Sunday March 29, 2026

 

Well, here we are at the tail end of March and nothing much has changed. I've been on the treadmill twice this month. I'm also continuing to eat nothing but processed food and junk. Cookies. Pop Tarts. Frosted Mini Wheats. Frozen mac & cheese. Chicken nuggets with ranch. Hot dogs. Not only is all this crap bad for me .. it's expensive ! So I'm putting a stick in the sand today and saying NO MORE. I'm off my pizza kick because Walmart no longer has the crusts I like. I'm ok with that ! I'm off the pot pie kick because winter is drawing to a close and having the oven on for over an hour to cook one is no longer an attraction. The extra warmth in the kitchen during the winter was great ! I got off the couch around 1:30 today just to get dressed and put out some food the stray cats. I ended up spending a few minutes clearing some old stuff from the fridge and pulled out a bag of romaine I bought weeks ago. I fully expected it to be completely unusable but all it took was pulling off the outer leaves and the rest of it was perfect ! I cut it all up and made myself a salad. I used a package of the cooked chicken I bought on my last Costco run and it was delicious. I plan to grocery shop tomorrow and I'll be loading up on veggies. I want to try the pureed veggie soup like Lauren made recently. More on that later. 

I haven't written since March 1 and nothing much has gone on. On March 7 I went on a road trip with Rich & Barb. We went to the Mets open house at the ball park. Weather was great but it was boring so we left after the tour. From there we hit the highway and went to a Big Ditch brewing in Lockport. We had a great meal and some good beer. We stopped at a winery and did a flight of wine too, but I don't recall the name of the place. The family had a retirement party for Rich, Barb and I on 3-14. The meal was beef wellington and that isn't my favorite. For me the meat was too rare and the pastry was soggy. Everyone else raved about it .. so maybe it's me. Lauren had made some pureed veggie soup and it was amazing. I brought the leftovers home the next day and gobbled it up. I plan to try making something similar. It was just roasted carrots, red peppers, onion, garlic and a jalapeno. Drizzle with olive oil and roast then puree with some chicken stock and a bit of heavy cream or half and half. Lauren also made several cakes and they were my favorite: vanilla with chocolate frosting. I brought 2 large pieces home and ate it all ! Bingo at Point Place has been on hiatus the past 2 weeks due to March Madness, so we went to bingo at Willow Rock in Cicero. I was embarrassed to find my fat ass didn't fit in their bar height stools and I spent the first visit standing the entire time. Good thing it was only 4 rounds of bingo ! Food was great: I had a pepperoni calzone the first time. Last week we sat at a regular table and I fit fine, which was a relief. I wasn't going to go but Kim called me and said they really wanted me to go and I know they opted for the regular table for me. Hello wake up call ! We had fun and I had the sausage calzone this time. I brought home about 1/3 of the calzone the first time we went there but last week I the calzone was massive and I brought home half. It was super easy to reheat in the air fryer. We'll be back to our regular Wednesday nights at Point Place this week ! But first ... Tuesday is opening day for the Syracuse Mets and I am going with Rich & Barb. Weather is calling for rain and thunderstorms, so it's not looking good for the game. We'll see what happens ! I'll be bringing my umbrella and my blanket !

So that's where I am right now. I've been spending my days on the couch watching YouTube and playing slots on my tablet. I'm also playing Disney Match 3D and now that it has teams, I'm back in competitor mode and spending a lot of time on it. I'm also playing Cookie Jam again. I like the game because there is NO competition. I started playing Jackpot Crush a little while ago and it's already become a never ending cycle of hustling for coins. I am close to dumping this game. It's hard because you don't have "friends" to send you coins like Jackpot World, so if they don't let you win you are out of luck.

So I got myself up and dressed today and I picked up some of the clutter on the kitchen table. There is a lot I need to be doing and it would be wise to get the house in shape before the warm weather gets here. I have some work to do in the upstairs bathroom and I plan to get that done this week. I finally bought everything I need to replace the caulk in the shower. I also bought a new diverter spout for the tub, since the existing one leaks. That's easy to install - you just unscrew the existing one and screw on the new one. Run a bead of clear silicone around it and you're done ! I bought white silicone for the tub surround. The big job here will be scrubbing the shower walls and the tub. It is LONG overdue ! I likely won't do it before Thursday or Friday since I plan to grocery shop tomorrow, have the ball game on Tuesday and bingo on Wednesday. 

