Sunday Catch Up

I've gone another week without posting but I promise, I'm still going at it. I haven't been quite as consistent this week but it's been an off week for me. Work is even busier (not production wise, just for me) so I've had to really force myself to do something because most days I just want to go home and chill.

Here's what I accomplished this week.

• Monday (9/9) - 3.12 miles walking
• Tuesday (9/10) - 5.03 miles on the bike
• Wednesday (9/11) - 1.54 miles walking
• Friday (9/13) - 10 miles on the bike
• Saturday (9/14) - off day/show
• Sunday (9/15) - 15.08 miles on the bike

I rode the bike on Tuesday because I had a class at one of the plants closer to me so I wasn't near the park near my work but since I was close to home, I came home and hit the bike. Thursday was the only day that I couldn't just get myself motivated.

Now that I have separated both of my challenges, I don't get too far each week on the Star Wars one.

I am over half way complete now though so there's that. The only thing I unlocked this week was this.

I unlocked it earlier in the week. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue doing the Star Wars challenges or not. I like them but I'm liking the Route 66 one as well.

Of course, the Route 66 one is huge so it feels like I make very little progress but I knew that going in. I might do a city like Paris or maybe even Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon after the Star Wars one for my walking.

Here's where I am on the map, I'm just outside Pontiac, IL. The red balloon thingy is a pace marker which I haven't really investigated into what that really is. 

There's also this.

I didn't mark down a specific weight to start at but I was just over 300 lbs. I know it really doesn't seem like much but I haven't really changed my eating habits. I still eat out a lot so just adding some motion in my life is helping, even if it's slowly.

Sunday Catch-up

I'm still working out. I wasn't as great this past week but I did alright.

Monday (Labor Day) - Road the bike for 15.04 miles

Tuesday - Walked 3.05 miles

Wednesday - Walked 1.55 miles

Thursday - Day off, rain

Friday - Walked 1.54 miles

Saturday - Day off, show day.

Sunday - Biked for 15.07 miles

So not too shabby. I should have walked on Thursday. It rained really hard but it was finished by the time I left work. I was afraid I'd end up on the other side of the lake when it started again and I would have been screwed. Hind Sight says I probably would have been ok.

I unlocked this earlier in the week from the Star Wars Conqueror's Challenge.

Other than that, those have been quiet. Now that I'm doing the biking on the Route 66 one, the Star Wars one has slowed down.

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I started a new blog for myself. I titled it Mental Health. It's a private blog so there won't be an address or anything but it's a place to put my private thoughts about my Mental Health. I've struggled with a few things recently so it's a place for me to unload my feelings.

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Not looking forward to work tomorrow. My partner in crime there has left. She did a lot for me, work and personally. She took a lot of stuff off my plate which allowed me to get a lot of stuff done that I didn't have time for and we made a great team and I'm going to miss that. She was also very good for my head because she was very good at getting me out of bad moods which work tends to put me in. I'd like to think that we were both good for each other in that aspect. So tomorrow starts work life without Lex and I am not looking forward to it.

A Week in the Life of

I'm still finding my way around these posts. They are essentially what happened in the last week. I haven't really had an order to them yet. I just went through my "A Day in the Life" posts to see if I had anything to talk about this week. I'm not going to rehash my Instagram posts, you can follow me on there if you want to see my post a day.

Monday night we didn't have much to walk so I searched for a movie. If I don't already know of a movie, I just pick one of the streaming services or on demand and go through it until we find one. We ended up watching Unknown, I believe it was on Netflix. It stars Liam Neeson and we hadn't seen it so we figured why not. It wasn't anything special but it was a decent movie. Enough to entertain us for just under 2 hours.

Had Taco Bell this week. If you don't know my history with Taco Bell, here's a quick reference. Used to love it, had it all the time (see my stats post). Last year they took a bunch of stuff off their menu, including most of my usual order. Haven't been going there nearly as much but my wife likes the Queserito so I would just grab some chili cheese burritos. The problem with that is her order can only be ordered through the app, not a problem, use it anyways, but the chili cheese burritos aren't on the app, no idea why. So basically I get annoyed every time I go there because I have to do an online order as well as one at the drive-thru. When I get to the last window, they'll hand me one order and I always have to explain that the next one is mine as well. Like I said, it was just annoying.

