Always Eat Healthy Food

January is flying by way too quickly for this boy. If only things would warm up some. It was 17° when I put my laundry on the line at 7:00 a.m. this morning. Stumpy made two trips outside and is curled up on the bed with Daggy in “cat bliss”.

After breakfast yesterday I went to the sewing machine repair place and got a replacement belt for my old sewing machine. It was only $7.58 total. I pulled out a ten dollar bill and remembered I had change…I told the lady “Oh wait, I’ll use up some of this change then you can just give me dollar bills back.” I had to go into two pockets to get the last penny and I had to laugh, and then explain, “My father used to do this all the time and it drove me crazy, now here I’m doing the same thing! The apple does not fall far from the tree!!” She was smiling as I left, I knew she understood!

I got to the “Y” in the mid afternoon. After some stretching exercises I set up the Concept 2 rower for my erg session. For once I remembered to bring the MP3 player. Got wired up and programmed my workout for a set time: one hour. I started out with my favourite routine of Anna Russell in which she gives a description of Wagner’s Ring Cycle in layman’s terms. The music of the “Ring Cycle” is so glorious, but to hear her describe the action and storyline of the opera makes me laugh till I’m nearly crying. To quote Anna, “That’s the beauty of grand opera; you can do anything so long as you sing it!”

I had my player set to do a great playlist while I rowed. After “Anna” it played one song and then cut out due to a low battery! Damn! I finished out the hour in silence trying to really concentrate on my sprints every ten minutes. I covered 13,707 meters. I’ll try for another hour today and see if I can beat that distance. My “virtual team” needs every meter I can give them!

I was starving by the time supper rolled around. I planned on being bad the other day when I picked up two cube steaks at Publix. I breaded them up and turned on the deep fat fryer. The left over flour and seasonings was added to a generous amount of bacon grease in mom’s old cast iron frying pan to which I added the leftover milk and egg. More milk was added along with more ground pepper.

Left over smashed potatoes were nuked in the microwave and the first breaded cutlet was dropped in the 375° oil. I love to hear that crackling frying noise. It brings back memoires of working the back line at Burget Chef.

The chicken fried steak and potatoes were smothered in the white gravy. I had to force myself to eat slowly…. It was SO GOOD!!! There are enough leftovers for a repeat meal in a couple days. Don’t tell the food police!!

One of my facebook friends had posted on his wall this morning: One of my favorite quotes is by Abraham Lincoln: “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” Setting goals provides us with a way to create our future today by focusing our attention and daily action steps toward what we really want and then making them a reality. Setting goals works.

I’ve gotten used to seeing postings like this on facebook pages and I wonder if there is a site they get pulled from. This really got to me as I’m now living the future I envisioned all those years ago when I was working production in the factory.

I had a conference with my investment advisor concerning my accounts Monday. We had done some tweaking to my holdings last summer which rewarded me with good results. I’ll be 59 ½ by the end of the year and can start to draw on my 401’s. She asked me when I planned on drawing them down. I replied that I did not have any plans to draw on them in the foreseeable future.

This is kind of like when you go on a trip and the journey is so enjoyable, you don’t know what to do when you get to the destination. It sounds crazy, but I've spent so much of my life being frugal and counting pennies it can be hard to let go and spend money on something I'm not passionate about. Enough of this … I need to get my journey started to the “Y” so I can kick butt on the Concept 2 today! My MP3 is all charged up!