All We Need In This World Is Love

I am going to be kinda sappy today. It is also a long blog...so look out.

Yesterday was just an awesome day. It was a day of love.

We had our family Christmas and it was just an absolutely amazing day.

It was so great to see my family (I don't see them often enough) and to meet my new little Grandnephew Carter (so adorable) :-)

Dinner was fantastic (I had what I wanted for dinner but only one helping, and did have dessert but I think all things considered I did ok).

We toasted our relatives in Scotland at a pre-arranged time and they toasted us back as I communicated back and forth with them on Facebook. I think we have to figure out how to do it by Skype next year so we can do a live video thing.

READ FAMILY CHRISTMAS 2010

I got an awesome gift from Secret Santa. I am not sure who my Secret Santa was but whoever it was he/she is definitely related to my Mom because he/she "accidentally" left the price tag on showing it was twice the limit that was supposed to be spent LOL. If they are TRULY like my Mom they spent the right amount, remembered to take the sale price tag off and "forgot" to take the other one off. My Mom was a master at that. I absolutely love the sweater!

I got another really cool gift but it needs a bit of background...so yes...this is going to be a loooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg blog.

Probably 15 years ago I was travelling up to a cottage with my sister Shirley, who has now passed away. We stopped at a dive of a restaurant for breakfast and there was a painting on the wall called "Old Friends" that we both just absolutely loved. It just made you feel serene and peaceful, and it had the "feel" of my parent's cottage.

I went to see Shirley a while later and she had bought a print of the photo and framed it. I was soooo jealous.

When I was taking a course a few months ago we had to do a "Vision Board". I put a cut out of this painting that I printed off the internet on my Vision Board and as I speak it is on the Vision Board on the wall right beside my desk. I didn't really know what this picture meant to me but there is something about it that just made me feel "something". That picture has meaning to me.

Yesterday, my niece showed up for Christmas with her boyfriend who, it turns out, happens to be the son of the Artist of who painted this piece of art. I got a copy of the print signed by the Artist for Christmas. Soooooooo Coooooooollllll!

Old Friends - D. A. Dunford

After family Christmas we raced back to Toronto and barely got back in time to see the show Pricilla, Queen of The Dessert.

By the end of the first Act Jamie was absolutely loving the show, and I was "quite enjoying it". I didn't have the love factor...at least not yet.

It was technically great and the costumes were amazing, but there was something that didn't seem totally right for me.

It felt a bit like stereotypical gays were being made fun of without a lot of purpose. I wondered if it was just a laugh at someone else's expense.  I enjoyed it and said to myself "it is all in good fun"...and it was good fun. I just wasn't sure that the premise was sitting right with me.

The second Act, however, took away every ounce of inhibition I had. The POINT was that even the most extreme people in the world, no matter who they are, when brought down to their raw being are no different than all of us. At the end of the day we are all just people wanting to find love and be loved, in whatever way, shape, or form it may come.

It was truly touching and I left that theatre a die hard fan of the show.

If you didn't like the movie don't let it stop you from seeing the show. I had not liked the movie and didn't even really remember what it was about. This show is modernized, touching, and fantastic. It is here until early January and definitely worth seeing.

OK...now on to keeping my commitment. It somehow does not seem right to be posting a half naked picture of myself on the same blog as the "Christmas Blog" but I didn't think of this when I committed to posting it TODAY a couple of months ago. I also refused to believe that I might NOT be as thin as I wanted to be today.

Jamie took the picture for me yesterday and he named it, without thinking, before emailing it to me. I got the picture and guess what he called it? "FatAlan!" LOL I guess that should be the first hint.

Anyway, I am not too freaked by it because I remember how truly large I used to be. This is also supposed to be my "baseline" pic to use for comparison purposes as I focus on health and physique in 2011. So...I only improve from here.

Next Pic - Feb 12, 2011

I have committed to posting a similar pic of me every two months until 2012. Next pic....Feb 12th, 2012.

Be healthy!

Alan