Sometimes, I Surprise Myself

Okay, I admit I did it. I got up early (when I didn't need to) and went to the gym. I feel better about doing it, though I probably didn't work out "as hard" as I had on Monday. I found several muscle sets that were still a bit disgruntled from the previous workout.

I found out the Wife has today off. She does a lot of student training (think: interns) in the PT field, and seems to almost constantly have a student in training at work. Her current student is on her last week, and next week she starts a new one for another 10 weeks. She had talked it over with her boss (and friend) and they decided she should have a day off before starting another 10 weeks with a student that affords no breaks. I usually enjoy days like this when she has them off, and the boys are all in school. It gives us a moment to catch up between her and I. No, I am not talking about sex. Well, maybe sometimes.....

Anyways, so today she has off, but I know she wants to get some shopping for some certain things done and I don't do shopping. It's okay. Today is pool league night, and I usually head out in the afternoon to the pub. I get a couple hours or so in reading before the friends start showing up.

For now though, I need a shower. I got back from the gym just a bit ago, and I need to wash this stink off of me.

Oh, did I forget to mention I am down 5 pounds from last week.

PeacE

Getting Good at Non-Committing

Yesterday was, in my opinion, a semi-positive attitude type day. Talked about getting back on track to going to the gym, my weight-loss, etc. Slept very little last night, and there was no way I was going to make it to the gym. I opted for an additional couple hours of napping before having to go do babysitting duty at the MIL's. So, in yet another attempt at being optimistic, I plan on tomorrow morning to return to the gym. I need to either way to get my weigh-in done for the week.

Other than that, there is nothing of interest going on in my life. I spent last night listening to my music on itunes and doing crosswords (on paper) in front of the computer. Exciting, eh?

PeacE

Working At It Again

I have pretty much blown off working out at the gym and paying attention to eating healthy for over the past few months. since about the start of school (September). I have gone off and on to the gym during that time, but nothing that would be considered a regular schedule, that would be more beneficial to my whole plan of weight loss. Either way, it's time to get back to being a bit more focused on it.

This week our pool league starts back up. Once again I return as Captain of the team, though, last season I repeatedly said I did not want to do it again. Mostly because we had one player that would not contact me when he could not make it, and I would have to scramble around trying to find a sub for him with only a few hours to start time. Plus I covered his dues out of my pocket so our team would not be penalized later. I got my expense back at the end of season from our team monies. This season, we replaced him with one of the subs we were using, and he seems more dependable. With that in mind, I said I would Captain again, as I have the most time available to make sure everyone knows where to go, start time, etc.

We had a team meeting last Wednesday. Mostly it was just an excuse to get together and have a few beers. Either way, one of my friends on the team mentioned he had weighed himself and was not happy with the results, and decided he needed to work on losing a minimum of 20 pounds. This friend is not as overweight as I am, but we are within a range of each other. We decided to each put $1 each week, and weigh in each Wednesday. Whomever lost the most week that week gets the pot. No weight loss, or we both gain, the pot rolls to the next week. It's a small thing, but some motivation is better than none, and it helps us both. At our meeting, I recorded our weights so we can start this week. Surprisingly, even after not working at it for the past few months, I had only gained 2 pounds since Sept. Looking to lose hopefully a bit more before our pool league season ends, which is about Sept.

That being explained, I was at the gym this morning. I am sure I will be a bit sore tomorrow, but I am going to try to get back in then as well. I figure the mornings I take the oldest to early hour at school, I can head to the gym. Not many are there about 6:30'ish in the mornings. The RM blogged today that she has a Coach assigned to her from her company as they focus on having healthier employees. She is going to have her motivation, too!

It's so easy to make this all sound so great on a Monday morning when I am not sore, high on natural chemicals from my workout. I am sure tomorrow I will return the the grumpy ass I usually am.

PeacE

Yeah, Whatever

I have been boring this week. Actually, I have been bored this week, too. My life is just so exciting.

Not much has been going on. I have been reading more than anything these past weeks since the new year started. I am on Goodreads.com, and they had this little thing to challenge you to read so many books for this new year. No prize if you win, I guess just the personal satisfaction you set a goal and read X amount of books. That, and it promotes reading. So I put my goal as 100 books for the year. I figure that is about 8 a month, and throw in a few extra. To date, I am 17 books towards my goal, and am 11 books (10%) ahead of schedule for the goal.  I am beginning to think I did not set a better goal for myself. Goodreads posts to my Facebook when I update that I read a book, etc, and when the Wife saw the post about the number of books for the year, she had commented something along the lines of, 'Only 100? I thought it was to be a real goal.' If that isn't support, I don't know what is.

