Brrrr

For the first time ever, we made our goal of not turning the heat on until November. It's October 31 and it's still off. Granted, we really needed it a couple of days ago, but we stuck it out and made it. It's just so damn expensive to heat this place, so we try to do what we can. Tomorrow the switch gets thrown!!

We had a total of 4 trick-or-treaters here tonight. That's 4 more than last year. I have extra candy to bring to work tomorrow to give to the staff. I bet it's gone in fifteen minutes.

I know I had something I wanted to write, but I've forgotten it. Hope I remember it, if it was important.

Don't Fuck With Me When Bacon Is Involved

A few months ago Ken & I went out to eat at Cheesecake Factory. I like Cheesecake Factory because it's damn tasty. I don't get the cheesecake (because I'm still not quite to my goal weight) but I do get their Cobb Salad. It's really good, it's not a terrible choice for my diet, and best of all, it's got bacon. Anyway, at this particular visit, I noticed that my salad was bacon-free. It's not the first time. It was probably the third out of the last four times that I ordered it. But this time I was really annoyed. So much so that I went to their website that night and wrote to them. Not expecting anything to come of it, I actually got home a couple nights later to find a message from the store manager on my machine. He wanted to get things straightened out. He promised that the problem would be fixed and also sent a gift card to my house. A couple weeks later we went back, I ordered my salad and all was good. The bacon was there and I was a happy boy. Until tonight. We were back, I got my salad and it was sans bacon. WTF?!? So I just wrote another letter via their website and this time it was even pissier. You don't fuck with me and my bacon!! I really don't expect to hear much from this one. I would love to get a free meal out of it, but I doubt it will happen. All I want is for my fucking salad to be prepared correctly. I don't want it done wrong because the manager is cutting corners to inflate his bonus. (I wrote that in my complaint.)

Like I said, it sounds petty, but I was annoyed.

Happy Mother-In-Law Day

Especially you, Holly! :)

Another Sunday, another weigh in. I am 218 pounds!! It's the first time I've seen the 2-teens since the late 80s. I think it was 1988 when I went on a diet to try to lose a little bit of weight. I plateaued at 217, I believe. Couldn't get below it. Maybe it was 216. I'm not sure. But all I know is I'm so close to it. I've decided that at 215 I'm buying a box of Drumsticks and eating them all. I haven't had them in so long. But who knows if 218 is going to hold for another week. I was really expecting 220 this week. So it wouldn't surprise me to be back there again next week.

It was too cold to go out walking this morning, but I wanted to, so I drove to the mall and did an hour there before it opened. It's so amusing to me to watch all these people who are there way too early to go shopping but refuse to leave. Each lap of the mall I took I noticed that there were fewer and fewer available benches to sit on. You know, if you're going to show up at the mall and hour and a half before it opens, why not just go home or drive around or go out to breakfast instead of looking like a fool?

Foul

It's Saturday afternoon. I'm not at work, the house is quiet. I should really be in a good mood. But I'm not. I'm in a rather foul mood. This week has just been a bear and it's beaten me into the ground. Reasons?

(A) I think all the overtime I've been doing is really taking it's toll. I tried to get some more in this week and managed to stay 1/2 hour one night and an hour one other. Both killed me. I may have mentioned this before, but I work a 37 1/2 hour week. So if I chose to do overtime, the first 2 1/2 hours each week is comp time. My work week runs Thursday through Wednesday, so Thursdays I try to get as much of my 2 1/2 hours in as possible. That's the night I got in an hour. I'll try to motivate next week to get the other hour and a half.

(B) Friday night is my night to go out with Ken to our favorite restaurant. We do it every week. This week, when Ken picked me up, he told me our friend Carol was meeting us there. No big whoop. But when we get there, Carol says she invited a friend. Now I'm getting annoyed. I've had a crappy ass week and I'm not in the mood for new people. Just don't care to deal. So we wait for her friend. And wait. And wait. Finally, Carol calls her and finds out she's en route. And she's invited someone. Now I'm really getting pissed off. I don't like deviating much from my usual patterns. Friday nights are dinner at MJ's with Ken. Now I'm meeting two new people, and I've been moved from my table once already because there isn't enough room. And now I'm forced to wait. Once her friend arrives, we are still waiting. I know I'm probably sounding like an irrational child, and I'll admit to some irrationality. Sure. But I like what I like the way that I like it. I was so irritated that when we got home, I ate a pudding cup. And half a tub of Cool Whip.

(C) Tonight we're going out to dinner with a work friend of Ken's and his partner. I was already on edge about this before Friday night even happened. To restate, I don't really like new people. I'm rather shy when I don't know people and it takes me a little bit to warm up to people. I understand that I need to be in these situations to get to know people, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. I am positive all my years in retail have made me the way I am. I was forced to talk to the unwashed masses every day, all day, so when it came to my own personal time, I started shutting the world out. It's where I'm comfortable and where I thrive. I know I need to get out more, that I'm going to become a complete hermit with nineteen cats. I don't want that either.

(D) Don't ever go grocery shopping on a Saturday morning. People don't fucking move. I went this morning to get it over with. I'm trying to get chores done so I can relax tomorrow. I usually like to go grocery shopping later at night, when the store is quieter.

