Day 128: TGIF !

 

Today is day 128 of Nutrisystem 2.0 and it's Friday ! Woke up to blue skies and sunshine, along with a pre-7 am visit from Abby. I guess she was hungry, because she rarely comes upstairs. It was 79 degrees in my room when I went to bed last night so I actually slept with a window open for the first time this year ! The heat is off in the house and today I was able to spend the entire day working out on the front porch. It's not going to last, as the low for Saturday night is 44 degrees and I even see lows in the 30's next week. It's still early May so this is really not unusual. I'm just in a hurry for the hot weather to get here !

Breakfast was 160 calorie waffles with sugar free syrup and an 80 calorie yogurt. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake. Lunch was a chef salad & 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. Afternoon snack was 80 calorie cottage cheese & 90 calorie oatmeal cookies. Dinner was 220 calorie chicken fettuccine alfredo over riced cauliflower. Evening snack was .. another sleeve of tea cookies. Total calories for the day are 1200+. 

I got a 21 minute workout in during lunch and that was it for the day.

Work was busy but not as productive as I'd have liked. I spent hours working on one project and should be able to finish that up first thing Monday.

I woke up today feeling pretty good. It is clear to me that my body needs the supplements I've been trying to take on a regular basis. It also benefits from the magnesium & Metamucil at bedtime. I did forget to take the calcium last night, but I got everything else in. The weekend is usually when I go terribly off track and then I find it hard to get back into my routine on Monday. I did better last weekend but exercise on the weekend is still a challenge. Now that I'm mowing my own lawn I can count that as exercise ! Tomorrow I'm going shopping with my older sister so I will probably mow the lawn on Sunday.

I didn't feel like exercising after work so I decided to grab a box of junk from the garage to go through. Well, that turned into a stroll down my own personal "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". It was all documents from about 2000 to 2010. There were a lot of credit card statements, old car loan documents, mortgage statements, investment statements, lots of medical receipts etc. The box also contained numerous letters from collection agencies and records of that nightmare time in my life. One document contained the name of the witch that froze my bank account back in 2004. I decided to look her up online as she had a unique name and lo and behold - she passed away in 2010. She was only 38 but I couldn't find it in my heart to feel sorry for her. I still remember the day I discovered my bank account had been frozen. It was right before Christmas and she didn't care. I had to give them $1500 to get my account unfrozen and that left me with pretty much nothing and no way to pay my bills. I think I ended up having to get an advance from a credit card to survive until I got paid again, as I was living paycheck to paycheck at the time. I guess Karma came for her. The company she worked for came after me a second time and I settled with them, but that was the last collection I ever paid. Anybody that came at me after that was NOT successful in extracting one penny from me. In fact, her employer came at me a third time with a lawsuit in 2007, but the minute I fought back they put their tail between their legs and dropped the case. I suspect they went out and bought every aged debt of mine they could find because they figured I would pay. Well - in the end I screwed them because they took on my biggest debt - $26k - and got nothing. As soon as they received my response from the court they dropped their lawsuit and tried to get me to sign a "settlement" letter. I basically told them to fuck off and that I was not signing anything. I spent so many years struggling financially and those memories remind me why I'm torn about spending $42k to side my house. Things are different now as I have no debt other than my mortgage and car, but I still remember those feelings of desperation. I still cringe when my phone rings, even though I pay my bills. However, my heart doesn't flutter when the phone rings and that is progress ! I still drag my heels about getting the mail even though collections letter stopped years ago. I think that trauma will always be with me. I'm glad those days are gone. After I went through all the papers in the tub I brought in, I dragged the shredder and a big garbage can into the living room and started shredding. I shredded all of the unpleasant memories of my past. I know there is more in the garage and I plan to keep the momentum going and get it all gone, but this was a great start. It was shocking to come across credit card statements with $10k or more balances. Some cards I paid off and some I didn't. I stopped paying the card with the $26k balance in 2003 because I could only afford the minimum payment and it would have taken about 200 years to pay it off. Another I had would have taken over 50 years to pay off. I'm not proud of that but it was necessary. Walking away from the credit card debt (which was nearly $50k) is the reason for the collections and all the years of torment, so although it's not the fault of the collection agencies they don't have to be so predatory. You have to be a special kind of evil to be that ruthless. I'm happy to be on the other side of all that, sitting with a nearly perfect credit score in the 840's ! The good thing about the internet is I found a lot of resources that helped me clear old debt records from my credit report years ago AND it helped me fight back. By 2008 my credit report was looking much better, though my debt to income ratio was high until about 2016. I haven't pulled my credit report in years and I probably should go and pull the free one you can get every year, just to see what might be lurking on it. Considering my credit score, there is likely nothing negative on it. I found some $100 savings bonds in the box. They're nearly 20 years old so I plan to look online and see what they're worth. I don't think my credit union will cash them, so I may have to mail them in if I decide to redeem them.

I got done with the shredding shortly after 10 pm. I wanted to grab another box of stuff and keep going but I need to get up early to go shopping with my sister. It's nearly midnight now so it's time to drag myself off to bed !