So why am I reflecting on all this right now? It’s because I’m facing the next big shift in life. My daughter is moving out of the house. She’s going off to college, leaving our protection and venturing out into her own life.

And this truly is a big shift. In fact, raising kids is full of big shifts, and each one is a potential stumbling block or stress point or whatever you want to call it. And those stumbling blocks have the potential to strengthen or destroy the marriage relationship.

When my daughter was first born, that was a huge shift for us. The transition from two people to three, one of them being completely dependent on the other two, is huge. There needs to be a complete refocus of energy on the part of the couple. Your time with your spouse suddenly becomes the child’s time and that is stressful.

The next big shift was when Deanna started school and suddenly somebody else is in charge of caring for her for a significant period of time each day. She also brings home ideas and concepts that belong to other people, and so as parents we were forced to learn to deal with that, to unify our position and to try and teach her how to filter out the crap while instilling the set of morals we wanted her to embrace.

One of the hardest shifts was when Deanna became a teenager. And it wasn’t because of bad behavior or anything, it was because suddenly she needed more space, more independence. The child goes from complete dependency to wanting to stand alone almost over night and for parents this is hard. It’s hard to admit you are not the center of this kid’s life anymore. For moms I think it can be emotionally crippling because they’ve invested so much emotional time into this kid and now they just aren’t needed in the same way. So there’s a gap that forms. I remember that Michelle and I really had to re-adjust and refocus on each other and remind ourselves that we’re married and that our relationship with our child should not take priority over our relationship with each other.

We made it through that shift, and now we’re facing the next big one. But honestly, I think because we took time to refocus on each other during the last shift, that we are much better prepared for this one, which is the final cutting of the tether. I think Michelle and I are closer than we have ever been and we are working as a team better than we ever have. So when Deanna leaves and it’s just the two of us in the house, I think we’re as prepared as we can be to move forward.

Of course this won’t be easy. I’m going to miss my kid to be perfectly honest. I really enjoy having her around (even though she can be a moody little sh*t at times). I think Michelle is going to be affected even more for the simple reason that there’s no other woman in the house now to talk to. So this is our challenge. And the question becomes; How do we adapt? How do we pull together and find new areas in our relationship to explore and embrace? There’s the a potential to become bored, or depressed, or just to drive each other crazy. I’ve seen it happen with other couples. So we’ll have to remain focused and find the best way to move forward together.

I’m excited though. I’m excited for Deanna. She’s embarking on what is going to be an exciting time in her life. She’s going to be surrounded by creative people and be given full freedom to explore her passion. I know she’s going to be successful.

So here’s to the next big shift. I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

With that, I decided to pick out some headlines today that are completely worthless.

New Discovery: Mayan Calendar Goes Well Past 2012

Yeah, who cares? The Mayans have been extinct for ages. Who cares what their office calendars looked like? All this story proves is that Archaeologists and news reporters were completely wrong about the last calendar they found.

Conservatives counter claims that Mitt Romney was a bully: Obama was even worse!

Dumbest story running today. I have news for you: Kids do stupid things. It’s part of growing up. It’s amazing to me that we’re talking about this at the same time the John Edwards trial is going on.

Zuckerberg’s Hoodie a ‘Mark of Immaturity,’ Analyst Says

You gotta be kidding me. Wall Street types must be the most stuck up, arrogant, self important jack-asses on the planet if they’re really ticked off that Zuck didn’t get all gussied up for them. Once again America focuses on superficial appearances instead of substance. Zuck will have the last laugh when he’s the richest man in the universe.

Controversial Time mag cover shows mom breastfeeding 3-year-old for story on extreme parenting

Yeah, so what. If you want to walk around with a kindergartner hanging from your teat, then so be it. It’s a free country. I think you’re crazy weird, but who cares what I think?

Alright, that’s all I have the patience for. Happy Friday everyone.

So I updated my drumming resume and posted it on Facebook hoping I’d get some leads. Interestingly enough, at exactly (I mean literally exactly) the same moment, a friend of mine had lost her drummer and was sending me an email asking if I wanted to sit in with her and her band. Talk about perfect timing!

So now I’m learning songs for Amanda Duran and planning to sit in on some gigs she has lined up. I don’t know where it will go. It may just be a fill in type of situation until they find a permanent drummer, or it may become a permanent gig. Who knows? But the cool thing is, I’ve got a quality gig with quality people, and now my musical itch will be scratched… my drumming gears will be greased…. my musical belly will be rubbed… my… ok you get the picture.

God is good, man.

http://danapellerin.com/resume-drummer

South of Shaw was always a fun project though and while we had our ups and downs, overall it was a great experience and I think we wrote some very cool music within that genre. So when Bob and I started kicking around the idea of writing again, I got really excited about it.

