House update

So, since my last post, we have done a few things with the house. We might have everything perfect before we die, that's how I feel and we've only been here a few weeks. I joke with my wife that I don't have a "Honey To Do list", I have a "Bitch, Do This list." Mainly because I always refer to myself as her bitch. She doesn't like it, but she doesn't deny it, she says it makes her sound bossy. I do these projects to make her happy, she can't do them, otherwise I know she would.

Last week, my brother came over and helped me replace the toilet. We wanted to switch out the toilet in the master bathroom to a taller one because my wife has relapses of her MS every so often to where her knees hurt and it's hard for her to get up from a low seating position. I shouldn't say my brother helped because he pretty much did all of it. The only thing I was there for was to pick up the toilet. He got everything together, but the new hose between the floor and toilet leaked a bit so we headed down to Walmart to get thread tape. We went to Walmart because A) I had just replaced my car battery and needed to return my old one for my $12 back and B) my brother wanted to pick up ammo which conveniently, is right next to the tire entrance.

Saturday, we ran to the Habitat for Humanity store to look around and donate the old toilet. We didn't buy anything, but I still find it odd that I was shopping there. It's all home supplies, which is just something I never shop for. After that we went to Pet Smart for some food. Doing that on a Saturday was a mistake, I had to drag Cheri away from the kitten adoption thing that they had set up. She even said that she could very easily become a cat lady with 1000 cats. Once I got Cheri up on my shoulders and carried her out (not really) we headed to Lowe's. Does Lowe's have a rewards card? I need to look into that because I've been in 3 different ones in the last few weeks and tend to spend a bunch of money every time. Up until buying this house, I bet I hadn't been in a Lowe's or Menards this many times in my life. I could say the same for the local hardware store up the road. I may have been in there once or twice in my life, but I was there and back 3 times in a 2 day period and a couple of times since. Now if I could just learn to actually do all the home projects. We picked up more paint and wood and some small stuff at Lowe's before hitting the grocery store (I've been there a lot) and headed on home.

Sunday, I slept in till just after 10 (I must have been dreading the day in my sleep.) I got up, put my painting shorts and a work shirt on and headed out to the living room. I painted the upper half of the living room with another coat of paint (Bungalow Gold) and touched up spots towards the ceiling, then I painted the lower half with primer and followed it up with a coat of an off white (Bistro). Let it dry and put another coat on, then let it dry and put another coat on, or at least three quarters of the wall since we ran out of paint. I wasn't expecting to have to put 3 coats on. After we let the last layer dry, we spent an hour rearranging the furniture. Cheri liked it the way we had it, but during the day, the light from the front windows glared into the TV so we were going to rearrange so we didn't have that issue. The problem was, the shape of the living room only allows it to really fit one way and that was the way it was originally. We figured that out after I moved everything 4 times. The couch and recliners were a piece of cake, the buffet, however, was not. The last spot we ended in, we quit, even though it'll probably get changed back in a few days, but I was to wore out to move it anymore and I heard a nice, hot shower calling my name.

                  Before                                                              After     

Today, I came home from work and sat on my ass all evening. I'm feeling it, my body is sore because it is old. I was also waiting for my trash bin from our trash pick-up that was supposed to start last Wednesday, but I'm still waiting on my damn bin. My garage is going to be completely full of trash at the rate they are getting me my bin. That's the excuse I'm using for sitting in the living room, I was waiting for our bin to get delivered, had to keep an eye on the driveway.

I tell myself this to make me feel better

So that's what we've done so far. I'll keep you updated with any other changes and believe me, there is plenty of coming.

• Den - Paint.
• Dining Room & Kitchen - Paint and Stain the cabinets.
• Garage - Rearrange and clean (clean probably won't get done till spring.)
• Living Room - Some touch up to the paint and put the wood (board and batten) up. Put some kind of tile at the front door (there's carpet there now).
• Main bathroom - Paint, possibly restain the vanity.
• Master Bath - Paint, possibly restain the vanity.
• Master Bedroom - Paint walls and possibly ceiling.
• Outside - Reseed grass (spring), stain the deck and the porch, put up a column, paint the door, replace the lamp post.
• Samantha's Room - Paint, take down fish wallpaper, put up chalkboard paint on one small mall.
• Trevor's Room - Completed.

