Tragic waste

Wanna know how long it's been since I took a weekend away with some friend just for fun? Twenty years ago. Yea, it was January 2005. There were six of us, and we went to Niagara Falls. Most of the group hadn't been, and didn't know if they'd get the chance before life took them other places. 

So off we went.

The following year, I got married, and then every single trip I went on involved my wife. She's gone on a few without me, and the only two times I'd even been on an overnight were for what amounted to business. One was a funeral, and the other was apartment hunting. And the reason for this isn't because I was being held back, it was more of a lack of opportunity. My friends and I just don't do that sort of thing. Well an opportunity came up and some of my friends figured 'why not?'

Why not indeed.

It was agreed that the guy that used to work in hotels should be the guy to book it, and the logic was sound. I knew what to look for, and what to avoid. Friday came and I thought it was indigestion. Took a pill and shrugged it off. We got into town and I was exhausted. I had, and not incorrectly, figured I was tired because I go to bed earlier than everyone else, and was kept up until 10.

It's not wrong, but it also wasn't the reason.

Saturday morning I assumed it was a lack of sleep and continued indigestion. Took another pill and some caffeine and decided to push through it. No, by 2pm I was about done. Thankfully, we were all disappointed with the event and weren't disappointed leaving when we did.

I barely made it home. During the two hour ride home, I felt progressively worse, and it all manifest once I got out of the car. Just trying to move was torture, I had the shakes something fierce. I was glad to be the first one dropped off (benefits to living closest to 90, I suppose), but I barely made it to the door. For the next 48 hours, I slept 30 of them and ate probably 500 calories worth of lightweight carbs.

I then proceeded to miss the next two days of work because I get dizzy when I stand up, and I'm still coughing.

This was *supposed* to be a fun weekend, but nooooooooooooooooooo...

The left over

I do my meal planning on Sundays. Alright, the planning is done, I just do the cooking. In my efforts to maintain a low calorie, high protein diet, I eat a lot of chicken. In fact, every day for lunch I have chicken breast.

It only gets boring if you make it the same way every time, but you can spice it up so many ways.

So on Sundays, after cooking the chicken, I would put the containers on a food scale and measure it out, marking how much was in each so I could properly log it day by day. (Yes, I have to be that careful) And this always made for leftovers. My third born and hungriest son would always hang around hoping for the leftovers, which I would happily dish out. His enthusiasm was not unnoticed by his siblings, and soon they all wanted in on the chicken. But the leftovers were, perhaps, a single serving. 

Now, the weekly grocery shopping has twice as much poultry. And on the weekly menu board, it simply reads "Dads chicken", a meal they all eat with no reservation and no leftovers. They all look forward to it, they all go for seconds. Yes, I am bragging. This is a win and I'm taking it.

Oven feud

I have a toaster oven and I prefer it. Yes I understand that the microwave is faster, but I also understand that the magnetron operates at the natural frequency of the water molecule, and thus it doesn't heat your food evenly.

You heard me. Your food will never heat evenly in a microwave. It only heats water. The water simply transfers the heat to the other parts of the food.

Now for a lot of foods, that isn't necessarily a problem. For other foods, you can have a mixture of warm and crunchy with hot and soggy. No bueno, me no likey. My toaster oven, while using a lot more electricity, heats *everything* at the same time.

And the icing on the warm cake? The toaster oven simply goes ding when it's done. My microwave gives this passive aggressive beep a minute after it's done if I haven't opened it yet. Like excuse me, are you in a hurry? Do you, my microwave, have somewhere to be? You think I forgot about the delectable meal you probably butchered in your limited functionality?

No. Now shut up and watch as I use my toaster oven instead.

Resolute timing

One of my new years resolutions this year is to lower my caffeine intake. There have been times in my life when I had none at all, and it makes napping easier. Other times I have entirely too much. Either way, I like naps and my blood pressure could use far fewer stimulants.

But New Years day is not the time for it. So I decided to push it back a few days. Having the new year start on a Wednesday, it feels fair to push it back to the next Monday. So here we go.

The unslept

I can't sleep in anymore. I wake up naturally sometime between 3:30 - 4, regardless of when I actually need to be up. I didn't think that would be a problem until I stayed up for new years, dropping off to bed at 12:30 (what, you think I went out?) and waking up at 3:30.

At least I didn't have work. I still went to the gym, grateful that it opened late. My compulsion to be there when it opens would have ruined me.

Our yearly tradition of doing fireworks on NYE was made pleasant with the warmer weather, and more fun because we had so much extra. We get them for July 4, but my two older boys were at camp that week, and half of my remaining kids had fallen asleep by the time it got dark. My daughter isn't as excited by them, so we cut it short and told ourselves that new years was going to be big.

It was. Took us a good long while to get through them all, and we weren't even cold. In fact, when I was on my way to the shed to get some setup supplies, I spotted this in the yard:

He wasn't alone, but it's certainly unseasonable.