Day 14: It's My Birthday !

 

Here is the link to my original Day 14 on Nutrisystem. It was Thursday January 17, 2019. My headline that day was "Believe In Yourself". I was closer to acceptance when it comes to the possibility of losing my job. I don't know what the job market was like back then, so my acceptance may or may not have been naive. Would I have found a job making anywhere near my salary ? It's proving very difficult right now, in the post-Covid era, so who knows. On my original Day 14 I didn't yet know that my job was safe.

I slept in this morning since I was still awake at 2 am. For me, that meant getting up at 9:30 .. lol ! "Sleeping In" used to mean noon or later ! I had to pee and I knew the cats would be waiting to eat, so I couldn't justify staying in bed any later. Once the cats were fed I sat down to have my breakfast and watch YouTube. 

Breakfast was a 180 calorie cinnamon roll. I never had my yogurt or a morning snack. Lunch was a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt with some pretzels. I discovered that the spicy pretzels I like only have 120 calories in 15 of them, so they're not the worst thing I could eat ! They also have 2g of protein, so they meet Nutrisystem's guidelines for a smart carb. Dinner was carrots and a 260 calorie roasted turkey with mashed potatoes. Evening snack was 140 calorie lemon zest cake. I also had some more pretzels and the rest of the bag of butter toffee pecans.

Last night I was plotting to go to Turning Stone today, but this morning I decided against it. Sure, I could go and use my voucher and free play then come home, but I don't trust myself enough to do that. With no job on the horizon I need to be careful with my money.

I looked around at open jobs and worked up the courage to send a connection request to the CEO of the company I recently applied to, that a former colleague works for. They had a telecom audit position open but I never heard anything from them. The worse that can happen is he ignores me ! If I don't take some chances I'll be going nowhere. I didn't find anything else that I felt like applying to and since it's my birthday I put all that away for the rest of the day.

I'm not going to weigh myself until I reach Day 31, since I ate a lot of junk over the last couple of days. A giant pizza fritte, 3 giant glazed donuts and an entire cone of butter toffee pecans. Then the entire bowl of eggplant parmesan. That combined with no exercise (other than over 20,000 steps at the Fair) is not a recipe for weight loss. If today is day 14, then day 31 will occur on Tuesday September 17th.

In neighborhood news, the dog warden was at the neighbors house a couple days ago. Not sure what happened there, but one of her dogs tends to get loose frequently. I have not seen (or heard) the dog in a few days, so I hope nothing happened to her. She was harmless but you can't let your dogs wander in this small town. Then yesterday some random old guy knocked on the screen door to the laundry room to ask if the outdoor cats were mine. I think he is the handyman for the funeral home and those people have their nose in everyone's business. I told him they are not mine and that are just strays that I feed. Then this morning I noticed some dame from the funeral home walking her dog up the street (which she never does) and staring at my porch where the strays were eating. I am sure the 2 incidents are related. It might be time to put up a privacy screen to keep prying eyes away ! I'm thinking of getting something freestanding but setting the posts in small buckets of concrete to keep it from blowing away. I found some nice panels that would work. I could set the metal stakes in buckets of concrete on the cement and then attach the fence panels. This would keep snow from ruining it and still act as a wind/snow/rain barrier for the cats.

11:33 pm update: 

My connection request to the CEO was accepted and he asked me to send him my resume ! My former colleague in "spectacular" (his word!) and I'll bet if he asks her about me, she'll put in a good word for me. If they offer me a job with decent benefits I will take it .. because it feels right. I am clearly not going to find a job paying $90k and really all I need is insurance benefits. I can supplement my income with my pension, IRA or savings. So I added a little bit to my resume, formatted a nice email and sent it off. Then I messaged him on LinkedIn to let him know I had sent it. At this point I just have to wait and see where it goes. It's a small company, 

In AT&T news, the strike goes on and the union is reporting little progress towards an agreement. It's been 2 weeks now and there is no end in sight. I feel bad for the employees who are now going without a paycheck, though I believe they get strike pay - which is better than nothing. When I was on strike in 1986 there was no strike pay and I was pretty much broke when it finally ended after 30 days. We were also facing the loss of our insurance at the 30 day mark. Florida is a right to work state, so people can cross the picket lines and keep working without repercussions from the union. However, anyone who crosses the line will face the scorn of their peers for years to come. As always, the big issues are wages and health care. The big problem is any wage increase they get will be negated by increased health care cost sharing. In the end they'll get very little in the way of a raise. Health care is the real reason I need to keep working. I just need to get closer to 65 and Medicare ! I need 3 years of employment to get there .. and time will fly ! That's why I'm willing to take whatever job I'm offered as long as the insurance benefits are not ridiculous.

Perhaps the fact that I reached out today, my birthday, will bring me some good luck. I really do want to get back to work !