Like I said, plenty to do. I reread all that and it makes it sound like we bought a dump, but in reality, the previous owners did a crappy paint job with colors we don't like, that would be most of our issues.

If you're happy and you know it

We've had a fairly busy last couple of weeks. In case you hadn't heard, we finally moved into our own home. After 5 years of trying, we have finally purchased a home and got out of our apartment. We pretty much got everything we asked for in our home. Big kitchen, garage, fenced in yard, big deck out back, a "den" for the kids to play their video games and the best part, all that in our budget. We closed on the 30th last month and came over here and painted my son's room and part of the living room, those were the priorities because the living room we'll spend the most time in and my son's room because it was a hideous lime green kind of color. His room got finished but we still have to finish the living room with another coat on the top half and we are doing board and batten on the bottom.

   

Before                                                   After

We are planning on painting pretty much every room eventually but we are going to do a room at a time to limit clutter of doing a bunch of rooms at one. Plus, we have a lifetime to make it the way we want. Trevor's room is checked off but we still need to get covers for the plugs because the previous owners apparently didn't take them off when they painted. They actually did a pretty crappy job when it came to all their painting. Lots of spots and drips, another reason we need to paint every room.

I just want to take a second to give a shout out to my family who are just as happy for us as we are. My mom, stepdad and my moms cousin have been very helpful with everything as well as my brother and his kids. On top of that, we've had many visits from family to check out the place.

I got the garage cleared enough (we were using it as a staging area when moving in) to get both our cars in, the night before the snow hit at that. Right now we have quite a bit of trash bags in there because our trash service is supposed to start this Wednesday but we haven't even received our trash bin yet. I'm hoping we get it by Wednesday so we can get some of it out. We already made one run over to the apartments to unload some, we were going to do that again today but it's really cold and snowing so we nixed that idea.

The only issue we had with moving was with Comcast. We moved in on the 31st and we had scheduled for them to come out on the 31st. They didn't show up. After calling 4 times (kept getting hung up on when they tried to transfer me) and over an hour and a half of waiting, they couldn't do nothing. They claimed we had an appointment on January 9th, but they also claimed that we hadn't called them since April when we upgraded our equipment. They couldn't explain why I would have called in April and made the appointment for January. The best they could do was get someone out on the 19th. No, I'm sorry we'll get someone out there immediately, no nothing, our next appointment is the 19th.

The only reason I called them was because it was a holiday and the local office wasn't open, I always go in because their tech support via phone sucks. So I waited until the 2nd when they opened up and went down and talked to them, she sent a signal and I gave her my phone number. Just before they closed, she called me and asked if the signal worked, it didn't. So she schedule an appointment for the 7th and said she'd call if she could get it any earlier. She ended up calling the next day and got it bumped up another day. So we ended up going about a week with no cable or internet. It wasn't as horrible as it sounds since we had plenty to do around the house and I hit Redbox pretty consistently for stuff to watch in the evenings.

When they did come out, the reason the signal didn't work was because it was never hooked up from the pole. The previous owners had dish network, that explained that. He also upgraded our modem to a bigger one with 2 signals so we are hooked up to the fastest one and the kids to the slower one. That's fair, they don't pay for it.

So that's where we stand, we are extremely happy to be in our new home. I smile every time I pull in the driveway and hit my garage door opener. I smile when I hear the kids in the den chilling on the couch and recliner down there. Let's just say, I'm smiling a lot more these days.

Saturdays TV viewing, sorry honey

It's been a lazy day today. Which I guess tends to be a typical Saturday for us. We've basically been sitting around watching TV all day, getting caught up on the DVR. We record a lot of shows so we're always running behind on stuff. Cheri records a bunch of stuff as well but she usually watches most of those while I'm at work. I don't have a problem missing all of the reality TV that she watches. She can watch all the housewives, singing, dancing, little people and crime shows all she wants, but I'll pass. Sorry honey.

We've been saving up all our episodes of the Tonight Show because we usually watch those and @Midnight when we run out of stuff to watch. I've been catching up on the @Midnight episodes at my moms because she hasn't been home while I'm waiting for the kids to get off the bus so in the past week and a half, I've worked it down from 20+ episodes down to 7.