(E) I really pissed one of my co-workers off and I feel bad about that. On Friday we were joking around and I said something that he took the completely wrong way and blew up. If that was the effect I was going for, I'd be thrilled, but he was really, really pissed. He went off on his boss and left early because he was that pissed. Sure, he's got a notoriously short fuse to start with, but I didn't mean to push him over the edge. I sent him an apology email and will apologize in person on Monday. Truly, I feel bad and that hasn't helped.

I feel a little better now.

Happy National Mole Day

I'm not quite sure if the Mole we're celebrating today is a potentially cancerous growth, the animal or a spy. I'm sure I could research it, but what fun would that be?

I just went through my photoblog page and added titles to all the pictures as well as tags, so it makes it easy to search and sort out pics there. For instance, if you want to see all the pictures I have of myself or of my cats, it's now easy to do so. Whoopie!!

I'm a little peeved at Facebook right now. I have four Scrabble games going right now, with two of them ready to end, but I'm having trouble connecting to the game. Plus I have a new friend who wants to play me and I can't make it work. Grrrrr...... I should try a different computer. Maybe when I run downstairs to have some dinner I'll try it on the laptop.

Sunday

Happy Apple Day. In honor of this joyous occasion, I bought some Gala apples at the supermarket today. Well, only because the Golden Delicious ones didn't look all the golden, nor delicious today.

I've been really, really lax with this blog thingie this week. I've been pretty preoccupied, I guess. At work, there was a special overtime initiative and I jumped at it. I got to work 2 hours early on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and I stayed late on Wednesday and Thursday. Just the extra work really took the wind out of me. I didn't think I would feel so wiped, but it caught up with me big time. I had the chance to work both days this weekend, but I declined.

One reason was Game Night. We get together with friends a couple times a year for games and stuff. One of the couples, Tanya and Andy, are three weeks away from the birth of their second child, so we wanted to get one more get-together in before that happened. Lynn & Lori usually host the party and they're excellent hostesses. They kind of get stuck with it because their house is centrally located. It's about an hour away from us and I'm guessing just under an hour for Tanya and Andy. I had such a great time last night. And I ate way, way, way too much.

The after effect of the party was a three pound gain this week. I'm at 223 again. I'm not too upset by this. I know this was a direct result of game night. I weighed myself on Saturday morning and I was still 220. I should be able to undo the damage I did pretty quickly.

My feet have been sore. I don't know if it is the neuromas acting up or what. It's really starting to piss me off. I really enjoy my walking and this starting to have an effect on how often I go out. I have an appointment with the podiatrist in a couple of months. If I can hold out that long, that is. I need to set up the shots for dealing with the neuromas. Not looking forward to the treatment, but I am looking forward to the results.

Fannie Falls in Love

Fannie isn't the only one who fell in love. My friend Jay has been cyber stalking Ron, the contestant. I find it hysterical. Man does he ever wish he was Fannie Flagg in this clip.

Kid Nation

Comics

I did my monthly comics order last night and broke the $200 mark for the first time. Thank God I don't have any other vices because I wouldn't be able to afford them. I stayed an extra two hours tonight at work for overtime because I'm really going to need that check.

More About My Fat

I hit a significant goal today. The scale said 220. I wasn't expecting it. Last week it said 223 and I was hoping to just maintain that. But I didn't. I lost again. That brings my total to 80 pounds. I'm not going to be overly optimistic that the 220 will stick again next Sunday, but I'm going to bask in it this week until the next official weigh in.

I think part of the reason I was able to jump start the weight loss again was my soda boycott. A few months ago I stopped drinking soda for two weeks just to see if I could do it. Today is day 14 of my current run. What's different about this one is I've also dropped iced tea, which I love. Okay, I had one glass almost two weeks ago out at dinner, but I didn't order it. At the place we go to a lot, I always order iced tea. Always. This time I ordered water but the waitress didn't listen. And instead of a glass of iced tea, she brought over a glass and a pitcher (for the first time, even.) I tend to have five or six glasses and she thought she'd save herself a couple of trips. So I drank one glass.

I'm lucky enough to work in an office where the dress code is very lax. Since about April, I've worn nothing but shorts to work every day. Now that the weather has changed, I'm back to pants. But it's been six months since I've had to wear pants and my body has changed. I dug out the rest of the pants I had packed away that I outgrew. Reclaimed two more pairs of jeans, but they're just a little too big for me now. In April they were too tight, in October they are too loose. But I'm wearing them anyway. This morning I went out to buy a couple pairs of pants. I especially needed cargo pants. That's what I live in when it's not shorts weather and every pair of cargo pants I own are way too big. So I ended up with 5 pairs of pants. Tonight I decided to go through my closet and weed out all the pants I can't wear anymore. I pulled out 28 pairs of pants that no longer fit. I threw a couple away and the rest are going into storage. I'm down to about 10 pairs. I'll lose half of those if I lose enough weight to get down another size. Right now I'm in a 38 waist, down from a 44 a year ago. I'm almost to a 36, a size I wore in high school back in the early 80s. The pants I bought today were a little loose, but not loose enough that I could get into a 36.

I'm really proud of myself. And I will still be until I look at the scale in the morning. I went a little overboard on Saturday and if I did any damage, I'll see it on the scale in the morning.