Yet Another One

We had yet another busy day yesterday, and I want to tell you all about it, but it’s going to take more room than I have for today’s blog. So we’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, this is what losing a little over 90 pounds does to one’s waistline. I bought this belt in October of 2024, and the first hole on the left is where I was wearing it at that time. I began taking a weekly Mounjaro shot in February of 2025 and have been punching more holes in the belt as I needed them to keep it tight. The last hole at number thirteen was yesterday. Fortunately, Miss Terry bought me a new belt for Christmas, and I put my old belt away. But I got it out again yesterday while we were doing more yard work and wore an old pair of jeans that literally fell down to my ankles when I put them on without the belt. I still want to lose another 40 pounds, then I will switch to a lower dose maintenance shot of Mounjaro every week.

A friend I haven’t seen in a couple of years said she wasn’t sure she would recognize me after losing all the weight. That’s a nice compliment, but then again, half the time I don’t recognize people I know and see at least every week. I had to run to Ace Hardware yesterday. When I was checking out, a pretty girl turned to me and said, “Hello there” and reached out her arms for a hug. I thought it was nice of Ace Hardware to have greeters like that, but then realized it was my granddaughter, Hailey. She and son-in-law Kenny were at the checkout and I didn’t notice who it was until then. But I’m old, so that’s my excuse.

Congratulations Jane Selvaggio, winner of our drawing for an autographed copy of Police Stories: The Rookie Years by my friend Patrick O’Donnell, who was featured in our first Author’s Spotlight last week. The author of eleven books, Patrick hosts the popular Cops and Writers Podcast and founded and runs an 8,500-member Facebook group for crime writers that was featured in the Wall Street Journal. He has also hosted true crime television documentaries and consulted with crime writers for their books and screenplays.

As Patrick shares in his book, his introduction to being a police officer in Milwaukee happened during his first week as a rookie cop, when he had to decide whether to pull the trigger on a man running at him with a butcher knife. The knife-wielding man just killed his brother over the last hot dog. The book shares real-life gritty police stories, including a Thanksgiving stabbing that left the victim with a carving knife embedded in his eye, the sweet elderly widow who held a cocked .38 to a rookie’s back, breaking every rule to help a stranded mother find shelter, almost being shot by a fellow officer, a father who bit off part of his daughter’s nose, and a dying man’s last words: “Scooby-Doo shot me.” As Patrick says, sometimes the most unbelievable stories are the ones that actually happened.

We had 56 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon! Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 30 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

Did you know that you can find all of my books and sign up for my free author’s newsletter on my website at www.nickrussellbooks.com?

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.