Day 31: The Official End of "One Month"

 

Here is the link to my original Day 31. It was  Sunday February 3, 2019. My headline that day was "Follow Your Vision". I likely spent the day on the couch watching tv since it was the dead of winter. In the early days I was not documenting down to the minute details of each day. I believe at that time I knew that I wasn't losing my job, so I had moved out of panic mode.

This morning didn't get off to the early start I'm trying to work on. I actually turned off the alarm last night since I went to bed after midnight. Minnie woke me up shortly after 2 and again near 5. I believe she was hungry, as I'd put the dry food up and she ate some treats when I gave them to her. I was trying to limit the dry food. When I leave her for prolonged periods of time she eats more dry food and I don't think her body can handle it. She is old and until the last 2 weeks I never left her "alone" unless it was casino day with mom. The problems started after I left her to go to Pennsylvania. She had no choice but to eat only dry food and she has never had to rely on that alone. She meowed at me for a few days after I got home but I didn't think anything of it until it happened again when I left her last weekend to stay at camp with Rich & Barb. I was gone from Friday afternoon until late Saturday. On Sunday she was going back and forth to the litter box and I was thinking she couldn't pee or poop. I tried to take her to the emergency vet but they were not taking any patients. By Monday she was peeing and still eating, so I relaxed a little. However, this past weekend I left her from 10 am to 8 pm on Saturday and 11 am to 7 pm on Sunday. I always leave extra wet food but she is used to having fresh food 3-4 times a day. It seemed like she was having trouble pooping again yesterday as she kept going back and forth to the litterbox and meowing at me. I could give her a tiny bit of Miralax but before I go to that extreme I want to keep monitoring her behavior. It does appear she has peed and pooped and she isn't meowing at me today. The bottom line here is I can't leave her overnight because she can't manage an all dry food diet. I'm also going to buy some dry food that is for senior cats. I also need to get her into the vet for a checkup instead of continuing to ignore this. 

While I managed to get on the treadmill yesterday, it's after 4:30 and I haven't made it there yet today. I am giving myself the choice of the treadmill or the Total Gym. I'm thinking my hip pain is due to the cushion I'm sitting on, mostly because I'm sitting on it for hours and hours and hours. I need to force myself to get up at least once per hour and walk around. Today I did gather up the trash and recyclables and got those out. I also finally sealed the hole where the electrical service line comes out of the house. The old seal product on there crumbled and fell apart so I bought a new brick of it a few months ago but never used it. As long as I was out and about with the trash I decided it was the perfect day to do that. It was SO easy !! Took me maybe 5 minutes and the product was so easy to work with. I have some left so if it crumbles again I can replace it. Hopefully no bees had already taken up residence in the wall. I haven't seen any evidence of that, so I think I'm ok. Anyhow, it really felt good to get that done. I also wrote out the checks for my school taxes and my water/sewer bill. I need to pay those on 10-2 and I set a reminder in my phone to make sure I don't forget !

Well, it's almost 6:45 and I'm just getting around to dinner. I had some of the fried eggplant I brought home on Sunday (12 slices) with xxx Nutrisystem entree. At this time I plan to get on the Total Gym after I eat. 

I didn't eat a lot today and that was deliberate. I need to be comfortable being hungry ! If I'm walking around full all day then I'm eating too much ! I had 180 calorie waffles with sugar free syrup for breakfast. Lunch was the remains of the macaroni salad. Some did go into the trash this morning too, so it's all gone now. That's all I' had until dinner time. I am out of whipped cream (deliberately) so my evening snack was a lonely 140 calorie chocolate cupcake.

Like I said, I need to get comfortable with being hungry. That being said, I don't plan to do this every day. With the macaroni salad gone and the package of fried eggplant gone, I will settle back into the normal routine tomorrow. That means breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, evening snack. Throw in a workout and my vitamins and it's a perfect day ! Wednesday is rock & roll bingo so dinner will be a few extra calories. I'm ok with that since I've eliminated the whipped cream, the low cal syrup (vs the sugar free) and other extras like raisin toast and pretzels. I will have a late lunch and skip my afternoon snack. I also plan to get a workout in, which I haven't been doing on bingo day. Thursday I will return to the plan 100%.

I also activated my new Kohl's Visa from Capital One today. Kohl's changed their credit card to be a Visa you can use anywhere and it earns points that are converted to Kohl's cash. It's not really a card I will use frequently, but at this point in my life I'm not going to cancel any of the cards I have. Having a large available credit line is what helped boost my credit score up to 850 !