So last weekend I drove down to L.A., Rich flew in from Las Vegas, and together we sat down in a tiny room with my new JamHub and banged out three new songs in 48 hours. Honestly, we were on fire with ideas and the songs just spilled out of us like water from a clogged toilet…. ok that’s an absolutely horrendous metaphor. But you get the idea. We were unstoppable!

Anyway, I went into my studio this week and tracked the drums for the songs and they sound HUGE! Bob is going to be tracking rhythm guitars in L.A. and then we’ll get together sometime during the next month to do leads and melody lines, and then vocals and bass at a later date.

What’s really cool about recording in today’s connected world though is that we can share ideas instantly. We use DropBox to share the scratch tracks and so everyone can drop them into GarageBand, rehearse and whatever, and then when we get together we’ve already got things down, so our time is very well spent. It’s really a cool way to work. No more twice a week band rehearsals and fighting with schedules and all that. Each of us can now work on his own schedule. The other great thing is that since our production cost is basically zero in today’s digital world, we can release singles as we finish recording them. No need to spend a year writing 12 songs and go press a physical CD. Now we can just upload to iTunes as we finish the songs. Very cool.

I’ll be posting audio snippets as we make progress. Stay tuned, 2012 is gonna be a rocking year for SOS!

http://www.comeandsee.com/view.php?sid=1190

Honestly, I think God gives us children because it’s the best way to make us understand our relationship with Him. And in that moment, I had a profound realization that I was treating my heavenly father far worse than my kid was treating me. And I felt ashamed.

Here I am living a blessed life. I have full time work, a happy marriage, ample recreation time, yet the only time I reach out to God is to ask for forgiveness for some stupid thing I’ve done, or to ask for help. It’s the equivalent of calling home only when you need money. I never stop in just to chat, or tell him about my day, or share my fears, or celebrate the good things with Him. I just ask for stuff. How frigging selfish of me.

The bible talks about God as our father. And Jesus spent a lot of time teaching about relationships. That’s what it’s all about. That’s all that it’s about. That’s why we were created. So don’t forget to stop in and talk to your Father in heaven today.

Well, 60 days ago I decided to drop $100 and get the RushFit program. RushFit is designed by the trainer of World Champion UFC fighter George St. Pierre. So I plugged in the DVD’s, started working out, watched my diet very carefully and today I’m down to 198.5 pounds! Yeah baby!

I’ve written about fitness a lot on this blog because I honestly feel that being fat and out of shape is a crime. Not a literal crime, but it’s just a shame because it’s not necessary. When I’ve been at my heaviest, I know in my heart it’s not because of anything but laziness and consumption. Or in terms of the 7 Deadly Sins; sloth and gluttony. Man those are tough words aren’t they? But America in general has a real problem with sloth and gluttony.

Anyway, I’ve kind of done the up and down rollercaoster ride of fitness but every time I reach a peak, I realize what I did wrong during the last cycle and this time I realized that even being on a “cycle” is wrong. The key to staying fit is not getting fat in the first place. And what it takes not to get fat is consistency in eating and working out.

This time around, I worked out every single day except for Sunday. I did this religiously and it really paid off because it’s not really what workout you do that matters, it just matters that you work out. You have to raise that heart rate for 30 minutes to an hour and give it your all. Every. Day.

I also use MyFitnessPal.com to both track my calories and get support and accountability from others. The calorie tracker is great because I guarantee if you try and count your calories yourself, you will always take in way more than you think you do. One meal at a restaurant is a guaranteed full day or even two days of calories. And when you consider most people eat out several times a week or even several times a day, it’s no wonder we’re all fat. Count your calories religiously. What it comes down to is this: You must burn more than you eat to lose weight. Simple.

The last major change I did was cut out alcohol. I drank zero alcohol during the week and kept it to one or two drinks on the weekends if I was hanging with friends or something. I won’t lie, I’m a heavy drinker, and what I found was that alcohol is a huge stumbling block if you’re trying to get fit, because it’s basically a poison so your body will work to get it out of your system instead of burning your food calories. If you’re not burning calories, they get stored as fat. So cutting out alcohol really made a huge difference in both how I feel and how much weight I lost. It was a discipline exercise for me as well. I had to really focus in order not to have my evening glass of wine or whiskey, and when out with friends it took a lot of willpower to stop at two. I wasn’t perfect every time, but I proved to myself that I could exert control over this part of my life if I wanted to.

So I’m pretty happy with the results. The key for me is going to be keeping up the consistency. I have a few more pounds I want to lose to get my stomach as flat as I can, but then it will be about maintenance. That doesn’t make it any easier really, I will still need to workout every day but I’ll be able to take in a more calories a day.

Well, I hope this gives a little insight into losing weight. Sign up for MyFitnessPal.com and add me as a friend (username: danapellerin) so we can all push each other on!