I love to read. My love for reading began as a young child. Because I was born with a heart defect that wasn't corrected until I was seven years old, I led a fairly sedentary life up to that point. I learned to enjoy quiet activities like reading and drawing since I wasn't physically able to run and play with other children my age. I'm thankful that some of my earliest memories consisted of sitting on my mom's lap as she read to me. I loved to look at the pictures and often closed my eyes as I imagined myself in the scene with Alice in W…

I've become a big fan of Shutterfly . The first time I heard about them was several years ago when a friend sent me an email from Shutterfly with an online album of pictures of her newborn baby. I remember thinking how clever that was. If I wanted to order any pictures, I could simply join Shutterfly. I used to be big into scrapbooking. Whenever I was in the process of putting an album together, all of my supplies that I'd accumulated would be scattered across my guest room. Pictures would be sprawled all over as I began arranging pages in the alb…

I love watching the Olympics. I’ve found that watching the Olympic coverage while I’m exercising helps pass the time very quickly and is a great motivator. I was inspired as I watched young athletes go for the gold. Before I knew it, I had already done 45 minutes, worked out my muscles using free weights and was stretching to cool down. Where had the time gone? This is the way to work out; get your mind off the immediate and often difficult challenge. The athletes had to set their goals and maintain a vigorous and focused schedule in order to achieve th…