Bill’s One Year Anniversary


Bill went to bed after we logged his 364th day of food, exercise and weight losses (and gains – he went up a pound or two here and there). We used the Lose It App and recommend it. Very easy to use once you get the hang of it!

It’s hard to believe it was a year ago when Bill received devastating news: He was at risk for a massive heart attack and/or had heart disease. WOW, what a shock since he was asymptomatic. I guess that’s why it’s called the silent killer. We’ve written a number of posts about the diagnosis and how he’s learned to live and THRIVE with it. The “Table of Contents” is found here if you missed the posts.  I wrote about it in my personal blog as we tried to keep this one for our travel adventures….but then, this was an adventure, just a different type!

I decided to “interview” Bill for this post – after he said he didn’t want to write it! 

What’s the first thing you thought of as you approached your one year anniversary? “I’m alive!”

Hallelujah! That was our goal and he’s hit a home run!

But maybe he didn’t understand exactly where I was coming from. I asked him, “Remember when we started this journey and I asked if you could do this (eat a heart healthy diet, exercise more vigorously, and manage his stress) for the rest of your life? You replied, “Ask me in six months.” I did ask him at six months and he said there was no turning back. But now at a year, I wanted to know more.

It was an ordeal to drastically change how we lived, ate, worked out, managed stress – while not thinking you could drop dead any minute! But he did it and is THRIVING! Continue Reading

Merry Christmas!


While we count our blessings every morning, praying together as we acknowledge and know so many others struggling with health, financial or a personal crisis during this holiday season. While we are living our dream, we are aware of the struggles of others. We’ve been there, suffered some tragic events in our nearly 40 years together. We’re sure that has helped sensitize us to the fact that it’s not that merry of a season for some. So with that said, we’d like to share one of the best sermon’s we’ve heard, on this topic. It helped remind us to count our blessings, to live each day to the fullest, and to love our loved ones even more. So sit back and enjoy hearing why you want to have a Merry Christmas, no matter what your circumstances!

From Spotswood Baptist Church, Fredericksburg, Virginia, November 30, 2014. Guest Pastor Dr. Chuck Kelley, Jr., “Living With the Consequences” (Lamentations 3:15-23) http://spotswood.org/mp3/2014/11/20141130.1130.mp3

BillDebChristmas

Merry Christmas, Bill &  Debbie Lees

Our hope and our belief as we’ve struggled with the realities of life, we believe in the God of All Comfort:

2 Corinthians 1:3-6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.”