To Madison, Blake, Allana, Ben, Tristan (and Madison B. who wasn't there when daddy took this picture) have a safe and happy holiday!!!

To Ms. Kelly, thanks for a great Christmas Party today! I had so much fun with my friends. We got to dance, and we got to make a Christmas card, and it was on Friday.

Ohhhh myyyyy.....Josie has insisted on becoming a part of the holiday season. Even if it means consuming its artifacts!!!

From Jackie and Josie, have a safe and happy holiday season!!!!!

That Josie girl is a silly nilly! She loves knawin' on anything she can put in her mouth. She's a character....

Bike Path Initiative an Opportunity for Owensboro

We haven't seen a shortage of discussion and awareness of the problems our community has in terms of health status. It has become a vernacular that many of us has become too accustomed to understanding: cancer, obesity, overweight, heart disease, and the litany of terms and terminology goes on. Our community and our state are particularly very very unhealthy.



We have done a good job of documenting it locally, from the All is Not Well research report commissioned by the Public Life Foundation to the GRADD Health Report Card completed by the GRADD Health Council, we know we are unhealthy. Contrary to people's wishes, we are not unhealthy by chance. It has a whole lot to do with what we choose to do, or not to do that makes us healthy or unhealthy.



At the same time, we have made strides in affecting this crisis situation in our community. American Council for Fitness and Nutrition Chairperson Susan Finn's comments echo the successes that we have had. We also continue to see some degree of movement on the state front, as is indicated by how elected officials were cited in the Messenger Inquirer of the need for healthy lifestyles.



At the beginning of 2005, we will have yet another opportunity to change our community for the better. Stay tuned for more from the City Connections bikepaths initiative that soon will pick up steam.



Want to be part of the solution? Get up to speed and get an idea of what the City Connections committee has been working on by going here. Then, stay tuned and let the community leaders know where you stand on improving the health status of our citizens with the assistance of a community that provides opportunities for citizens to improve their health and lifestyle.

The difficult, sometimes depressing, or the wonderful, sometimes extra special, "thing" about the holiday season is the coming together of family and friends.  It is that time of year that those that do come together arrive at the occasion or occasions with all that they are.  They bring their up-to-date hearsays, their laden drenched gossip personas from the year before, they bring their baggage of life's trials and tribulations, and they bring their willingness to toss everything up in the air in the family/friend focused deliberation of "the coming together". 

For me what is central to the holiday season being successful is the "feel" or perception of feeling that I take away from each of these events.  Did everyone pitch in their part?  Did everyone sacrifice enough of themselves to benefit the goodwill of the whole?  Did everyone come away with a sense of fulfillment of interacting with others?  Did everyone take away from the occasion that they played an important part in the enrichment in the lives of others present, or at least enough of the others present to "feel" justified in attending?  Certainly family and friends understand that the "coming together" takes on a life of it's own.  Sometimes we as individuals though certainly do not recognize this, and worse still is that we do understand it and do our damndest to brink our link in that chain that strives to hold it together.

Oh what a dilemma…..dare I say, what if instead of coming together, all of the baggage and excess immaterial objects land dead center in the nucleus of coming together?  Uuuuuggghhhhh, that could be icky….

Hmmmm……I'm not taking away a sense of fulfillment of at least the Thanksgiving holiday season, other than the entirely too many pieces of pecan pie that I ate...