Another Day 48: Life Goes On

 

Holidays and weekends don't count, so today marks 33 days unemployed. Considering I'm getting paid, am I really unemployed ? I guess so. It's going to continue to be a scary place until I have a job and unless the Accenture job comes through, I don't know when that's going to happen. For now, I consider this time off to be an extended vacation. Today marks 7 weeks without a job. I haven't been unemployed since 1985, so this has been a difficult adjustment.

I am such an idiot. I totally forgot my tv was being delivered today ! I remembered as I was getting out of the shower this morning. As a result, my casino trip with Kim will be tomorrow morning.  

Since I was fresh and showered early, today was a good day to push myself back to the treadmill. As I sat here writing this at 9 am, I resolved to get dressed and put on my sneakers. It's cooler today, so it was a perfect day to get some exercise started. I was dressed by 9:30 but my tablet with iFit on it was dead so I put that on the charger and sat down with a second cup of coffee. I watched some YouTube and checked in on my bills to make sure my auto pays have posted and to ensure anything I need to schedule was scheduled. Everything is on auto pay except for my Chase account and National Grid. I like to keep an eye on these, so I don't auto pay them. My car and house insurance will be deducted in the next couple days, so that will be a big bite out of my bank balance. I have plenty of money to pay bills for quite some time, so I'm not worried. I checked in on my IRA and the balance has increased $7 or 8k already ! It will rise and fall with the market, so I know it can decrease .. but I'm going to hope it continues to rise ! I'd love to see the balance surpass $400k again - which is where it was before the pandemic tanked the market.

In the end my lazy ass never made it to the treadmill. My tv was delivered around 4 pm and is currently sitting in the hallway in its box. I will unbox it on Sunday just to make sure it's undamaged and working.

From a food perspective, I'm starting to do better. Yes, I still have Biscoff cookies in the house and I have a bag of s'mores candies that I bought at Costco, but once they are gone I won't be buying any more. I did cut up a salad and had that between lunch and dinner, so that is a good start. Breakfast was a Jimmy Dean delights breakfast sandwich and late morning I had a yogurt. Lunch was a meatloaf sandwich (still working on the dinner entrees) followed by the salad. Dinner was the usual pizza. In between I had 4 or 5 cookies. Before bed I had a chocolate cupcake with whipped cream. Yep - I am still attached to the can of whipped cream. I'm on the fence about stopping my pizza dinners, now that I found a crust with 100 less calories. If I scale back the cheese and pepperoni to reasonable amounts, I feel this could be a once or twice a week dinner. I haven't tried the crusts yet, so I'll reevaluate once I try them.

Facebook has a bad habit of throwing up "memories" from years ago and today's memory was a picture of Pooh from 10 years ago. It was from July 12, 2014 and Alex commented on the post. This was a little more than a month before his sudden passing on August 26, 2014. It took me back to see a tiny glimpse of the old kitchen. When I first moved into this house I loved everything about it as I'd been a renter for so long. It felt good to finally own my own home. Unfortunately the house deteriorated over the years as I had no money for repairs. By the time the fire came along in 2017, it was falling down around me. The floor under the laundry room sink had rotted and there was a hole in the floor in front of the door to the garage. I had put a board over it to avoid falling through the floor. There was a water leak under the kitchen sink because the lines had frozen during the winter. The laundry drain hose had rotted and when I did laundry the water drained onto the basement floor and into the sump, where it was eventually pumped to the outside. The blower for the furnace had failed due to multiple floods, so the heat came up via gravity, leaving the house cold much of the winter despite huge heating bills. The carpet in the downstairs was worn and filthy because of the dogs. The house was filthy because I was in a deep depression and barely functioned. After Alex died I slept on the couch. I lived on the couch, much as I am today. I slept there. I ate there. I watched tv. No one in my family really realized how bad my life was. I dutifully went to the casino with my mom every Saturday and she had no idea what a disaster my life was. They came to the house after Alex died and had a dumpster delivered, so I could get rid of all the junk. They saw the disaster the house was but were powerless to do much. I was pretty much on my own, much as I've always felt I was. Really and truly, the fire was the best thing that could have happened. The house was gutted and remodeled at no cost to me. I received a large sum of money to replace the contents and was happy to have all the remnants of the past gone. The only "furniture" left was the curio cabinet that I bought in my single days. I'm glad to have that remnant of my pre-Alex life. So 2017 into 2018 was an amazing time while I lived at Rich's house and watched the transformation of my house. December 29, 2018 I decided to address my weight and credit card debt. I was successful with both and have successfully kept my credit cards paid in full every month. The days of being "afraid" to check my bank balance are gone. Now I check almost every day to ensure things are being paid correctly and to ensure there is no fraudulent activity. My mortgage balance is about $26k and the only other big debt I have is my car. I refinanced the house in 2016 and it will be paid for in 2031. Mortgage is only $350 a month, so it's not a crushing debt. I owe about $18k on my car, which isn't bad and is thanks to a zero percent interest loan. It will be paid for in September 2027. I have zero credit card debt. I haven't been as successful with my weight. I did lose 150 pounds but I was gaining it back even before Mom had her stroke and that accelerated after her passing. Yet again, I rely on excuses for my own self-destructive behavior. So that little "memory" on Facebook triggered a flood of other memories. I just don't know how to get my weight and fitness back on track. Every day I say I'm going to start exercising and every day I don't. I feel like I am making progress with food, but it's baby steps and early days. I hate the way I feel and I hate the way I look but I feel powerless. I really, really need to get this Accenture job. I think it will give me a massive boost of confidence and allow me to overcome the final hurdle to regaining control. If I don't get the job I just don't know what I'm going to do.

Regardless of that sad story, tomorrow is another day. I likely won't get on the treadmill as I'm heading out early to be at Kim's by 9:30 for a trip to Boscov's and a short jaunt to Turning Stone to use my $100 free play and pick up a free purse. I will probably let Kim use the purse voucher if she sees something she likes. So Sunday will be the day to get on the treadmill. My tablet is all charged and the apps are updated, so I have no excuse. The air conditioner is installed if it's super hot. So I have no excuses other than pure laziness. I am again going to start with Tommy Riv's Road to Recovery series. They are slower paced workouts of less than 20 minutes each and that's a perfect place for me to start .. again.