          

I watched Z Nation while Cheri was making lunch since she doesn't care about that show. Then we watched Satisfaction which pretty much ran us out of all of our shows. I figured I could get caught up on some sports that I had recorded.

I usually record all of the Chicago White Sox, Indianapolis Colts and any Michigan Wolverine games and by any I mean all sports. If I record it and don't watch it live, I check the score and delete the games if they lose. Why would I want to watch my team lose? The only games I do anything I can to watch live are Michigan football and men's basketball games.

First, I deleted the Michigan hockey game, I only watch those when there is hardly anything in the DVR and it was still over 50% full. Then I watched the Michigan women's basketball game against UCLA. They lost the game but I rarely get to watch them because they rarely broadcast them, at least around here so I watched it anyways. I have a little connection with the team as I took my daughter up there for a basketball camp last season and she got to meet most of the girls. We also drove up there about this time last year because I had off of work and watched a game live. After the women's game, I watched the men's basketball game against Northern Kentucky from earlier in the week. Sorry honey.

By the time that game was over I figured I'd cut my wife a little slack and we watched a few episodes of the Tonight Show. We never used to watch these talk shows (other than Cheri who watches Ellen) but we love Jimmy Fallon so we've watched it ever since he took it over. We watched 3 episodes and then it was just after 6 and I knew the Michigan men's game was on so I checked to see if it was recording and it wasn't, apparently it wasn't on TV but I could stream it, which means I had to watch it live. Sorry honey.

I loaded it up on the WatchESPN app and streamed it to the TV through my Chromecast and watched them take on Youngstown State. They've looked great the last few games but we'll see how well they do when we get into the Big Ten schedule next week and the opponents get a lot tougher.

After that game was over, we went back to watching Fallon again and got another 3 episodes in before Cheri decided she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. So here I sit, watching more basketball. I've got a couple of Bulls games on the DVR as well so I'm watching them take on the Philadelphia 76'ers from last week. On the plus side, former Wolverine point guard Nik Stauskas is on Philadelphia so I get to check up on him too.

There's been a lot of basketball today, not that I'm complaining. Cheri probably is though. Maybe tomorrow we'll finish off the last 3 Fallon's and the 7 episodes of @Midnight before I go to Netflix, I'm trying to rewatch all the episodes of the X-Files before the new ones come on in January and I'm only midway through the 2nd season. Then again, I do still have 2 more Bulls games to watch, plus the Colts are on tomorrow. Sorry honey.

Star Wars thoughts

No, I haven't seen it yet, it's not that type of post.

I am of course, super pumped for the new Star Wars movie, even though I probably won't go see it for a few weeks. Because as excited as I am to see it, I still hate people more. I will not go sit in a crowded theater and watch it, I'll wait a few weeks until all the hype is over, then go see it.

I loved the original trilogy but wasn't a fan of the prequels. I know that's not a new concept but the reason I like the first 3 but not the 2nd 3 is a different reason then most. I got into the characters from the original trilogy and I think that's why I couldn't really get into the prequels. They weren't the characters that I grew up with, at least for the most part.

Before you start going, ahh, you're full of crap. It's the same for Star Trek. I loved the original cast of Star Trek, I love the original series and the movies, that is, up until the Generations movie because that was the last of the original cast. I like the movies after that, just not like I loved the others. I never really got into all the other Star Trek TV series either, Enterprise, Deep Space 9, even the beloved the Next Generation. They're OK, I don't hate them, but I don't love them either.

When they brought back the Star Trek movies a few years back, I loved them. Why? Because they were the same characters. Yes, they had different actors and they were more or less, prequels as well, but it was the same characters. Kirk, Spock and Bones were back, and it was awesome. I've loved that they brought back my love for Star Trek because other than watching reruns or Netflix (I rewatched the Original Series awhile back) that was all they were, reruns. Now there are new stories with the characters I love.

Back to Star Wars, I'm looking forward to the new Star Wars because a lot of the same characters are going to be in it. I realize that they aren't the whole story but they will be there and maybe I will like the future Star Wars movies because of this one where they are kind of, handing off the torch, so to speak. So, like I said, I'm excited about the new Star Wars movies, not like a lot of people are, but excited none-the less. I'm just hoping it doesn't disappoint with bad story lines for the original characters.

