2020-05-18 — Skin of My Teeth

Hi, my lovely peeps,

Happy Monday 🤗

I just came back in from an 18-minute run because, well, I’m up to 18 minutes on my daily exercise, and I didn’t exercise this morning, so I did just now–coming through by the skin of my teeth before the end of the day. 😁

I swear my poor body hates physically strenuous activity. Asthma, knees giving me issues, calf cramping up, ulnar nerves getting irritated (by jogging?!?!?! Really?!?!?! They’re arms!!! Nothing to do with jogging!!! 🙃).

Gorgeous night, though. Wow. Absolutely the perfect temperature. Jog without overheating. Sit outside afterward with no shirt on… perfect.

…Although, I feel slightly like the wolf in the Sword & the Stone.

Anyway, good day (of course). Sun woke me up about 7, I think. Did clerical work stuff for probably 4 hours before getting my first little meditation prep in for the day. Took me a bit to even figure out what to meditate on, truthfully, and at this point, I can’t really remember now what I was pondering anyway. I’ll have to re-figure it out tomorrow 😁.

I think I did four or five cars today? First one was an overheat. Fan came unplugged, and the system was full of nasty coolant leak sealant, so it spewed out sludge. I fixed the fan connector, got rid of some of the sludge, cleared the blockages I could see, and sent her on her way.

Then I diaged a car from an AutoZone referral in their parking lot. Then I did a freebie for an old lady on social security. Man, fixed incomes have to bite 🙁. Grateful to have plenty of financial resources, both to take care of my needs and wants and to allow me to do freebies. She needs a new AC compressor, though.

Not cheap 😬.

After that, it was a tire repair that turned into a tire and rim repair, but I think they’re good for now.

Lastly, it was an overheat diag that wouldn’t re-create, so… I taught him a few things to better prepare him for the future and to get his car better taken care of, and that was the night.

It’s 10:53. My calves are sore. My head aches a bit, either from dehydration or higher blood pressure that my poor head isn’t used to because of my lack of exercise for so long.

I’ll eat and drink a bit more here shortly. All I’ve had for the day is a can of Spaghettios, a can of mini raviolis, and some romaine rabbit food.

#1. I’m grateful for cheese. Love the stuff. My body doesn’t like it so much (I’m lactose annoyed), but I figure… force feed it enough, and it’ll learn to like it 😁.

#2. I’m grateful that I made it 18 minutes on the jog. I thought it was a good pace, but only about 1.67 miles according to my pedometer (which usually shorts you about 20% or so, so probably about two miles with lots of hill climbing and descending. Not bad, not amazing. Just… progress!

#3. I’m grateful I got the morning daily meditation prep in. It’s easier, sometimes, to stop doing things than it is to start, so exercise has been a concern for me, and now this meditation stuff. I don’t want to drop the ball anywhere because once I drop it in one place it’ll be easier to let myself drop it in another. Don’t wanna do that. Honestly, I didn’t remember it during the day (the mediation stuff), but I’ll get those deepest desires back to the ever present forefront again before too long. Progress here, too!

#4. I’m grateful to be happier today. There were some potentially stressful situations today, but I didn’t get very stressed (I would have just a few days ago). 😊 I just… went with the flow a good bit better than usual.

Bonus 😊

#5. I’m grateful to have finally gotten AutoZone to credit my account for my labor claims. Between returns and paid out claims, that’s $600 back in my pocket today. I’ve got about $250 coming back from other returns, and another $200 from another customer who owes me money because their card was declined. Nice to get some of that outstanding money back in my pocket!

I formally announced my blog yesterday on Facebook, after sort of going quiet for a year or so trying to get myself going, and so I’ll explain the count that some of you newbies might have seen but didn’t understand or are about to see for the first time. You’ll see it at the end of each day’s journal entry:

43 (number of consecutive days not buying sugar/junk food), 51 number of consecutive days writing in my journal), 42 (number of consecutive days clean from porn/sex addiction), 16 (number of consecutive days free from TV, movies, and sports news), 9 (number of consecutive days, not including Sundays, of daily exercise, 1 (number of days doing my morning “who I am, and what I want most” centering meditation).

So there you go. 

Happy almost Tuesday. 🙂

Lift the World.

~ stephen