Day 133: Shake It Off

 

Today is day 133 of Nutrisystem 2.0 and I did not want to get out of bed again this morning. The 2 Benadryl I took at bedtime last night might have had a bit to do with that. Why did I take Benadryl ? Well, over a year ago I had poison ivy and some insect bites after spending 2 days raking up leaves that had accumulated in the back of the yard over several years. While I was cleaning up out there I also cleared away a bunch of weeds and vines that I didn't realize was actually poison ivy. I am very allergic so I was a mess ! I also got bit several times by unknown pests. It took a long time for most of the bites to heal but there are still 2 that flare up occasionally. One on my right earlobe and one on my right arm. Oddly enough, they flared up after I raked the lawn Monday ! Not sure if it has anything to do with it, but I wore earrings for the first time in a while on Saturday and when I took them out that earlobe was bleeding. Then yesterday I noticed it was all swollen. I put ice on it and some steroid cream and then took the Benadryl at bedtime. That helped the most as it's somewhat better today. Still swollen but it looks a little better. It's possible the cheap metal of my earrings contributed to the problem as they sometimes irritate my ears. Hopefully it will clear up in a couple days.

Breakfast was 160 calorie waffles with sugar free syrup and an 80 calorie yogurt. I didn't have a morning snack. Lunch was a chef salad & 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. I didn't have an afternoon snack. Dinner was 2 hotdogs again. I could have finished the mac salad but it wasn't very good so I tossed it. Evening snack was a 140 calorie chocolate cupcake. Total calories are unknown and irrelevant.

I didn't use the treadmill at lunch today because I wanted to do more in the garage. Wow - did I get a lot accomplished in 30 minutes ! I moved the old lawn mower, snow blower & cat tree into the workshop. Basically anything I don't want I'm going to put out there and the siding guys can keep what they want and toss the rest. I had 2 or 3 old string trimmers, a hedge trimmer, a bundle of old metal curtain rods and an old light fixture. I also have a brand new fluorescent light fixture that I don't want or need, so I may add that to the pile next time I go out there. I also have a bunch of tool boxes and assorted tools that can go, along with the smoker I bought for Alex, that he never used. I even found the cookbook I bought to go with it and I have 3 boxes of wood chips that were never opened. I have 2 large contractor bags of trash (with a 3rd started) and a pile of foam coolers to get rid of. I'll do that over the next couple of weeks. Once all the junk is gone, I will pull the car out, sweep the floor good and then wash the car before putting it back in the garage. Once demolition is done I'm doing to put a padlock on the door to the outside since it's just a hook and eye right now, which is not very secure. The next big job I'm going to tackle is organizing the spare room upstairs. It is an absolute mess. I have some big empty plastic bins in the garage so I'll clean them up and take them upstairs to store my Christmas stuff. That is most of what is scattered all over the room. I'm on vacation in a couple weeks, so I'll set aside a day to do that.

