While walking my usual path last night I spent the time reflecting on how much the neighborhood has changed since I started walking last May. Now, the trees are bare; the thick “forest” I used to walk past is now little more than bare gray sticks poking out from piles of fallen orange leaves. Broken down cars parked in the street have been fixed or relocated. The rent house at the top of the hill, home to a thousand teenage parties, now sits vacant; the house has been cleaned up, the trash has been removed, the lawn has been mowed. Down the street, the girl I used to see typing away at her computer every night is gone too; her house sits empty with a “for sale” sign in front of it. Just a few months ago, patriotic Fourth of July displays adorned the yards. Those were replaced by Halloween decorations, which were then replaced by Thanksgiving ones. Those are gone too now, turkeys having been replaced by Christmas lights and giant inflatable yard Santas.

I hope that I’m able to keep up my walking throughout the winter months. We do have a treadmill, but I’ve never enjoyed it as much as I do walking around the neighborhood. I know that sounds weird, coming from “King Interneto”.

And now for the bad news; I put on four pounds over Thanksgiving Weekend. It’s not as bad as I figured. I didn’t stick to my plan of just taking Thanksgiving Day off, and instead pretty much quit exercising and eating right over the entire four-day weekend. A break’s not entirely bad, but it was a stark reminder of what I’m up against. When I stop exercising and eating right, I know what will happen. This isn’t a “eat better for a month” deal — it’s a lifelong change. The good news is, I’ve already lost two of those pounds by jumping feet first right back into my routine. The end of this week will be the halfway point, and if I stay on track I should also be halfway to my original goal of losing 40 pounds by the end of the year.