Resolutions..... Not New Year's

I've made some resolutions this year but they started back at the end of July when Julie and I traveled to Vermont to meet the newest member of our family. Have you been to Vermont? In the little town of Waitsfield lives the healthiest looking population of people that I've observed anywhere. Young and Old they are the fittest, healthiest looking bunch anywhere.  At that time I had accumulated some girth.....okay, I had been getting fat. 

Walking up the hill to the grocery store in Waitsfield was causing my body some distress. That's when I decided something had to be done and when I stepped upon the scales I came to the realization that I was exactly the same weight as when I went on my last diet 15 years ago. Among the fit people of Waitsfield I felt like a whale.

When I returned home I started a life style change. Notice I did not say diet. I did not start a fad diet that promised to take off 15 pounds in 1 1/2 weeks. Like I said I started a life style change. I began walking a manageable distance twice a day. In this route was a long steep hill and once again, like walking up the hill to the grocery store in Waitsfield, I was reminded twice a day why I need to do this. I also began eating less than 2000 calories a day. I limited my intake of refined sugar and start eating more fruit and nuts for snacks in lieu of processed good. I don't know exactly how much weight I've dropped but my waist size has been reduced 2", I wear a size large shirt now in lieu of the extra large I had been requiring, oh and now I've progressed to walking a minimum of 2 miles everyday and somedays I walk that distance twice. The biggest benefit is, I feel better and as an added benefit I'm a more productive person in the shop.

The shop is my other resolution. Just prior to Christmas my shop had gradually become an unorganized mess. In my haste to get things completed and shipped I had been lax in the daily clean up. I felt as though I was working in a bit of a "pig sty" and just could not go forward in those conditions. The weekend before New Years I added two new rolling tool chest to my storage options and performed what I call a "back to ground zero", or back to the starting point type clean up.

This type clean up is when you basically touch everything in the shop and you clean out corners and other spots that haven't been visited by a shop vac in quite some time.

There hasn't been this much room to the right of my table saw in 2 years

You might ask, "why would a person that's a woodworker and plane maker use rolling steel tool chest?" The short answer is time. I needed organization now and with my present schedule there is no way I could take time to build similar storage. In this case it's done and I'm back to making planes.

I also plan to complete the finishing of the interior walls of my shop, having almost everything on wheels will greatly facilitate that project. But that's another resolution, for another time.

Ron