The Wicked Beaver Recovery Method

We had a great opportunity today to get to welcome our friend Sabine back to Lubbock. We were so graciously invited (we might have invited ourselves) by the Howells to a small gathering at the Wicked Beaver Brewery in Wolfforth, TX.

 This is a new microbrewery that is really producing some new great beers, and we are proud to say from right here in the greater Lubbock area. I will have to say I was really liking the Timber Ale, but the Midnight that had been aged in an oak barrel nearly took my breath away. Keep your eyes out for their beers on your local supermarket shelves, and make sure you don't pass them up. Here is their website so you can check them out.  Wicked Beaver Brewing Thanks again Michael for letting us hang out with you and the family for awhile this afternoon.

As always with good beer the best thing is seeing good friends and getting to know some new ones. Here are a few pics to prove that it isn't always about training and eating good. After a hard week of training finishing up with a 2 hour run Saturday, then a couple of hours on the bike Sunday before Church. I am beat up mentally and physically. Nothing recharges me better than a little fellowship with friends over a cold beer.

                                                         

                                                As always a good box makes a great toy!

                                                           Martha, Jurgen, and Sabine

Keebler and Jurgen

                                                              Allie "helping" clean up

The Wicked Beaver always points the way!

                                                  Keep an eye out for the Wicked Beaver.

Until next time,
Keebler

Who's Keebler?

I am sure that some of you that are reading this have wondered, especially those of you that knew me from way back, who the hell is Keebler. The short story is that Keebler is me and I am Keebler. Well as these things go sometimes it came from a quick little comment from one friend to another that started the ball rolling. It might serve well to show a few pics from the old Keebler days to put things in perspective. You know those days where I hadn't quite learned if you eat and drink whatever you want and sit on your ass you tend to expand. Turns out the shorter that you are the quicker the expansion tends to happen.

(Side note: As I was loading this picture Anna, my oldest says, "Not to be rude, but I don't like that shirt. Uhmmm, and not to be rude, but your head is kind of big." She tells it like it is!)

Happier than I was earlier!

Anyway on with the story. So my neighbor was talking with another one of our friends, Scott, when I came up and Scott tells Jurgen that I am just like a Keebler elf short and always happy. Now later on Jurgen added to it that I was always short, fat, and happy. As soon as I heard it I knew that it fit me well. Now I didn't know at the time that I was going to go from 50lbs overweight to a slightly deranged triathlete, but over the years this nickname that was given to me from two great friends has gotten me through a lot of crap.

We all get labeled in some fashion or another over the years, but instead of letting labels define us why can't we redefine the labels. I am still the same vertically challenged happy person I was 6 years ago, I just have a little less to carry around now. The reality is still the same no matter how tough a day is, how bad a race is going, or how much pain I am in, someone can call me Keebler and it makes me smile. Then when I smile I feel I can pass along a little bit of that happiness to help someone else. Sometimes our road is rough, but as long as we can go forward we are good. To quote my Father-in-Law, Jack, no matter how bad it is, it is always better than the alternative.  

                               Fun times at Vineman 70.3 with the best cheering section ever!  

So raise a glass, eat some good food, and remember that if a vertically challenged, formally fat West Texas guy named Keebler can change then you can too!!!  Good Luck and all the best from mine to yours.

Keebler

                                

                                       

Back to the Beginning

 I know that it has been a long break between posts, but this one has been harder to write than all of the others. As usual I am doing this backwards. I figured it was time to go back and explain what J.D. 's Heart is all about, or at least try to put it into words for the first time. It is really hard for me to put my thoughts down on something that I'm not sure what it is, or what it is going to be but you feel passion for everyday.

J. D. or Jimmy Don is what most people called him, but my Sister and I called him Dad, my Mom called him her husband, the Grandkids called him Pawpaw. If I could sum him up in one sentence I would say that he was a quite man that was more prone to laughing than talking.  He tried to teach me many things that now I wish I was listening to a little closer, but the one thing that I was listening to was that I should never quit something I start.

The reality is that I can look back over my life, and see many chapters that God put in front of me that have led me to where I am now. The essence of JD's Heart might have started with my good friend, Jurgen, telling me that I was too young to be as fat as I was then, or it could be said that it started when I knew that we were going to have Anna. All I can say for sure is that when my Dad passed away on my birthday in 2009 I knew that this cycle had to end with me.

I titled my testimony and my website J.D. 's Heart, because it is about the affect one man's heart can have on so many people. We as individuals selfishly believe that how we take care of ourselves doesn't matter to those around us, but in reality we each can be the biggest forces of change in our families and communities.  No matter if you are young, or been around a few years, you have to work hard to stay here. It took me having kids and losing my Dad to see the truth that if I want to be here for the future I have to make changes now. Unlike how most of us wait until we lose someone, or a doctor tells us we have no other choice. We each are blessed with one body, and we should respect it. Trying to lead a healthier lifestyle doesn't guarantee you won't get sick, but it at least gives you a little bit more of a fighting chance. We don't want to believe it but our lives can change in the time it takes for a red light to change. Instead of believing that if you aren't sick your healthy. Try to look at your health as something that you have to fight for everyday even it is just doing something small.  Then when the time comes that you have to really fight you might just be in a much better place to keep going.

What I put my body through is not for everyone, but I promise you that you would be surprised at what your bodies can take, and in some cases want. Every time that I think that I have reached my limits I wake up the next day to find that those limits are not where they were the day before.

This drive I have now was developed because I want to always be striving to be healthier spiritually, physically,and mentally for my family. Along this journey for myself if I can help inspire others to look for their own reasons to be healthier then those people will have more of a chance to fight. No matter how each of us leave this world we will only have one last heart beat. To this day in my mind I hear my Dad's last heart beat echoing, and helping others find a reason to be healthier helps me to keep hearing it. As long as I can I want to keep helping other's to find their reason to fight. 

Ask yourself when your heart beats for the last time will it echo or will it fade away? That is what is behind JD's Heart. 

Thank you Dad.

Keebler