My daughter is going to see it tonight, she asked if I was jealous. I said hell no. I am jealous that she is seeing it, but no movie is worth dealing with that many people. Even the new Star Wars.

All the posters above (except for the last one) were taken from one of my new blogs Movie Posters. I only post posters of movies I have seen which is why the last one is not on it, yet. I have it saved for when I do see it so I can post it. I copied a bunch over from my tumblr account so I posted 50 a day for 3 days but from now on, it will probably only be a week, if even that so feel free to join along.

Weekly round-up

On Monday this week, the realtor let us into the house just so we could measure windows and stuff like that. We took the kids with us so they could check it out, they've only been by it, never in it. I think they are both pretty excited about it, probably get more excited after we paint since my son's room is a lime green and my daughter's room has a fish mural on her wall. They were running around the rooms excited, none of us really wanted to leave. It sucks that the house is sitting there empty and we can't move in until we close.

On Tuesday, we met with an insurance agent because we have to have home owners insurance in place before we close. We went ahead and met with him to get quotes on car insurance as well to see if it was worth it to switch those over since you get a discount for having multiple policy's. He told us about this little blue thingy they hook up to your car and it monitors stuff like how fast you're going, how close you're following other cars, and you're mileage. If you don't break any of the "rules" then you get a 10% discount on your policy.

• Speed - as long as you don't go over 80 mph, you're good. So as long as I don't travel, I'm good, because I tend to set my cruise over 80 mph. I'll be good around town though.
• Driving to close - It apparently monitors your speed decrease or in other words, if you have to slam on your brakes. I don't really agree with this one, just because I slam on the brakes doesn't mean I was following too closely. What if something runs out in front of my car or someone pulls out in front of me, how are those my fault?
• Mileage - I believe he said as long as I don't break 12,000 miles a year, which would be a piece of cake since I only use it to work and back for the most part. I bet I average less than 15 miles a day and my car generally sits all weekend because if we do go somewhere, we take Cheri's.

I'm not real impressed with them at the moment considering it's now Sunday and I'm still waiting on the quote for the cars. Tuesday will be a week. I'm not sure if it will be cheaper anyways since we are currently with Geico but we'll see.

On Thursday, we went up to the hospital to visit a family member, hung out with them for about an hour then headed home. Cheri annoyed me on the way home, I was driving on a back road but we were coming up to an intersection with a main road so the lane broke into 4 lanes and there was a bunch of people sitting at the light. Cheri glances up from playing games on her phone to see all the brake lights and freaked out like I wasn't going to stop at all. She screeched my name and grabbed the handle on the door. I told her she either needs to keep her head down or up, no raising it up and freaking out over nothing. No side-seat driving.

On Saturday, we cleaned out the kids room and packed what we could. We ended up with 8 kitchen bags of trash and 5 bags for Goodwill and a box of books for the library. It sounds like their rooms were filthy but they keep them clean for the most part. A lot more clean than I ever did as a kid, you could never see my floor. This was all stuff in the closets and clothes they didn't wear anymore. I loaded up the car with the stuff for Goodwill and dropped my son off at his friends house for the evening and went to the local Goodwill drop off. While I was unloading the stuff I noticed my back tire was low so I headed over to the Martin's gas station because they had free air. Nope, not anymore, now they want $.75 for freaking air, there ain't no way I'm paying that so I went over to my moms and used my stepdad's air compressor, afterwards I decided to Google and see if anybody had free air anymore and the only place listed was Casey's Food Mart, which of course, was right across the street from Martin's where I was. Guess I should have Googled earlier.

It's usually a tradition that the grandparents take the grandkids to cut down their Christmas Tree but they had to cancel because of the aforementioned family member in the hospital so she's been helping out a bunch with that side of the family. So today, my brother and I decided we would surprise her and we took all the kids out, picked out a tree, cut it down and delivered it to her house. My stepdad was there so we set it up in the stand and he trimmed up the bottom so all she has to do is decorate it. Which she is going to do sometime this week and have the grandkids over to help.

