The above is my third installment of Autumn in The Rock. As you can see, the River Market is lined with trees that turn this turning color during the Fall. When I captured this picture, the trees were still in the middle of turning as is evidenced by the red tops and green bottoms.

Continuing my Autumn in The Rock series, I am going to turn my focus to Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts. Wildwood Park is a woodland garden that spans over 100 acres in the western part of Little Rock. The Park prides itself on preserving nature while at the same time showcasing art.

Chad, Leslie, and I went out and enjoyed the Harvest that Wildwood held before Halloween. Just a few days prior to that an ex-coworker and I went out and watched them release two swans into the lakes there.

This picture is where we sat and ate lunch while at the Harvest. A perfect fall day to enjoy the lake and a traditional bratwurst.

You can see more of my Wildwood pictures by clicking here.

As anyone who knows me knows, I am a huge fan of Little Rock. Even more so, I am a bigger fan of it in Autumn. With all the natural beauty around the city, it makes it easy to forget that we live in a metropolis.

Over the next few days I will do a series of pictures on Autumn in The Rock. I have so many pictures I’ve taken recently and I want to share them. I’ve been extremely busy out capturing my favorite parts of Little Rock draped in fall foliage.

Here’s the first picture taken a few weeks ago at Maumelle Park near Pinnacle Mountain in the western part of Little Rock.

Last night marked my 15th Weight Watchers meeting. Unfortunately, the move did not work well for the plan. Last night I had gained .2 pounds and the week prior I had gained 1 pound. So with the two gains considered, I am still down 32.4 pounds. I am very happy with those results. I am also very confident that next week I will have a loss. I really want to be at 250 by the end of the year, and right now I am at 264.2.

Chad has taken the time off of Weight Watchers and so I do not have a Weigh-In for him!

Here is the Weight Loss Tracker I made to track my progress:

Growing up we are always taught that everything happens for a reason. Chad and I happen to believe this and follow this rule as we go through life. Every moment has an impact on our life. Hopefully, the majority of moments are fantastic ones, but we all know that we have bad ones as well. Sometimes though we do not think about how the bad ones shape us and make us better people.

At the time a bad moment happens we are left asking ourselves the standard “why?” questions. “Why did this happen to me?” “Why am I being put through this?”

What we need to remember is that we are put in that situation by God to test our ability to handle situations. We may not realize it at that time; but, looking back you will notice that you learned a lot about life and yourself while dealing with those bad situations.

Whether it was a a bad conversation, event, situation, or person — you will learn and grow from it. How you handle the situation will teach you a lot about yourself. Sometimes the lesson learned is beautiful and you walk away a happier person. Sometimes the lesson brings out a quality about you that you may not like once it is brought to the surface.

Fortunately regardless of what kind of lesson it is, you will learn and grow from it. You will take that lesson and improve yourself based on it. We should never stop learning and we should never assume that something is happening just because. There is a reason for that moment to be brought into our life and there is a reason we react to that moment.

The important thing is that you react in a way that you will be happy with. Others may or may not be happy with your reaction but as long as you know in your heart you reacted properly, then there is no issue.

Here is one of my favorite sections of an author unknown piece of literature:

The successes and downfalls that you experience can create who you are, and

the bad experiences can be learned from….

In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones.

So, as you go through life make sure that you look out for yourself. Also make sure that you welcome the trials and tribulations life brings with it, as you will need the experience to handle things further down the road of life.

Chad and I, along with help from our friend Billy, have been moving into our new Condo. I will have more posts up very soon. We just got our new U-Verse service connected today. We are finally online after a 6 day television/internet break. Though it was nice to have some quiet time, it is also nice to be connected to the world again.

Stay tuned as posts should return to normal at some point over the weekend.

Tonight marked my 13th Weight Watchers’ meeting. This week I had a .4 pound loss. Considering that I was not as “on plan” this week as I normally am, I was so excited. I just knew I had gained weight this week and was pleasantly surprised by tonight’s weigh-in.

Chad had his first gain while on the program. Hopefully, we’ll both have bigger losses next week as we get back to staying on our daily goals and targets.

Here’s the graph for our weight loss journey so far:

Happy Halloween everyone! We had a Halloween party at work today but we also attended a Health Scare at the Clear Channel Metroplex. It was a marketing meeting to meet others in the healthcare field. Some people dressed up and it was utterly fantastic. Here’s some pics taken while I was there. A co-worker took them with a point-n-click so they are not the best quality.

Pic #1: Is that an utter in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

This guy was just a hottie. I wish the picture would have turned out better:

On a another note, the boss came in her house shoes. They were so cute that I stole them from her and wore them out to lunch. I also wore them to the Health Scare. THEY ARE NOT comfortable on concrete for long hours at a time.