Bitter Sweet--- 1997 my dream to have a book published came to be---- to share my story with the world, to help others overcome their fears of failure regarding fitness and their size or ability----

Bitter Sweet-----my only baby brother is killed just months later of the same year 3 weeks before his wedding which included a honey moon to visit my sister and I both living in Florida at the time.

Bitter Sweet----my brother loses his wife and job due to drugs and alcohol abuse---whisks himself away to me down south to help him clean up his act---I am just finding the beginnings of my program New Face of Fitness and we venture on the health and wellness train--he gets sober, he gets fit---he even gets his former job back--he moves back home-----all seems to be well

Bitter Sweet----the car crash that killed him--we were told his blood alcohol level was well over the legal limit--he had been hiding his booze in ice tea glasses--we found empty liquor bottles under his seat

Bitter Sweet---I will never forget the time a student walked out of my class spouting I was too fat to give her a good workout----

Bitter Sweet--the rest of the class cheered me on and sweated their butts off that hour--forever bursting that stereotypical idea that fitness comes in one ONE size

Life sure is filled with bitter sweet eh? I could write all night on this topic---but I won't. I bet you could too eh? Maybe the idea of bitter sweet is to help us appreciate the sweet, remember the sweet, dwell on the sweet, especially when life sends us the bitters! We may have little control over the bitters--we can choose the sweets. One of my ultimate "fave" sweets is the time of activity for ME! It is a gift we can choose to give to ourselves no matter what. Have you chosen it for yourself lately? I hope so! Love, Dee

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do--Walter Bagebot

Getting out side the box, taking on more than you can chew--risks--rising to the occasion or above it----doing the thing you think you cannot do---whether it strapping on a pair of roller blades, putting on swim suit and heading to the pool for the first time, deciding it's okay if you do not get down to 100 pounds,

acceptance, adjustment, reality.......
WITH EFFORT--

TRYING IS SUCCEEDING---Trying is EVERYTHING

And when you do the thing you can not do your world gets bigger--when you try to do the thing and do not quite get there--

YOU HAVE STILL SUCCEEDED and widened your world---

take a chance--take a risk----it is not failure--

it is EFFORT......

and effort always COUNTS! YOU ROCK!

Love, Dee