Well this week when we grabbed it, I noticed a Club Chalupa and tried it. It was pretty good so I can order that now instead of having 2 orders. They also announced that they were bringing back their Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes which is one of the items they took away that I liked. So my Taco Bell intake is looking up. I just hope the Club Chalupa isn't a promotional, it wasn't listed there on the app so I think it might be a regular menu item.

I pass a mall on the way home from work and it's a dead mall (see above). A really dead mall. There are only a few stores left in it besides the anchors (JC Penny and Hobby Lobby). There are supposed to be 4 anchor stores and even 2 of those are empty. Basically, it makes it nice to walk, not many people and warmer than walking outside right now. I see more mall walkers than customers. I ended up walking 3 days last week. I started Tuesday, went back on Wednesday. Thursday my sister-in-law and niece were visiting my wife so I came straight home after work to see them. My wife tends to visit all of her family in the middle of the week while I'm at work so I don't see them often. My mom ended up meeting me out there and we walked on Friday. I went over 2 miles each day which is my goal, for now. 

Part of the problem I have with walking at home (other than it's winter right now) is by the time I get home, I just want to shower and relax so I talk myself out of walking. That's the main thing on why this mall walking might be good for me. We'll see how long I sustain it though, because to be honest, I really don't enjoy walking.

We had to work yesterday (Saturday) and I might have stopped there on the way home but I had made plans to have lunch with my youngest daughter. Her girlfriend and my wife, neither care for Hacienda and we both like it so we tend to go there. It's the second time we've done it, I'm going to try to make it a regular thing. Every month or two or something. Otherwise, I don't see her much as she doesn't visit us much more. Even though she is in the area all the time. Damn kids!

I ended up walking 7.75 miles at the mall this week. Hopefully I can make it a regular thing since last time I went to the doc, for the first time I was over 300 lbs. Being 6'3" helps we wear it better than most but I would like to get rid of some of my gut. I've been pretty steady in the 290's for a long time so it's not like I put on a ton of weight but there's something about that number, 300 pounds just seems like a lot.

Not to much going on at work. The city surprised us with an inspection on Wednesday. During our Q&A, he mentioned that he only schedules us for an hour because he knows the walk through never takes long because we are always on point. He said some places he goes he has to schedule 4 hours. Everything went well, he even contacted our EHS coordinator and told her that he was impressed with our staff (which is me and our EHS person) so that's always good to hear.

The wife and I went out Friday night, it seems to be becoming a regular thing where we drop my son off at work and than go to 5-Guys burger and fries (they have curb side pick-up) and than we just sit in the parking lot in our car and have supper. Afterwards we run down to Steak 'N Shake and grab a couple of shakes, and again, sit in the parking lot and have our dessert. It really is the perfect date night for us. We enjoy the food and I would rather sit in the car, listen to our tunes and enjoy a meal than be stuck in a restaurant where people are annoying and it's usually loud so you can't really talk that well. My wife has issues with a lot of noise, it makes it hard to focus when there is a lot going on so it's a nice date night for us. We can even stay in our PJ's which is what we tend to do. Don't worry, our PJ shirts are regular shirts so you won't notice unless you see our PJ bottoms.

Not sure how much this will continue though because my son is taking his driver's test on Tuesday. Hopefully, he'll pass it so we don't have to drive him anymore. The taking him isn't a big deal. The picking him up between 10 and 11 pm is because on work nights, I'm in bed around 10 and my wife has trouble driving at night. She goes and gets him, luckily traffic isn't really bad and it's not real far. Her eyes have issues with the lights coming at her as they don't dilate very quick so she can't go from darkness and than a light in her face.

I guess that's all for last week. No real plans as of this week other than my son's driving test. Hopefully see you all back here next week.

