Day 19: All Over The Place

 

Here is the link to my original Day 19 on Nutrisystem. It was Tuesday January 22, 2019 and I had to take a vacation day due to heating issues. My headline that day was "Finding Your Inner Strength". I found it that day because I didn't fall apart over the lack of heat and hot water. I figured out the issue and resolved it myself. Over the years I've had to learn to rely on myself because there was no one else. Alex turned out to be pretty useless in that department, though he tried. I wish I did have someone to take care of me but I'm not sure I could ever fully trust anyone to do that.

Breakfast was a 270 calorie breakfast sandwich. Lunch was a 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt with a chef salad. Afternoon snack was 80 calorie cottage cheese and a 110 calorie can of sliced peaches. Dinner was 260 calorie roasted turkey with mashed potatoes and carrots. Evening snack was a 140 calorie lemon zest cake. I didn't have a morning snack today.

I slept in until nearly 9:30 but I'm kicking myself for not getting up at 8, when I first woke up. I'll keep working on that. I got a call from Edward Jones about a lingering account they haven't been able to transfer in to my portfolio. Apparently the account has always had the wrong SSN associated with it and it's in my maiden name. To correct things I need to send a copy of my SS card and my marriage certificate and I don't have my marriage certificate. It must have been thrown away with the fire debris. I've known this for a while and have procrastinated about getting the certificate copy. Well, today I finally called to confirm City of Syracuse has the record and then I filled out the request form, wrote the $10 check and walked my happy ass to the post office to mail it ! I will be glad to have that resolved and with the marriage certificate I can also apply for a passport, if I want. It's a beautiful sunny day so the walk to the post office was nice. There's my first workout of the day ! I left the house at 11:16 and got back at 11:31 - so there's 15 minutes of walking in the books !

After the post office I warmed up the remains of my second cup of coffee and sat down to start this blog. I have no other plans for the day. Tomorrow I'm heading out to camp with Rich and Barb. We're going to the ball game tomorrow and I'm going to spend the night with them. My social calendar is filling up ! On 9-14 they're taking a road trip to a brewery in Hamburg NY and invited me along. Then on 9-15 we're processing eggplant at Joe & Kim's house. 

I have to say, I've enjoyed this 3+ month vacation, but I'm ready to get back to work. I really need to have a "purpose" in life, in addition to an income with insurance benefits ! The second I have a job with dental insurance I'm going to prioritize getting my teeth back in shape. I know I need a couple of crowns and possibly some other expensive work and I don't really want to foot the bill myself. Once I have a job I can dump some money into my HSA for that purpose.

I spent the majority of the day watching YouTube and playing Cookie Jam. I wasn't motivated to job search or do much of anything else. I plan to follow up Monday on the audit job I'm trying to get, since I haven't heard anything.

In AT&T news, the strike drags on and the company announced today they had given the union their "final offer". Grandstanding for the media, no doubt. Not surprisingly, the union is not at all interested in accepting the offer and claims that the company acknowledged it is not actually their final offer. Yet again, the company is trying to look tough for the shareholders and the media. Today's update from the union confirmed one thing I predicted - they want to reduce their severance benefit from 90 weeks to 40 weeks. That tells me right there that they are planning layoffs soon and don't think the union doesn't know that. Granted, 90 weeks is a ridiculous amount of severance but the company agreed to that in one of the past contracts. Given the lack of progress, I won't be surprised to see this strike pass the 30 day mark. They are far apart on wages, healthcare and the job security provisions. I feel bad for the employees because I'm sure many of them have families to support and live paycheck to paycheck. Also, if it's true their medical insurance has been stopped, that could be catastrophic if they have an accident or become seriously ill. Very scary times that I still remember. Back in 1986 I didn't have a car so my biggest expense was my rent and utility bills. I'd only been with AT&T about a year when the strike happened so I wasn't making big money and had little savings. It's no exaggeration that I was broke by the time the strike ended. I'd have ended up getting a job at Joe's family grocery store to make ends meet. It was right up the street from my apartment so it would have been an easy walk to work. It's sad that the store no longer exists. Wegman's and Walmart drove them out but they were able to sell the business. Unfortunately their buyer didn't fare so well - they ended up going under. Hopefully the folks on strike were smart enough to try and put some money away in the event of a strike. It's easy to say you need to do it, but it's not always possible.