So I have been reading much of the Lee Child series on the character Jack Reacher. Yes, Tom Cruise is in the movie with that name, taken from the book 'One Shot' (which is like book 8 or 9 in the kind of order for the books). I even watched that movie this past week, after reading the book. Again, Hollywood depresses me when they do a movie adaptation from a book. So many details left out, and changes to the story line.... sigh.

Well, it is Friday, and I have other things to catch up on. No major plans for the weekend except getting the Wife to pick out a new cell phone. (Rolling eyes).

PeacE

Lesser Mortals

My buddy, Scotty B, came up years ago with a term for most of humanity. It became a term we used quite a bit back then and over the years, it has been a very common insult, or under the breath muttering, of mine. It carries a definitive meaning, and to those that it is applied to, it fits. I was around many Lesser Mortals last night.

My Kindle was low on the battery, so I plugged it in to be charged. I had just charged it up the night before, but evidently I made the mistake of forgetting the wi-fi was turned on, and drained the battery quicker. No big deal, except I was getting ready to head out to the pub for a bit, and wanted to bring it to read, as per my norm. There was no way the short amount of charge it had left was going to last an hour, let alone the maybe two I was looking to have for reading. Reluctantly, I plugged it in to charge (after turning off the wi-fi) and grabbed a physical book to take with me.

Once I got situated at the pub, they started coming at me. 'Oh my! You don't have your electronic book reader!', and 'You're reading an actual book?' had to be the two most common phrases I heard last night. Of course, they weren't just saying it while passing me by, or maybe I just overheard it in general. No, they had to interrupt my reading to say this.

I hate being interrupted while reading.

My friends have gotten used to it, and they will wait a moment next to me, knowing that when I reach the end of a paragraph, I will shut it off. But other people don't think about courtesy. They are incapable.

Lesser Mortals, indeed.

PeacE

Have You Heard of the Flu?

It never seems to fail, that the kids will get sick EVERY year. Usually, it seems to fall around the Christmas break from school. I had hoped it would not be coming around, since the kids seem to get through that period just fine this time around. I guess it was not to be. Last night the youngest had a temp of 101. We did the typical parent thing, gave him some ibuprofen to help bring it down. This morning it had risen to 103. Another does of meds, and he will be staying home today from school. He doesn't appear to be miserable, aside from the temp, so maybe it won't be bad, and an even bigger maybe - maybe he won't pass around whatever he has got.

He is over at the MIL's this morning, hopefully returned to bed and sleeping/resting. Since it is Tuesday, it is time for the damn MIL shopping trip where I waste 2 hours sitting at her place. After that, he and I will return home.

That's enough griping from me for now. I got some other things to do.

PeacE

Weekly Wrap-up

The good news is, I don't have a cold, and I wasn't sick. Yes, it was some form of allergies, and have made a pretty good guess as to what caused them. The neighbors on the west side of our home, the Rednecks as we refer to them (no degradation meant to true Rednecks) had made a sort of 'fire pit' in their front yard and were burning "stuff" in it. By "stuff" I mean pretty much anything that would burn. Doesn't sound un-normal, right? Well, in a city our size, dust and other pollutants make the air bad enough, so we VERY frequently have 'no-burn' nights, especially in the winter. Most of this winter has been no-burn nights, but that does not stop the Rednecks. Daylight doesn't stop them. They build their fire in the front yard, just to come out for a 5 minute smoke of their cigarette. Wednesday, I had some errands to run, and as soon as I was out and about, all my symptoms went away. Yesterday brought a return of our regular winter weather (meaning 70 degrees daytime) and the Rednecks built no fire, thus, no symptoms. It comes down to some of the stuff they were burning caused my problems. We have seen them burn their mail (envelopes anyways), wood, pieces of cloth, stuff from a trash can that really appeared to be trash, and I could have sworn, some stuff that smelt like rubber burning. Of course, Phoenix has ordinances that you cannot burn your trash in city limits - let alone out in the desert with high-risk areas for fire hazard. I guess the best thing to do would be call the police, or their landlord... but the fricking hassle of it all....

So I am feeling better. The weather is better. When taking the oldest son to school, the temp being 49 is a WHOLE lot better than the 29 it was for a few days.

I had some other topic for discussion today, but now have lost that train of thought thanks to the Rednecks, and me thinking about how weird they are. I should dedicate some post to them and describe many of the things that they have done.

PeacE