Day #2 - Indiana

I went 2.13 miles yesterday, which isn't bad for a non work day. I did take Milo for a walk again but it was a little shorter. I tried to get a quick walk in before I had to go pick up my son from his friends house which ended up being a good thing as it started to rain on my way to get him.

So at a little more than 2 more miles, I still haven't made it out of the neighboring town on my way to SLC. I guess that's why it plans on being a years journey. I found a small house with no one home this time, so I didn't have to use the small axe that I found at the previous stop. I still have my gun and some ammo but as I said yesterday, I needed something quieter. The house next door I could hear banging so I'm guessing the previous occupants are trapped inside. The other side of the house had a creek so I really only have to keep an eye out towards the front and the one side.

I went back to work today, so I promise tomorrow will be more than 2 miles. It was raining when I got home as well so I didn't add to that, at least that's the excuse I'm using. It's certainly not because after 4 days off and sleeping in that I couldn't go to sleep last night until about 1:30 in the morning and had to get up at 5:15 this morning. Which caused me to nap in the recliner once I got home and showered. Definitely not that.

I've been saving the stuff I've been posting on this blogs Facebook page and I got way behind on posting them here because I've been slacking. So since right now, I'm posting daily, I'll post some at the bottom of these posts.

Walking and 7-Eleven suck

Just to let you know how hard this challenge (yesterdays post) is going to be for me, I was going to go walking today after work, you know, kind of a warm up before the challenge starts tomorrow. About 2 o'clock, at work, I got stuck outside in the pouring rain as a sudden storm hit and I was on my forklift trying to get some things inside. I was drenched. I wasn't all that concerned with being wet since I was getting off in half an hour anyways but when I got home, I helped the wife put the ice maker back together (she was trying to figure out why it stopped working) and I still planned on going but do you know what ultimately prevented me from going? My socks were wet. Yup, there you have it.

My thought process was at first, I'll just go for a walk in my work boots (they look like tennis shoes/sneakers) so I don't have to change my socks. Then my though process was, it probably won't be good to walk in wet socks, I'll probably end up with blisters or something. Then I was thinking, but I don't want to change socks just to go walking and then take them off to shower. So I just didn't go.

Do you see how easy it is to talk myself out of going? Do you see how hard it is going to be to do this challenge?

I'm going to give it a go though, we'll see how well I do.

If you follow me on Twitter, or should I say, if you actually read what I tweet because I'm sure the majority, if not all, of my followers don't even know I exist, then you saw this tweet earlier, and I shall explain here.

On my way home, I took an alternate route than I normally take. Because we got blasted with rain, the road I work on floods and I mean floods. I have seen cars get stalled trying to drive though it. So I took the back route out to avoid that and I needed gas, so I hit the 7-Eleven that I pass by. Normally I hit, what we call, the Smith's Food Mart which is on my usual route. It's been there for years and I tend to me loyal to places that never give me any problems. Plus they have greasy gas station food that I love (Pizza Puffs). Yummy! I'm hungry now.

Anyways, I went to 7-Eleven and inserted my card, put in my pin number and it said cancelled by cashier. In other words, they run a certain amount on my card at the start to make sure you can afford gas and I didn't have enough in it. Now, I was only going to put $10 in, for one, I get paid Friday. Two, $10 will last me a week because for the most part, I drive back and forth to work and that's pretty much it. I only work 4 miles from work, 8 miles round trip so I don't use much gas. Since mid-February, I have only gone 2625.7 miles.

I absolutely hate the fact that these places do this. I understand they are protecting themselves from thieves but you know what, don't punish me for the criminals out there. I understand, but it doesn't make me happy. So I got in my car and drove off. I do pay at the pump because I don't want to go inside and pay. I don't want to roll my windows up, take the keys out and lock the car when I should be able to scan my card and never leave the area around my car. Not to mention, people suck so if I can avoid a few, I'm out. I drove off and went to Smith's, which is a Phillips 66 station. Put my card in, put $10 in and left.

