Z Blog

Butler Paint and Madison Decorating

Just wanted to advertise the launch of the new websites for Dave's stores (and help the search engines find the new pages).

Butler Paint & Decorating - Meriden, CT

and

Madison Decorating Center - Madison, CT

The new sites help show case the Benjamin Moore paint products that the stores sell and includes a Personal Color Viewer feature that allows for visitors to the sites to pick colors and see them applied to sample room images.

New Online Islamic Bookstore

We have just finished setting up out new online Islamic bookstore. The website is http://www.hudastore.com/store and we have over 100 titles ranging from Children's books to books on learning Arabic to Qur'an's to books on Aqeedah (creed) and Fiqh (jurisprudence).

Marathon Man

On Sunday Dave ran in and completed his first marathon,the Mystic Country Marathon starting and finishing in Rocky Neck State Park. I got tired just walking from the parking lot so I can't imagine running 26.2 miles but Dave did it and he did it in under 4 hours. His official time was 3:58:56 and he was 227th out of nearly 600 finishers. Here are a few pictures.







-Brian

Mens sana in corpore sano

My father suggested the title for this one. If you aren't a Latin geek it means "A sound mind in a sound body".

The reason for this post is to pass on some news from a couple weeks ago. I had 2 pretty cool things happen on the same day. First I got home from work to get ready for a martial arts belt test and had received an acceptance letter to American Mensa. I had taken a test several weeks ago to see if I qualified and so I am now a member. Then I went a took my martial arts test and received my Orange belt.

So I guess going back to the latin phrase, I guess the mind is doing pretty good and the body, well, its getting there. I'm down 59 pounds as of this morning. My body fat percent has gone done by 5% and I've lost several inches off my waist. I am wearing 1 size smaller in shirts and I can now wear pants about 4 inches smaller in the waist then what I had been wearing.

-Brian

30 Day Update

I managed to do 30 pounds in 30 days and am down a total of 41 pounds.

Jen was down 33 pounds a few days ago but came back up a little.

We're going to try to stop weighing ourselves daily so the little ups and downs don't drive us so crazy.

-Brian

Weightloss Update #3

I have now lost 24 pounds in 3 weeks and a total of 35 pounds.

Jen is now down 31 pounds.

-Brian

Weightloss Update #2

I realized I had Jen's weightloss wrong last week so with losing a couple more pounds she is now at a total of 29 pounds lost.

I lost another 6 pounds since the last update to make 20 pounds since February 6 and 31 pounds total.

I found out last week the link to our online store wasn't working for everyone. I think I corrected the problem but if this link doesn't work...

http://www.herbalsolutionstore.com

try this one.

Herbal Solution Store Direct Link

-Brian

Weightloss update

As some people may remember Jen and I had lost a lot of weight years ago using Herbalife but between a couple of moves and Jen's pregnancy with Ian (I couldn't let her eat alone) we put it back on. Well after trying several times to lose weight since then we have found our way back to Herbalife.

Jen has now lost 21 lbs but I was a little slow to get with the program. I had lost about 11 lbs but was not being very serious about it until last week. I started last Monday doing everything the way I was supposed to and increased my exercise. The result, I lost 14 lbs in a week, for a total since we started of 25 lbs. I'm really excited and determined to keep going and get down to a healthy weight.

We have also renewed our status as an Herbalife Independent Distributor so we can sell the products and have set up a website at http://www.herbalsolutionstore.com.

I'll try to do periodic updates of our progress with the weightloss and the business.

-Brian

Ian's Teeth

I hadn't mentioned yet but Ian lost another tooth, his lower left canine I think but that's not really the reason for this post.

Ian had an appointment at the dentist today.

A year or so ago Ian had major dental issues, he had 6 or 8 cavities and needed 4 crowns. This visit he was a little scared at first but settled down when he realized it was just a cleaning. He had a full check-up including X-Rays and this time he has no new cavities. We learned our lesson about the chewy fruit snacks. They are evil. Ian used to eat them all the time but after the dentist told us how bad they were we stopped and that seems to have done the trick. One of his 2 missing front teeth is starting to come in and his 6 year molars are starting to push in at the back of his mouth.

-Brian

Ian School Update

Jen went to Ian's school today for a meeting. They said he is doing great. Their only concern is with his hand coordination and how it affects his ability to write. In all other areas he is already at the level he needs to be to move on to 1st Grade next year.