That's a fairly busy week for us, most of the time we don't do much. I just want this month to fly by so we can get into our house. It's currently 63 degrees here (average this time of the year is mid 30's and snow) so I'm expecting by the time we can actually move, it will be below zero because that's how my luck is.

Home, Kids and Work - aka: Life

As of right now, we are waiting to hear from the bank on the exact day of our closing. He was estimating the 30th a couple of weeks ago and I know that all we were waiting on was for the appraisal on the house to come back to make sure we weren't overpaying otherwise they wouldn't have given us the loan. We heard back from the realtor and they received the appraisal on Thursday so I would assume the bank got it as well. So like I said, we are waiting on the bank.

The realtor is supposed to take us into the house tomorrow evening so we can measure windows and get a better feel for the place. That will hopefully help us how to set up the living room. Not that it really matters, we can always figure that out when we move.

We've been trying to figure out the layout of some of the rooms. Cheri has most of it figured out but we're not sure how we are going to do the living room. I made the comment tonight that we won't know how to do it until we figure out where the outlets are so we can put our recliners next to those. Have to be able to plug in the laptops and phones while we're watching TV. There is also a smaller living room in the basement that we planned on hooking up a TV with a couch and recliner down there. We'll hook up the game systems down there as well so when the kids have friends over, they'll have a place to hang. Just one problem, we need to get a TV to go down there. We could probably use the TV out of our bedroom but it's an old one and it'll be a pain to hook up these modern game systems to that old ass TV. Needless to say, we'll probably be shopping for a TV when we get our tax check in the new year.

I'm hoping once we move I will be able to pick up walking again since I won't have to wait until the kids get off the bus at my moms. I can go straight home and go for a walk before they even get home. Not to mention we will be living in a neighborhood so I can walk without traffic as well. I also know how

The kids on again, off again relationship with their mother is off at the moment. They didn't want to go over for their last weekend because they can't stand the JackAss. You would think when your kids hatred for your husband out weights their love for their mother, that the mother would do something about it. The Ex got upset when the kids said they weren't coming over anymore and told them not to bother coming over for Thanksgiving and they haven't talked since. I'm not sure how long it will last, especially with Christmas coming but I know Samantha is actually ticked off at her mom at how she handled the whole situation so we'll see.

Not looking forward to tomorrow at work. We are switching over to a new computer system because we were bought out earlier in the year. Our system was newer then our purchaser and instead of them upgrading, it was cheaper to downgrade us. It'll probably be a mess all week.

Early resolution talk

Way back in 2013, I posted my one goal (resolution), I still haven't completed it. It was to own a home. It's not because of lack of trying though. We've been trying since then. In a little over a month it will be 3 years of trying.

We started off just trying to raise our credit scores. Mine was trashed before and then on top of that, my divorce trashed it more because the Ex doesn't pay anything off so I had to pay off everything that was hers but had my name on it as well. Cheri just didn't have a score because she had filed for bankruptcy when she got divorced. She was divorced sooner than I was but the bankruptcy was one of those that you pay off in payments so she didn't get credit for it until it was payed off. The problem was, when she moved up here to be with me, her Ex stopped paying his half and we had to pay it off as well. Basically, the exes screwed us, royally.

At the beginning of this year, we were finally approved to buy a house. The problem now, was finding one that we wanted. We have specific things we want in a home because we have no intention of ever moving again. We are 42 years old and we plan on dying here.

Our needs

• Decent sized kitchen with lots of counter space. Cheri spends quite a bit of time in the kitchen between suppers and occasionally baking. Our apartment has no counter space so she wanted counter space.
• 3 Bedrooms, 2 baths. We still have 2 kids at home plus a room for us so 3 bedrooms. 2 baths because we don't want to share a bathroom with the kids. In our apartment, everyone but myself shares a shower and that gets hard on occasion. If we had to settle for 1 bathroom we could have but we really wanted 2.
• A ranch style home. Between Cheri's back and MS, stairs are getting harder and harder for her to do so we wanted a ranch just so there were no stairs. Plus I'm fat and old so there's that.
• It had to be in a certain school district. We didn't want to change the kids schools, they both love where they are and we do as well.