Before I grocery shop I need to make a list and figure out what I'm going to be eating, since I no longer do Nutrisystem. Breakfast is easy as I will do pancakes or waffles, with the occasional breakfast sandwich or eggs. Morning snack has always been a protein shake and I still have plenty of that from my Nutrisystem days. Lunch is where I am stuck. Salad is easy and I can add chicken to get my protein in, but will I get tired of that ? I suppose I could change it up and add a bit of chopped ham or egg. Afternoon snack is easy: fruit, cottage cheese, crackers, cheese. A bit of trail mix. Many options there. Dinner is another conundrum. Veggies will be the standard but I need protein too. Chicken every night will get old fast. I'm thinking of making meatloaf and some small hamburger patties for the freezer. Evening snack will be chocolate pudding for a bit since I have packages of it, along with 3 cans of whipped cream. I need to start making sugar free jello again for something different. I have plenty of that in the cupboard. I don't have a ton of junk in the house and that is a good thing. I'm working on 2 boxes of Pop Tarts and I have those for breakfast right now. I also have a 12 pack of Johnsonville sausage with 8 pieces remaining. The freezer has a bag of soup dumplings and a box of eggrolls, along with a lone pot pie. The rest of what's in there is veggies and a truckload of Nutrisystem quesadillas. I can have those for lunch for a while ! I just need to buy some salsa and low fat sour cream. I also have a half bag of corn and a half bag of tater tots. I'll start working on getting those gone. There is also a container of sloppy joe. I'm going to thaw that this week and get that gone. I have a container of leftover chinese in the freezer too but I'm to throw it out. When I had that it didn't smell right and the day after I ate it I had a bit of blood and some mucus in my poop. I went there just before they were closing for a few days and I don't think the chicken in the dish was good. They also didn't have tofu for the hot and sour soup but I bought it anyway and went to Walmart in Oswego to buy a package of it. I added it to the soup and it was just as good ! The wonton soup and the hot and sour soup were great but the chicken and garlic wasn't very good. I had no blood or anything after that one day, so I'm pretty sure it was the food. I also have the remains of a bag of shrimp from Christmas. I'm going to toss that as well. Next year I'm going to take more shrimp to Rich & Barb's house so I don't end up with so much leftover. Back in December 2018 when I decided it was time to lose weight I threw away a ton of food. I didn't think about the money since I was working and doing fine. Even though I'm "retired" now I'm still doing fine but I'm glad I don't have a ton of food to throw out. I'll toss open bags of old stuff. I have an open bag of pretzels and an open bag of chex mix that is months old. Both are headed for the trash. I have an open bag of Smart Pop but I'll eat that since it's relatively low calorie. I have a couple boxes of cookies from Aldi but I'm keeping those. There is only 9 cookies per box and I am not going to deny myself a sweet treat here and there. 18 cookies will not make or break me.  I'll have the coming week to ramp up and I plan to hit the ground hard on Monday April 6, the day after Easter. I am going to try using the treadmill every day but I'm not going to push hard when it comes to speed. I'll be 64 in August and at 300 pounds I can't overburden my heart. So my plan for the week ahead is to get the house in shape. I think the worst of the cold temps are behind us so I can put my living room back to it's warm weather arrangement. That will give me room to set up the Total Gym. My primary focus is going to be the dining room, living room, kitchen and upstairs bathroom. I got the laundry room in shape a couple weeks ago but I will spend a little bit of time out there as well. 

I also need to get back to blogging on a daily basis. I sit here on the damn couch all day long and the computer sits idle next to me. I often think about blogging late in the evening but by then I'm too tired and obviously I haven't been doing it. I'm going to relocate the computer into my office and start going in there every day to write a bit. There is a tv in there too. I just need to spend less time sitting on the couch ! If I'm honest, I really miss my job. I loved what I was doing and I was so good at it. I'm just glad I got my finances in order long before I lost my job. It is bittersweet, but mom's passing benefited me greatly. It paid for the siding job on my house and it is supporting me now until I'm ready to start collecting my pension and/or social security. I honestly don't know what I'd have done without that money. I hope mom and dad know how grateful I am for their sacrifices. We always tried to get mom to spend some of her money but she was so afraid of running out. I get that now !

I spent a little time getting started with my April bill transfers today. I still have $40k in my savings and the goal is for that to last well into 2027. I'll start Medicare as of September 1, 2027 and my car will be paid for in the same month ! I won't miss that $460 payment and I'd like my car to last a few more years. I just turned 30k miles so it should go a few more years even though it's nearly 5 years old. The state of our economy caused a $30k drop in my IRA but I'm hoping the market recovers before I need to tap into that money. I still have nearly $430k, so it's not like I'm broke. Winter heating bills should be coming to an end, so that is a relief too. I lowered my thermostat in the laundry room and upstairs and it has been fine. I put the upstairs and laundry room at 62 (it had been 65) and left the dining room on 68. That has worked great. Last week I decided to put the laundry room at 60 because it struggles to keep that room warm. I had the door mostly closed but I put a curtain up so that Minnie can go to the litter box and the cold air isn't leaking into the kitchen. It works so much better and the kitchen is noticeably warmer. High heating bills are not going to go away so it's up to me to manage as best I can. 

It's a relief to be out of winter mode. I always stress about the boiler failing but this winter I figured out how to add water if the system needs it and that saved me a $100 service call ! I also had some issues with my sump pump and I was able to resolve that too. Some pieces of wood debris had gotten into the sump pit and were keeping the pump from turning off. I fished those out and it's been working fine ever since ! I do have the float sitting too low and I plan to resolve that once it's super dry in the basement. I have some landscaping to do in the yard where the sump water washed away the soil. Every winter the outlet pipe becomes detached from the weight of falling snow and I'm going to figure out a better arrangement before the snow flies again. I'm thinking of using the A frame design that people use to protect their shrubbery in the winter.  Considering the snow we get, it'll need to be some heavy duty wood. Something as simple as that would work. I also need to change the design so that water is directed out into the yard. That will be summer outdoor project. I also want to get some something up against the house where the kitchen is to cut the draft I get in the winter. I'm thinking raised planter boxes. We'll see !

So today was a good day ! I felt good. I'm feeling more optimistic about things in general and most importantly, I am EXCITED about getting back on my diet and exercise program and getting this weight back off. I hate the way I look and feel and that won't change if I don't change ! 

It's after 11:30 so it's about time to wrap this up and head to bed.