For the record, do you know how much I had in my account when 7-11 denied my card? $65 was my balance. My car won't even hold $65 of gas at the current cost. They must be running it for $100 to see if you deem worthy for their gas.

I will be avoiding 7-Elevens from now on.

Weekly Catch-Up

I updated my cover photo again this week.  The Walking Dead starts in 2 weeks.

Updated my profile pic too.  This was taken awhile ago but I thought it was fitting.

I created this ecard after my daughter came home with a popped tire.  She said she slid into a curb at Walmart, which I believe, but she said that she is so unlucky.  That I don’t believe, I’ve seen the way she drives and know the way she lies.

I was really proud of both of them but Trevor is the one that usually does really well so it was a surprise to see Samantha come home with the 4 star award.

It’s the same people, over and over again.  I know your stance, I know you hate Obama, say it, then move on.  Not post 10 different things saying the same thing daily.

I guess I didn’t do too much on Twitter this week.  Although, technically, I posted 20 tweets during this time.  This was the only one that won’t get posted elsewhere on this Weekly Catch-Up.  I post my Instagram, Blog Posts, and Tumblr links all to my Twitter as well.

Didn’t do much on Instagram either.  Just another picture that I post to make my wife jealous because Kitty likes to lat with me on the couch.

  

  

I love when Wil Wheaton is on “the Big Bang Theory”.  Maybe because he annoys Sheldon and we all know how funny Sheldon is when he’s annoyed.

  

  

  

Sawyer was hilarious on “Lost”.  Between his sarcasm and his nicknames, he was by far the funniest character.

Do I really need to say anything else about this.

More of “the Big Bang Theory” hilarity.

The greatest basketball player ever.

  

  

  

“Jay & Silent Bob” with Chris Rock

80’s awesomeness.

  

  

  

  

  

Another great show going by the wayside.  I loved watching “Leverage”.

Finished “Almost Kings” by Max Doty.  Review from WWW Wednesday #3.

This was a good book.  It follows a high school senior and his younger brother who is a freshman.  The younger brother looks up to his big brother and wants to be just like him.  Until he starts become one of the gang, the Kings, and he starts to see what they are really into and where it can lead.

This is more of a drama and not what I normally read, but I enjoyed it all the same.  It had a bit of a dark side to it which made it enjoyable.

Listened to (All Items 2) a total of 128 tracks.

Left to listen to (All Items) a total of 960 tracks.

Total of 1,088 tracks.

I haven’t done very well this week.  4 days off work and I only worked out 2 days.  It’s been so cold, I’ve been avoiding leaving the house.

• Worked out 2 days (8 days for the year)

• Rode the stationary bike for 10 miles (55.2 miles for the year)

• Walked on the elliptical for .75 miles (2.8 miles for the year)

• Did 14 sets of 10 reps at 50 lbs each (Seated Chest Press) (26 reps for the year)

• Did 14 sets of 10 reps at 50 lbs each (Seated Butterfly Press) (26 reps for the year)

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None

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Once Upon a Time, Hawaii Five-0, How I Met Your Mother, Bones

2 Broke Girls, Mike & Molly, Switched at Birth, Betty White’s Off Their Rockers

Go On, White Collar, Criminal Minds, Supernatural

American Horror Story:  Asylum, Nashville, Hot in Cleveland, Impractical Jokers

Necessary Roughness, Teen Trouble, Grey’s Anatomy, Millionaire Matchmakers

Double Divas, the Following, Star Trek (TOS), Beyond Scared Straight

Ellen, 1600 Penn, Heroes, Downton Abbey

Thoughts on Suicide – I liked this post, just wish I had more viewers to get the message out.

TheEx and the JackAss, episode 12 – Just more bitching about dealing with theEx and her JackAss.  Mainly about how they can’t tell time.

WWW Wednesdays #3 – My latest on this meme.

My Kind of Humor #6 – Just the latest funnies from my Random Thought’s Facebook page.

Randomness – I talk about a guy at work and his obsession with sweatshirts, about my kids and their schoolwork and also my disappointment on not going to a card show this weekend like I planned.