That's it, which to us wasn't a lot. Out of those 4 things, the hardest one to fill was the last one. The school district we wanted to live in just isn't very big and when houses go up for sale, they go quick. It's the best school in that county by far. After spending a few months searching and not coming up with 1 house that fit that criteria, we started to look at having a modular built. We found land that we wanted, it was good location in the district, it was cheaper than most of the land so we checked into that.

The first thing we found out was our credit scores need to be even higher for a construction loan. So we starting working on getting our scores up again. This took a few months, again. When we were finally approved to build, the lot we wanted sold the week before. Any other land in the district we were willing to live, was double the price so now the home we had picked out to build wasn't fitting into the budget because the land was costing more.

Cheri still looked online every so often for homes to buy and she finally ran across one that we thought might fit our needs. She walked through it with my mom while I was at work and fell in love. I went through it the next day and approved (not that I would have said no) and we started on the paperwork to put in an offer.

That was about a month ago. Today, we are slowly packing up so we will be ready to move when we sign at our closing at the end of the year.

So we will start 2016 in our new home. 3 years later, we will fulfill the only resolution we've had for the last few years.

We are beyond excited.

Day 5

I took yesterday off as Sunday is the Lord's day. Not really the reason but it sounds better than the actual reason of I didn't want to shower twice. I desperately needed to shave (it's been 2 weeks), I shave with an electric and that's it so I can't come home from a walk and be all sweaty and then shave, so I decided I'd take the day off, shave then shower and relax. I told you the first excuse sounded better.

I had planned on weighing myself at work since we don't have a scale at home. It's a industrial scale so who knows how accurate it is but I guess as long as I use only that, it will show any loss. I wasn't really expecting to lose anything already, but I wanted to get a weekly record of it and Monday seemed as good as a day as any. Maybe tomorrow.

I did walk today though, I wasn't sure I was going to as they were calling for late afternoon showers, plus I had to leave work, pick up Cheri and then head over to our contractors for a meeting. When we were done there we had to grab the kids at my moms and then head home so I figured after all that, I wouldn't be in the mood, but I more or less forced myself to go. I didn't want to have 2 days off in a row.

I just did my minimum, it was hot and a little later than I normally go plus once I got going, my shins started to hurt again. I had shin splints when I was younger when I played basketball on asphalt so I wonder if that's not rearing it's ugly head.

My goal as I'm walking is to keep at least a 3 mi/hr pace so I was conscience of slowing down and I tried not to. Even as I was getting towards the end and my shins were really hurting I kept up my pace. You can see up above that I averaged 3.1 mi/hr but since I was actually leary of slowing down, apparently I sped up.

Apparently at one point I got up to 5 mi/hr. According to the app, it was around the 20 minute mark when I did which would actually be after the half way point. So kudos to me, maybe that's the real reason my shins hurt.

Not as hot as it's been but I'm sure the heat index or realfeel was hotter because it was pretty muggy and as you can tell, pretty sunny. Although as I type this, it's pouring rain now so I guess it's a good thing I went when I did.

Don't worry, I kept my music in line as well.

Between You and Me (DC Talk)

Shut Up And Dance (Walk the Moon)

No One Like You (Scorpions)

the Stroke (Billy Squier)

Knock Three Times (Tony Orlando & Dawn)

Get Stoned (Hinder)

Stolen Dance (Milky Chance)

Mighty Wings (Cheap Trick)

Here Without You (3 Doors Down)

I love that song, it was great to walk to as well. The beat went right with my strides.

Days walked - 5
Currently miles walked - 12.8 miles
Minutes walked - 3 hrs, 56 minutes

Day 4

I'm posting before noon, who else is shocked? That's right, I actually went for a walk before 10am. I get up at 5:15 am during the week for work so I usually sleep until around 9 or 10 on the weekends. Except for this morning apparently. I woke up around 7 and couldn't get back to sleep so I layed there for an hour before getting up. Trevor had a friend stay the night and his mom was coming by around 8:30 so I got up, checked to make sure they were up and grabbed a banana while I waited. They showed up and left a little before 9 so as soon as they left (and my phone got done updating) I headed out. The plan was to go the usual route (2 miles) but that can always vary depending on my mood.

Well, it varied.

