Wok up super late this morning. I think it was after 11:00. 😅
Not what I want to be doing when I’m trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible in my choice of sleeping location (the Rogers Walmart Supercenter).
But it was what it was, and I wasn’t the only vehicle that was still there. I think there were maybe two semi trucks and another truck with a camper on it.
Still, I left immediately, grateful that having been up for that long, the sun had warmed up the inside of the van despite the fact that it was I think only maybe 10 or 12 degrees outside.
I drove immediately over to the gym, taking my morning pills, eating the last two jelly donuts so I could take some migraine pills because, well, all that sugar messed me up pretty good.
And so naturally, the best choice was to eat two more donuts to start the day.
Genius.
🙃
It was bicep and back day today. I had moved up in weight on a bunch of my exercises last bicep/back session, so I just stuck with doing the same weights this time. Bicep/back day is now my shortest day, as I only have four exercises, whereas the other days now have 7 and 8, respectively.
I also did 30 minutes of cardio, which was a bit of a fight mentally. Man, even listening to stuff, focusing on videos or podcasts or whatever else… Cardio is just hard.
Wish I could play basketball or something, but my body isn’t too keen on that, I don’t think. Lots of jarring moves.
Very much enjoying not getting so darn sweaty with the much easier cardio routine, though. 🙏
From there, I decided to head into Pea Ridge and to go to the Wendy’s there to work on my taxes. It’s almost saturday, and I committed to have my taxes done by the end of the day on saturday, so I needed to bust a move. 😅
It’s amazing to me how I keep thinking that I’ve done so much better at keeping records, only to find out that there’s still so much that I didn’t do as well as I could have that ends up taking so much more time to figure out.
On the drive to pea ridge, my poor little heart strings were tugged pretty sharply, as I was driving down the hill from little flock… On the side of the road, down in the ditch, standing on three legs, with its back arched like a cat or something, was a doe.
It’s right rear leg completely broken so that the last probably 12 to 14 in of it was just flopping around.
It kept trying to put its leg down, but it couldn’t.
I feel my heart ache for that poor little creature… just thinking about it again… Makes me want to cry.
😞
I did a u-turn further down the road and came back, pulling into the driveway nearest to the deer. Pulled out my cell phone and called the local police department to let them know.
No sooner had I gotten off the phone, when a city worker of some kind, I think animal control maybe? Pulled up. Apparently someone else had reported the issue as well.
Originally, I had hoped to pull further up the driveway, so I could be there for whatever was going to happen, but the driveway was super steep, and covered in ice, so there was no way my rear wheel drive van was going to make it up, so I just backed down drove back up the hill, did another u-turn, and headed back to Pea Ridge.
As I passed the spot again where the deer was, I saw that it had moved itself further into the ditch trying to get away from the city worker, I assume.
So sad.
I just wish that the poor thing could be taken in, have leg surgery or an amputation, and could then live out the rest of its life.
😞
Hurts the heart.
I stayed working on taxes at Wendy’s until they closed at 5:00, business being super slow after the storm, and the parking lot still mostly ice. They didn’t want to be open still with the parking lot refreezing.
I made some decent progress, but less than I was hoping, so I headed back to Rogers. I had been hoping for the blender that I bought a few days ago to have come today, as it was supposed to come yesterday, but when it was time to leave wendy’s, it still hadn’t come, so I decided to just go ahead and head back to rogers.
I went back to the gym, thinking that I could actually use the gym as a place to work on my taxes. I pay for the more expensive membership, which has a little lounge area for Black Card members, so I plugged in my computer, and spent probably an hour or two working on taxes.
Then I threw my computer in a locker, with a charge cable coming out, so I could charge it while I jumped on a treadmill.
Walked on the treadmill for probably another hour and a half… Just slowly, a grand total of two miles an hour, but 2 mph is better than 0 miles an hour sitting in a chair, and I think the hour and a halfish and that is a burning of 250 or so calories, so… That’s more than if I hadn’t done any walking at all.
And while walking, I did some online car mechanicing work, and I kept working on my taxes, so it was actually a quite productive walk.
Then I went back to the lounge area, worked on my taxes for probably another hour, and finally left the gym just after midnight I think.
Good productive day, and I think I used the hydro massage bed four times. 🙃
Gratitude List:
- I’m grateful that despite the anger that I have in my heart, that there’s still quite a bit of softness in there, so that I hurt for others hurts, animal and human.
- I’m grateful for the lounge area, so that I could work on my taxes in relative peace.
- I’m grateful that the gym has Wi-Fi
- I’m grateful that I was able to spend a fair bit of time on the treadmill and stair stepper. I think maybe just a few minutes shy of 2 hours all together?
- I’m grateful that I was able to make what feels like meaningful progress on the tax front. I have some questions I need to answer that are sort of internal questions about whether or not I want to try and claim some things as write offs. Generally, if there’s any kind of a gray area, I err on the side of caution and just don’t try to write that thing off. I’ve done that with several things already this year, and I’m probably going to do it in relation to my heavy equipment. I bought the heavy equipment as a business venture, but it’s been used much more lately for personal things, so it doesn’t seem right for me to expense the maintenance and repair of the machines when they’re not being used for business purposes anymore. So I guess I’m just not going to claim any of that. Unfortunate, monetarily, because it’s not just a little bit in terms of how much I spent taking care of the machines, but whatever… 🐿️
- I’m grateful the coldest night is past, and though it’s going to get down to about 6° tonight, that’s the coldest for the foreseeable future. I think there’s a chance that tonight’s low might end up being a record for the area. I saw something about that on one of the new screens in the gym. Apparently some areas are quite possibly going to be having record lows nearby and that might include Rogers.
Success List:
- It was a success to do cardio today. Even though cardio is easier now, I still loathe it. I think the only thing that can keep my focus away from my distaste for the exercise would be watching a movie or an engaging TV show. But anything that requires my mental energy to think about… nope. So it was a success when I really really wanted to cut it out of today’s workout routine that I didn’t.
- It was a big success today to make all that progress on tax stuff. There is now light at the end of the tunnel on that. 🎉
Improvement List:
- Probably could have just thrown those donuts out instead of eating them for breakfast. I don’t like wasting things that I buy, but something that’s not good for you anyway can probably just be wasted.
- Quick temper… and bad bad language when frustrating things happen.
Onward and upward.
Love and hugs.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 