Day 38: Gratitude

 

Day 38 of Nutrisystem 2.0 got off to an early start. I woke up at 4:30 am and by 5 I knew I was not going back to sleep. I decided to get up and take a nice long shower, which was amazing ! By 5:45 the indoor and outdoor cats were fed and I had 2 hours and 15 minutes until I had to be at work. I spent some relaxing on the couch but I also cleaned litter boxes and the rest of the laundry room. That job was overdue and I need to make more of an effort to at least scoop the litter boxes once a day. It would only take a minute, so I've just been lazy about it.

Breakfast was 160 calorie buttermilk waffles with sugar free syrup and an 80 calorie yogurt. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake. Lunch was green beans and a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. Afternoon snack was 180 calorie cheese & crackers. Dinner was broccoli and a 250 calorie meatloaf sandwich. Evening snack was a 140 calorie chocolate cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1150.

First workout of the day was the usual 33 minutes in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. I'll be doing this workout with the increasing speeds until I am ready to move on to the next level, or March 1, whichever comes first ! I start to sweat at the end when my speed is 2.8 mph and we hit the 8% incline. When this part doesn't seem so hard, I'll know it's time to move on. After work I had 2 workouts scheduled - the last 2 in the Mexico series with Tommy Rivs. I completed the first one before I had my dinner. It was just over 14 minutes and I started at 2.4 mph. With 12 minutes to go I bumped it up to 2.6 and then another 0.1 mph every 2 minutes. Once I had dinner I was too tired to think about doing the next workout, so I've pushed that off to tomorrow. I put in almost 60 minutes total on the treadmill and that is enough. 

My work day started off with a bang as 2 very old projects were finally ready to complete and close ! They dated back to May 2022 and I took them over from a colleague who was struggling. I learned a lot throughout the process of resolving them so I am glad they came my way. I've been with my employer for almost 38 years and I still learn new things every day ! This is what keeps the job interesting ! After I took the first look at the 10 new items from yesterday, I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon working on the post-completion tasks of the May projects and then closed them both. There was no sitting back to bask in the glory, as I had plenty of other stuff to do ! I ended up being able to also close my very oldest item, which dated back to July 2021. This is also one I took on from a colleague who was struggling. It was quite a convoluted mess and it took me some time to finally unravel it and fix everything. It also took me a lot of time to record the final summary of everything I did before I closed it out. I have several more that are ready to close but they still need some post-completion work before I can hit the closed button. Looks like I will be very busy next week and I love that !

Today was another gloomy day but the high was near 40. Rain started falling about 6 pm and I looked out at 10 to find it was snowing. We're not expecting much accumulation and temps are headed back to 40 on Sunday, so it won't be around long. Late next week we're looking at temps in the 50's !! If we get a nice day on the weekend I'll be rolling my car out to wash it in the driveway ! The weekend looks to be relatively quiet from a weather perspective so I'm planning on going to the post office and the grocery store tomorrow, unless the weather gets drastically worse. I haven't been out in 2 weeks ! 