They are going to try some different things to help his writing like using an inclined or vertical writing surface which we have noticed at home seems to help. He may end up doing some work on a computer to show that he can put together thoughts into words since he already has an understanding of using the keyboard at least to type his name for games he plays. We will push for them to keep working hard on his handwriting though. Even though they can use the computer to test his writing skills it is still really important that he continue to put in a lot of work writing by hand.

All in all it was a glowing report of how hard of a worker he is and how much progress he has made this year.

-Brian

Vermont

Our trip to Vermont this weekend was great. We got to Jen's parent's house around 8 Friday night. Other than Ian losing a tooth, the trip up was pretty uneventful, we beat traffic through Hartford and Springfield. We hit some dinner time skier traffic in Ludlow but the rest was smooth sailing. Ian had a hard time the first night there with different noises, we all had a pretty fitful night as a result.

Saturday Ian got to play with his cousins Jade and Brandon and they had a great time. The kids all went for a walk with Jen, Vicky and Grandma. The kids held hands pretty much the whole time. On the walk they saw some wild turkey tracks. Then they went to see some cows. After a full day of playing we had a nice ham dinner and then Vicky, Jade and Brandon went home. We played some Uno Attack, worked on a jigsaw puzzle for a while but we were all really tired so we made it an early night and went to bed. Ian didn't have any problem sleeping that night.

Sunday we had a quiet morning, packed up and headed home. The trip home went well also, again except for Ian losing a tooth. We stopped at the Vermont Country Store but it was crazy and we didn't get to look around as much as we wanted to. After we got home, Ian and Jen went to the store to get some groceries and I went to get the dogs. Now we're just relaxing and having a nice quiet Sunday evening.

-Brian

Ian's Teeth

Well I promised a picture after he lost one of his front teeth on the way to Vermont so here it is.

But then on the way back from Vermont the other one fell out too so here is a picture after we got home.

I'll post the pictures in the picture section also.

-Brian

Ian's Tooth

Ian lost one of his front teeth on the way to Vermont today. He looks pretty funny now.

I'll post a picture when we get back home.

-Brian

The Patriarch

The patriarch of the Zebarth family, known variously as Ralph, Dad, Grandpa Z or Great Grandpa Z, still amazes all of us with everything he is involved in. For nine months of the year, he manages to play several rounds of golf each week. During the winter months, his tax business thrives and word of mouth seems to provide as many clients as he can handle. His threats to retire seem to be overridden each year by the plees from his loyal customer base.

Each year, he travels with Pat to annual reunions of his WWII Bomber Group, the 459th. This past year, the reunion was held in Washington DC and he was able to meet up with fellow crew member, Tommy Pavone. For a picture of them at the WWII Memorial click here.

-Mike

Quick Note

Jen and I have recently become involved in the community. We were told by the Director of Special Services for own school system about a group of people in town calling themselves the Common Sense Citizens Group that came to all the town budget meetings and School Board meetings and fought everything in the budgets taking a particular interest in the special education budget. After we heard that we started working on a website http://www.bettersense.org and are planning to attend all the school board and town meetings regarding budget and posting information from those meetings on the site along with other information about the spending and performance of our town schools. The website is just getting started and has a long way to go but please check it out and let me know what you think.

-Brian

Ian

Ian Update - 02/22/2005

Ian is doing great. He got his first report card for Kindergarden a few weeks ago. He is making good progress in most areas and has already met some of his year end goals. He is off this week, which should be good because I think he needs the break.

His 2 top front teeth are loose and causing him some problems eating. I think at least one of them will fall out this week.

Ian had a great time at Drew's birthday party a week ago at the duck pin bowling alley. All the kids got plastic bowling pins filled with goodies and Ian slept with his the first 2 nights after the party. He has also been setting it up along with some empty plastic water bottles and bowling in the living room. We ended up breaking down and buying him a plastic bowling set with 6 pins and a ball which he loves. He is also crazy about car washes. He has been watching an episode of Blue's Clues where they go to a car wash. He goes around the house on his 3 wheel bike making us be the car wash for him. He even has us draw a car wash on a piece of paper and takes his hot wheel cars "through" it. And of course any time we go in the cars he wants to go to the actual car wash.

Well I'll stop there for now. More updates coming soon.

-Brian