Day 184: Day 7 of Vacation !

 

Today is day 184 of Nutrisystem 2.0 and today is the day .. the day I go back to 100% compliance with Nutrisystem. The house has been purged of candy, hot dogs, ice cream and other poor food choices. Well, at least it was as of this morning .. but things change on a dime around here !

Breakfast was 150 calorie pancakes with sugar free syrup and an 80 calorie yogurt. Lunch was a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt. Dinner was a 220 calorie chicken fettuccine alfredo over riced cauliflower. I didn't have a morning or afternoon snack. Evening snack was some cinnamon cashews. Bag says 150 calories in 1/4 cup. I probably had 4 servings .. so 600 calories. Not exactly the day I planned !

This morning I decided to sign up for and complete a safe driver course, as it saves you 10% on the your car insurance for 3 years. I signed up via AAA and over the next 3 years I will save more than the $28 it cost. I started around 9:30 am and didn't finish until almost 5 pm. I took a break here and there but most of the 7.5 hours was spent on the course. It was pretty easy and I did learn a few things. Out of all the "quiz" questions in each of the 8 sections I only got 1 wrong. If you get a question wrong they give you another one (up to 1o tries !) and I got the 2nd one correct. I think you have to be a complete idiot if you can't pass this ! After I finished I got an email from Christmas Tree Shops that they were starting the liquidation sale at my local store. Although I've sworn off poor food choices I had to take a run there and get some of my favorite Gullon Tea & Coffee cookies. I looked them up online and Amazon wanted $10 a box, while they are $3.99 at CTS. I bought 6 boxes and got 10% off, so each box was only $3.59. They are big boxes with 4 stacks of cookies in each, so they will last a while ! I was going to buy some Victor's coffee but they boosted the price from $29.99 to $39.99 for a box of 80, and there were no signs to indicate any discount. Even with 10% off it would be no bargain. I'm happy with the Wegman's brand k-cups I've been buying and I have plenty of coffee right now. There were a lot of people in the store and the shelves are already bare in many places. Although I didn't go there a lot, I will miss the store. I always bought my porch decorations there and I got my summer bedding set there. I also got the tray that holds all my coffee syrups there. Today I bought an item I had never seen before. They're Platinum Kettle Cooked Cinnamon Cashews. They were $4.99 for a 13 ounce bag and with 10% off I only paid $4.49. I found this item on Amazon for $11.99 a bag !! Needless to say I will never buy them at that price. There are plenty of other brands selling the same product for much, much less. This was just an impulse buy and I only bought 2 bags.

Tomorrow morning they are coming to do the site survey for my garage door. The guy is coming between 7 and 8 am, so I have to be up early. I guess that's a good thing as I would like to get the lawn mowed and maybe wash the car. 

My vacation is drawing to a close and I didn't do most of the things on my vacation "to do" list. I have no reason to leave the house this weekend so I'm going to try and get a few things done. I decided to postpone a few things until after the siding is done. Things like washing windows & curtains & the porch door. This cut the list down considerably and makes it more likely I will start chipping away at it. I've done a few things but nowhere near as much as I should have. You know what ? I'm okay with that. I've enjoyed every single minute of this vacation ! When I was off Memorial Day week I didn't enjoy it at all. I spent most of the week sitting on the couch watching tv and feeling sorry for myself, in between desperate attempts to find a new job on LinkedIn. That week also brought the realization that my friend who made it sound like I was guaranteed a job had nothing to offer and clearly wasn't going to make any real effort to help me. This was the 2nd time in my life I asked someone for help, and both times I was disappointed. It's no wonder I am so fiercely independent. So to be able to enjoy this week has been a real treat. I did get some unexpected things done, like buying the garage door, fixing the low spot in the yard and changing over my home & auto insurance. I might have spent $2k for the door but I saved over $3k on insurance ! Starting in August I'll have an extra $430 a month to put into my savings, since my home insurance is paid for 1 year and my auto is paid for 6 months. This was a great time to change insurers as my home & auto claims have aged off, the ticket I got back in 2016 aged off and my credit score is perfect. I'm so glad to have my finances in order and I'm so grateful to my mom and dad for the inheritance I've received. The next thing I need to do it some retirement and estate planning. I'd like to put my house into a trust so that it can't be taken if I need to go into a nursing home at some point. My next vacation is Labor Day week and I plan to get my new NYS Real ID drivers license. I don't need it to fly this year but I don't want to wait until next year's deadline. It appears I don't have a copy of my marriage certificate, so I need to mail in an application for a certified copy.