Tonight I checked in on my bank account and also scheduled a few bill payments. I keep track of my bills on an excel spreadsheet and I realized I've been keeping the spreadsheet for 10 years now ! That's right - it has data going back to 2013 ! Life was a lot different back then. Alex was still alive and I struggled to keep up with the credit card payments and all the other bills associated with having a home and a car. Honestly, life sucked back then. The house was a disaster. My finances were a disaster. My marriage was a disaster. I was a disaster. I don't even know how I survived all that I went through between 1997 and 2014. Food was the only thing that made me happy. For years I lived in fear of the phone, the front door, the mail and my bank account. I was harassed by bill collectors for a long time. I was served with a lawsuit by a knock at the door. My bank account was emptied by a default judgement. The mail brought more bills and collection letters. My bank account never had enough money to cover it all and it was a constant balancing act. I made it work by running up credit card debt. My ability to keep the bills paid was the one thing about me that Alex admired. Too bad he didn't do something to help me out, like get a job. The worst of my money troubles occurred from 2002 to 2005. I was lucky to get a mortgage in 2005 because at that time they were giving anybody with a job a mortgage. I had a good paying job but I had a lot of debt too, so I doubt a traditional bank would have given me one. We went through a mortgage broker Alex somehow got in with and who knows what kind of shenanigans went on to make it work. Still, I ended up with an adjustable rate mortgage with a pretty high interest rate but the payment was affordable and rate adjustments were never an issue back then. I was approved for up to $125k and I am so glad I opted to spend much lower, buying my house for $63k. I don't think I'd have survived a $125k mortgage. I refinanced in 2016 and I'll own my home free and clear in 2031 unless I'm able to pay it off sooner. I had high interest loans on my cars for years too .. so getting my latest loan at 0% was a first and it felt incredible ! Life didn't really get better after Alex passed. I still had a ton of debt and about the only expense that was eliminated was the co-pays on all his medications. After he passed, Upstate sued me for unpaid bills associated with my leukemia treatment in 2009/2010 ! I ended up settling that debt and paid a lot less than I actually owed, so I made out on that one. It seemed like every step forward resulting in 2 back for many, many years. Life finally got better after the fire in 2017. Having my house completely remodeled at no cost to me was an incredible stroke of luck. Having all my furnishings replaced at no cost was amazing as I hadn't had new anything since 2002. I also got a little windfall after being knocked down by a car and breaking my wrist a couple months after the fire. I received $16k for that and I've kept that money in my savings account since I received it. Despite the fact that life was getting better, I was still relying on food for happiness. I moved back into my house and started packing on more pounds. The rest of the story is history. A photo my mother took of me on 12/25/18 absolutely horrified me. I was so huge. Deeply distraught, I finally took the plunge and signed up for Nutrisystem on 12/29/18. I started the program 1/4/19 and on 1/7/19 they announced my office was closing. I suspected our office was not going to be around much longer - my colleague and I had discussed it many times during 2018. Still, it was a shock and I was panicked at the thought of trying to find a new job. Thankfully I didn't have to find another job and 4 years later I am thriving at work. The office closing meant I could work from home 3 days a week starting in August 2019 and when COVID arrived in March 2020 I went to full time work from home. Sometimes it feels like there was some Divine Intervention at work, putting my life on a new track. The fire fixed my house. The car accident gave me a little cash cushion. The office closing meant no more long commutes, no more winter stress, no more $100 month parking and a whole lot less gas to buy ! All of these things helped me be successful with Nutrisystem because I was able to put all of my efforts into it. At the same time I was reducing my weight I also vowed to clear my credit card debt. I did that and any card I use now is paid in full every month. In 2022 my job title changed and I got a surprise raise. It's sad and ironic that losing my mother in 2022 also benefited me financially. I gave up the casino because it just wasn't fun anymore and I was spending too much money. Probably $1000-1500 a month was being wasted gambling. I wasn't adding anything to my savings and every spare penny was being gambled. Now I'm banking all that money. Having to move money from my checking to my savings is something new. Never in my life did I have "too much" money in my checking ! I also have an inheritance from my mom. I've already received over $20k and another $25k will be coming in May. I plan to use some of the money to improve my home. Siding, a new garage door, maybe a new front door. I also need new basement stairs or repairs to the existing stairs. I'd also like to do something with the front porch but that will depend on how much the important things cost. The siding and garage door are a must, anything else is just a wish ! With my recent performance review, the expectation is that my raise and bonus will be exceptional this year. I'll also get a small income tax refund. My bank account is going to be looking amazing and I am just so, so grateful. I do work hard at my job so I feel like I earned that, but everything else in my life just feels like someone up there waved a magic wand. Hopefully they know how grateful I am. I write about this stuff periodically to remind myself where I was and where I am today. I am very blessed.

On that note, I'm heading for my nice warm bed !