Day 57 & 58: In Like A Lion .. Go Away Winter !!!

 

Here we go ! It's a new year. Time to get back on track with diet and exercise. The goal is 100 pounds by 12-31-25. Can I do it ? At this point, probably not but I'm going to keep trying. My original Day 57 & 58 blogs can found here and here. It was cold back then too and I was still fighting a cold. Not much else was going on, besides my BS philosophical nonsense.

Yesterday was a long day so I didn't have a chance to write. I went on an Adirondack train trip with Rich & Barb, Michelle & Mike and another couple who are friends of Michelle & Mike. Thankfully, Rich & Barb picked me up (more on that later) around 8:45 am and delivered me home around 9 pm. I did not expect to be out for 12 hours and I felt bad for leaving Minnie for so long. The train ride was a lot of fun but we did run into a snow squall on the way there. The train ride theme was "cabin fever" and the train stopped at the Remsen station, where hot chocolate and s'mores were served ! They gave you marshmallows on a trick, along with packets of graham crackers and small Hershey bars. We all got a mug as part of the package. It was fun and not too cold at the station, which was good since you had to go outside to the fire pits to roast your marshmallows. After the train ride Rich wanted to go up to Old Forge to a restaurant he & Barb have been to before. This was the start of EV anxiety. The restaurant has a free charger but a snowmobile had deliberately blocked the charger. Ok, no big deal - Rich looked for other charging options in the area but there were none. We ended up in Rome and there were no charging places. Our only option was the Tesla chargers at Turning Stone but we were super short on miles. Not fun in the best weather, and super not fun when it's cold, dark and snowing. Roads were snow covered - it was horrible. We made it to Turning Stone with 6 miles of charge left on the vehicle ! Just as we arrived the car went into power saving mode, which meant speed was reduced to about 30 mph. For my driving habits, an EV would be fine as I'd never find myself in a charging desert. For Rich & Barb, they like to road trip all over the place and Old Forge happens to be a charging desert. I was so glad that they picked me up because the drive home would have been awful. It was snowing between Central Square and Parish, so that stretch of 81 would have been treacherous. Rich actually got off 81 at Central Square and took Route 11 to 69. We only ran into a brief squall in that stretch of the ride home. Rich & Barb got home about 9:45, so it was an even longer day for them. We may do another road trip this Saturday and there is no snow in the forecast for that day, at the moment. So the train was fun and we had good burgers & fries at the restaurant in Old Forge. I got a bacon, cheddar, jalapeno burger. It was delicious ! I believe the place was called The Front Door Diner and The Back Door Bar .. something like that. It was full of snowmobilers and snow was pouring out of the sky up there. I'd like to go back to Old Forge in the summer when you can walk around and enjoy the shops, especially the Old Forge Hardware store, which sells everything under the sun !

As predicted, it was 5 degrees when I got up this morning. Mama cat wasn't out there but she must have heard me pour out the dry food as she was there when I checked a few minutes later. I was glad to be able to feed her. She doesn't look pregnant anymore, so she's apparently had her kittens. I haven't seen orange cat in a couple days. I imagine the whole crew will be back once the snow is gone and the weather has warmed up. I spent the day on the couch watching YouTube and playing my slot games. 88 Fortunes took all my coins and I couldn't finish the daily challenge. Dancing Drums redeemed itself and threw enough coins my way to get me back to 5B. Quick Hits let me finish the challenge and win a bit, so I have a 20M stockpile. CluBillion took most of my coins but I got the bonus on my favorite game Ca$h Man .. only to have the game stop on the bonus without finishing. The game is stuck on the bonus. I tried reinstalling the game and that didn't help, so I put in a support request. You can't play that particular game now because it just brings you to the bonus screen. I can play other games in the app just fine. I swear, that app hates me. I was better 400M coins per spin when I hit the bonus and the bonus filled 11 of 15 spots with the mini slot games. It has the potential to be a massive win. We'll see what support can do ! Jackpot World took all my coins again too. I had over 1T earlier today and it took them all ! I was playing tournament games but in the end you always end up losing. It's ok - I'll build my coins back up again. I guess that's half the fun of it ! 

Breakfast today was a 180 calorie cinnamon roll. I got a yogurt out but never ate it. I had a couple pieces of cherry pie - one this morning and one after dinner. Lunch was 2 hotdogs. Dinner was 260 calorie roast turkey & mashed potatoes. I also finished the open bag of pretzels today. There weren't a lot in there. I also ate a cookie that I brought home from the train excursion. After a meat & cheese platter, 2 mugs of hot chocolate and a s'more I just couldn't eat the cookie.

My heat and my water behaved well last night and today. I ran the space heater in the living room on and off. It was somewhat windy today and that always makes the living room chilly. It's going down to 5 tonight but the rest of the week will have overnight lows in the 20's & 30's and daytime highs bouncing around between the 30's, 40's and 50's. Looking at long range forecast this looks to be the end of temps under 20. I will take it ! I learned a lot this winter and I plan to take steps to avoid another disaster like this. I will do whatever I can to keep snow from piling up around my house.

Tomorrow starts a new week and I'm going to try and get myself on the treadmill. I'm nearly 60 days into the new year and I've made zero progress with my weight. I hate the way I look and I hate the way I feel. Winter really kicked my ass this year and I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm just getting old or maybe the lack of sunlight is just hitting me harder. I do have a light therapy unit in my Amazon cart, but I'm not placing any orders for anything until the sidewalk in front of my house is passable. I'm hoping the village gets busy on my street this week. They never cut back our snowbanks and they haven't plowed our sidewalk in several weeks. I know that was because it was more important to clean the main roads and places like the schools and municipal buildings, but hopefully they're going to address our street soon. At least my driveway is clean ! With the warmer temps this week the snow melt should accelerate. There's not much in the way of sun in the forecast and that kind of sucks !