That's right, 3.59 miles. I was feeling pretty good when I headed out. My shins felt stiff if that makes sense but it wasn't painful so I kept going and to be honest, I didn't really feel really sore and probably could have kept going but I figured I shouldn't push it. If you actually follow the map, I stretched it over to the main roads on both sides of the neighborhood.

I upped a couple of my trophy's with my longest walk, time and distance. I'm guessing the fact that I went earlier in the day and not after being on my feet for over 8 hours had a lot to do with that. This also helped.

Another advantage for going in the morning, it was much cooler. The forecast was for 90 degrees later today so it was definitely a good idea to go this morning. That might have attributed to the longer walk as well. I haven't figured out how to carry water with me while I walk so at this moment, I don't take any. I don't want to carry it in my hands and haven't figured out how to strap it to myself. I suppose I could probably shop for something, I would assume they have something that I could strap around myself.

I may do this everyday as well, as most of you know, I love to listen to lots of different types of music, so I'll throw out the songs that I listened to. Why not? I listen to my Anything & Everything playlist which the title says it all. Here's what I listened to this morning.

Something From Nothing (Foo Fighters)

50 Ways to Say Goodbye (Train)

That Don't Impress Me Much (Shania Twain)

No Boundaries (Adam Lambert)

Rollin' (Limp Bizkit)

Headlights (Eminem, Nate Ruess)

Paranoid (Megadeth)

Jump (For My Love) (the Pointer Sisters)

Longer (Dan Fogelberg)

Don't (Ed Sheeran)

Come With Me Now (Kongos)

Beaches of Cheyenne (Garth Brooks)

Should've Said No (Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers)

Love Don't Cost A Thing (Jennifer Lopez)

Music For The People (Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch)

Tequila Sunrise (Eagles)

Score from Halloween (TV/Movie Themes)

No Way We Are Not Ashamed (Carman)

More Sold Out (Whiteheart)

Why Do Fools Fall in Love (Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers)

Watch Over You (Alter Bridge)

City Lights (Tim McGraw)

Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen)

I think it was funny the last song was Fat Bottomed Girls since I'm trying to get my fat ass smaller.

Days walked - 4
Currently miles walked - 10.83 miles
Minutes walked - 3 hrs, 21 minutes

I don't have to much going on today, I plan on teaching my daughter how to play poker and maybe a couple of other card games. I'll ask my son if he wants to play but knowing him, he won't want to leave his Xbox.

Day 3

Apparently this blog has now become a blog about my exercise, or more specifically, walking. I guess that's just the natural progression of the blog. It has been a little of everything in the few years I've had it. Blogging, Book reviews, movie reviews, a journal, you get the idea.

Now that school has started, it will be detrimental for myself to just get off my lazy ass and go. I planned on going after work. Come home, switch my work boots to shoes and then head out. Now that the kids are back in school, I get off work, go over to my moms where I sit on my ass for an hour while I'm waiting for them to get off the bus, then go home. It's harder to get motivated after sitting on my ass.

I went for my second walk this week. I set my goal for a mile and a half after the 3 mile hike earlier in the week kicked my ass. I figured I'd better start smaller and work my way up. I went pretty much the same route as I did earlier in the week but I cut some of it down. I walked my planned route and it actually ended up a little more than the mile and a half that I expected. Let's check it out.

As you can see, I went 2 miles on the nose so I will probably stick to that route for awhile and build up some endurance. It would probably help if I actually walked every day to build that. I headed out the same route for the most part, when I left my apartment though, I walked across the parking lot and walked around the outside of the complex until I got to the entrance and then went across to the neighborhood. I went down, did the 2 loops then came back. When I got back I came in the entrance and hung a right and walked along the outside of the complex again until I got back to my apartment. Like I said, it ended up being 2 miles on the nose so I'll keep that route for awhile.

My speed was down a little which surprised me, I figured a shorter route I would average faster but I guess not. I still did it in 36 minutes which I suppose is alright. It's been about my average lately.

I took this picture on my route so I could see the temperature at the time of my walk, I forgot to do that on the last post but I now see that it actually has the temperature on the map above. I could have used a headband, I had to keep wiping the sweat off my forehead. I plan on walking the next 2 days, we'll see how that goes.

Days walked - 3
Currently miles walked - 7.24 miles
Minutes walked - 2 hrs, 12 minutes