I just cannot promise. But I hope this wave of openness sticks for a while. I am optimistic.

So, the update:

1. Diabetes wise, I am doing pretty darn good actually. Not sure what my A1C is but if I have had a fasting bg over 100 in the last 2 months it has been under 115 so that is kind of epic, for me at least.
2. Since January I have lost about 25-30 pounds depending on which scale I stand on and if I am in my Business or Birthday suit.
3. My daughter had an awesome 16^th birthday that I had the pleasure of helping throw. And the day after I became a year older but without much fuss.
4. We lost a family member to cancer but I like to think she won the battle since she is whole again in Heaven. This is something I need to write more about and will soon.
5. The Tour de Cure I signed up for is this Sunday and I am not ready, at all. I have not been able to carve out time to ride and have been on the fence about even doing it. 6 days away and I feel like just throwing in the towel. I will never be able to ride for 32 miles. I don’t think I could even make the 11 since the last 4 miles are crazy steep. Do I do the 8 mile? I feel like a failure, no I recognize that I am a failure. I hate feeling like this and have no clue what to do. One minute I think I should just go for it and in the next moment I think not.
6. I had to deal with some big changes with Dr. Awesome that I am excited and worried about. More on that too.
7. Holy week at church was awesome. In fact, I was blessed to be a part of our entire Lenten season. I lead a few songs every Wednesday night in Lent and also directed a drama series each week. Then of course we had Palm Sunday which was beautiful, our Maundy Thursday service (which I was not part of but attended), Good Friday which the band played a song and I was part of a dramatic reading of the Gospel, and two services on Easter morning! As powerful as it all was I am exhausted, physically and mentally.
8. I worked a retreat weekend a few weeks ago and I keep trying to harbor that spirit to get me through each day. It has been getting better since, slowly but surely.

I could go on and on but I don’t want to bore you much more than I am afraid I have already.

My appreciation for this place and the DOC is immeasurable. All of you are so important to me and I just want to thank you for being there for me when I finally come out of my cave.