And now, a PSA:

UNE takes care of its students and staff. Why do I say this? I've been working there just shy of one year and have been bombarded with gratefully able to participate in a variety of employee and university-wide health events. Back in August of 2011 there was the wellness walk and in the fall there was the HR wellness fair (I won a cheese plate in the raffle! win!). Every 8 weeks or so UNE also sponsors a Red Cross Blood drive (I donate every time; you're welcome hospitals) and just today I participated in the university wide health and wellness fair. Kendra and I received seated massage and foot reflexology. They offered bio-metric screenings for anyone that wanted one, with nurses on staff to discuss results. My health is very important to me, so naturally I partook in the screenings. Okay. Maybe there was also free food. And the massage was a nice incentive. But still. I did it and that's all that matters.

Seriously. Donate blood. It's free and it saves 3 lives!

The results of my screening were very good. Included were BMI, HDL (the good cholesterol), blood pressure, blood glucose, body fat percentage, heart disease risk, etc. I basically got an A+ on everything. I only recently (since our engagement party) obtained a scale but I'd say since my freshman year of undergrad, I've lost 30 pounds. This morning when I stepped on the scale as I do about 2 times a week,  I hit a milestone I've been trying to reach for a while! I spent the morning hoping that when I stepped on the medical-grade scale at the screening that it would read the same weight (it did!). The nurse told me to keep doing what I'm doing; and then she told me that she was jealous of my blood pressure (110/76, baby). What an interesting compliment. But, yay? I have very low risk for heart disease and diabetes, which is good since I have a family history of both.

Come to think of it, my family history weighs on my greatly. While I know that cancer isn't necessarily preventable and can strike even the healthiest of people (I'm fairly certain my mom was pretty healthy when she was diagnosed) I've been doing what I can to stay healthy to reduce the risk. Dad has a host of health troubles, but I know that much of his are due to lifestyle (he smoked for 40+ years [he quit], has a sedentary lifestyle and eats poorly). Still, there's history there, so that's good motivation to stay healthy. The secondary motivation is that I want to bear children in the next 5 or so years and I want to be healthy for that.

Someday, we'll get rid of cancer. I know it!

Ethan and I have decided we need to take up a sport together (I know, I know, me? A sport?) to get/stay more active. After much consideration of our terrible skeletons and my severe lack of balance, etc, we landed on tennis. I always liked tennis when we played at school and I am killer at Wii tennis. It's medium impact (+1 for being joint friendly) high intensity & cardio (+2 for exercise) and will be an excellent test in hand-eye coordination (-2 because I suck at this part). Stay tuned for some hilarious tennis-related updates this spring. I am sure I'll be a hot tennis-mess but at least we'll be working out together.

This is a preview of what I'll probably look like playing tennis!

I'm feeling pretty good overall these days. The tests today showed that I am actually healthy, and I think that's pretty damn hip.