Work was a little more productive today but it was so quiet. My colleagues are taking the news about having to work out of offices pretty hard. One cannot relocate as her husband needs specialized medical care and her mother is declining. Another has a teen that would not be excited to move. Not sure how her husband would feel either. My colleague Chuck is the same age as me and he has a daughter heading to college, so he's not in a position to retire and doesn't really want to move right now. My boss would have to uproot her mom, who lives with her, and her 7 year old great nephew who seems to live with her too - I'm not 100% sure how that relationship works. It would also mean her husband having to find a new job if they moved. I'm retirement eligible so it's not as devastating to me as it is to the younger ones without pension benefits. They stopped giving pensions to managers years ago so I am lucky to have one ! It would also be easier for me to move if I had to, especially if the company is paying ! I'm still holding out hope that our team will be granted an exception because of the unique nature of the work we do. Hopefully our Director will have more to share during our meeting tomorrow. This affects him too - he actually moved from Dallas to Florida to take over the center and now Dallas is a designated office and Florida isn't ! I find it hard to believe the company would pay for all of us to move to designated cities just so we can "collaborate". I get more done at home where there are no distractions. I went online today to activate my HSA debit card and took the opportunity to check in on my 401k balance. It has rebounded quite a bit since I last checked ! It was well under $300k last time I checked (and had been over $400k!) and the balance now is something like $316k. The cash value of my pension is over $200k, so if I opted to take that as a lump sum I'd be walking away with a hefty sum. Despite all the financial hardships I went through from 1997 to 2014 I never stopped contributing to my 401k. I did take loans and withdrawals from it several times over the years. Two were in 2002 when Alex was going to start a siding business and another was later that year when my father-in-law put the house up for sale after Alex stole all his money and lost it gambling. We had to rent a house and I had no money to pay a security deposit and first month's rent (total of $1200). I borrowed $600 from my parents (there is a story there) so we could get the house and paid them back when I got the withdrawal. There were also a couple of small withdrawals: one in 2005 to pay for our pool and one in 2014 to pay the funeral home to care for Alex. I also took a big loan in 2009 for a new roof and windows on the house. Since 2014 I haven't needed to take anything from it, so the balance has grown. Alex once commented on my ability to keep the bills paid. I don't really know what drove me and it is pretty amazing that I was able to juggle things for so long. Oh sure, I paid plenty of late fees but somehow things got paid until I finally gave up in 2003 and stopped paying the credit cards. I already talked about that several times. I'm in much better financial shape than I was 4 years ago, the last time we were all facing the loss of our jobs, so I'm not quite so worried. Will we dodge the bullet again ? I sure hope so ! So to the story of the $600 I borrowed from my parents .. I begged and cried and pleaded and my mother said no. She would not budge. It was the first and only time in my life that I asked for help and she refused. My father finally gave in and my mother wouldn't even write the check, even though she handled the bills. She made my father write out the check. I paid it back within days and never asked for another thing. I never forgave her for that and it's a big part of the reason I never ask anyone for help now. It's also part of the reason I was estranged from my family until 2008, when my father was diagnosed with cancer. I'll talk about that period of time another day. Here I was with 4 cats and 2 dogs, facing homelessness. No apartment would take us and although the house we rented wasn't in the greatest neighborhood it was fine for us and we had really great neighbors. My mom and I never talked about that day again, and I never told her how much she hurt me. Her opinion was that I needed to leave Alex, which was understandable, but where did she think I was going to go ? I couldn't exactly stay at my mother's house with 4 cats and 2 dogs and no fenced yard. Leaving them with Alex was not an option as he'd have just dumped them or let them starve to death. I did what I did to make sure my animals were cared for. If I had dumped Alex he'd have gone back to Italy with his parents and my pets would have ended up in a shelter. Maybe he'd have been better off, but I couldn't do that to my babies and shame on my mother for thinking I could just dump those sweet and innocent animals. In the end it worked out because I wouldn't have my house if not for Alex. He worked with a mortgage broker in 2005 when they were giving anyone who asked a mortgage. I never thought I'd be approved, because of my credit, but we did some slightly shady things to get everything approved. I've been paying my mortgage on time for almost 18 years now, so bending the truth a bit to get it approved didn't hurt anyone. I paid a ridiculous interest rate until my refinance in 2016 but I had a house and that was all that mattered. My mom is gone now and life worked out for me, but her refusal to help me in 2002 left a deep wound that will never heal. I wish I could say I forgive her, but I don't. 

In spite of the work drama I'm trying to keep working on decluttering and getting rid of the junk. This will help if I have to move and keeping busy helps ! I filed away a few things that were sitting around and shredded a few things and it feels good not to have mounds of paper sitting around. My next target is the stack of Reader's Digest I have sitting around. I subscribed several years ago and haven't read most of them. I cancelled my subscription last month, so I need to read through the ones I have and then toss them in the recycling bin.

The weather has turned chilly for a brief period .. low is 32 tonight but warmer temps are coming behind it. We're still going to have chilly nights but I'm ok with that as long as the days are warm and sunny ! I'm sure the hot weather will be here soon so I'm glad I'm getting the garage in shape while it's still cool. On that note, I'm heading for a quick shower and then bed. We are halfway to the weekend !