Long time no blog...ugh, that sounds horrible

Although it has been a while, there is no way that the title of this is anything but awful. But then, that makes it perfect to keep. To update anyone who cares, last week was eventful only because I was away at geek training. D-day came and went with little or no fan-fare, thank goodness. Status quo and keep watching that diet...as I sit with a large piece of cinnamon alligator in front of me. Today is meeting day for me, one on one and team meetings scheduled, so I may have to fit a couple of posts into one day. But then, that makes it all the more exciting to read. Who knows what this "close to middle-aged" man might write. GASP. Just think of the possibilites! More diet talk! Maybe even a geek fueled rampage! Wow, the possibilities are endless. My mind swims with the possibilities, or it may be that 4th cup of coffee that I am working on, who knows. This whole diet thing has me perplexed. I have no idea where my will power has gone too. Just yesterday I had resolved myself to stick to more of a structured calorie/fat based plan and yet I have eaten more this morning than I should all day. And gee, its almost 9am already. I guess maybe I should have gotten worse news at the doctor. Maybe then I might have some stick-to-it-iveness. Now, there is a word.

Light Travels Faster Than Sound, Which Is Why Some People Appear Bright Until You Hear Them Speak.

Yay for me! This Sunday is Father's day. My day. The one day a year I get. My birthday doesn't count, it falls 2 days before Christmas. For over 35 years, my birthday has been an afterthought, but I am not bitter about that in the least. Back to MY day. Sunday I get to eat where I want, I get to sleep in, lounge around in my boxers if I want to. Hey, wait a minute, that's really not that much different than what I do on the weekends now. Anyway, its Fathers day and I am going to enjoy it. I know of 3 people that will make sure I do. I am very lucky that way, all 3 of them I know will make sure that Father's day is special. I don't have my dad any more (a story for another posting) so the spotlight shines squarely on my unshaven face. And I love it. I even got to pick out my present, early I know but I got what I wanted, so I am happy. Selfishness is forgiven this Sunday.

And by the way, I got new gym shoes. neener neener neener.

Brainstorm? More like a drizzle....

I will be away from the blog for a few days next week. Out for some geek training. It's all good, though, I asked for it. Plus Thursday is D-Day so along with the normal tests I am gonna hit him up for the GFR result on the lab. We'll see what happens. I am also toying with the notion that I need to fast that day. 12 hours...appt is at 3 pm. Boy am I gonna be hungry. Wasting away to nothing all day THEN put up with poking and prodding? I am thinking Big Mac directly afterwards. Yeah, that is why I have no updates on the diet, cuz I am thinking Big Mac MOST of the time. I better up the life insurance, I hear the extra large caskets cost more than normal sized ones.

My kingdom for an idea

I need an idea....writer's block. Blogger's block. Sounds like an Irish Ale. Warm, dark beer with a head on it. Why is sarcasm wasted on the stupid?

Dazed and confused...welcome to my world

No, I do NOT have a diet update, so quit asking!

But I do have an issue. As anyone who reads this knows, as if anyone reads this, whatever. Anyway, D-Day was Monday. Sorry, moved it to accomodate some training to Thursday. One week from today so no biggie. Ok, nuff history. Last night I got out my test results from the first doctor's visit and re-read them. Just trying to get myself all up to date on what was done to me and remembering what was said so that I could deny ever hearing anything about losing weight. Anyway, I hit the back page of the reports and saw that there were some notes that the report added. Something about a GFR range being between 30-90 and if it is then "clinical correlation is needed". Below all of that was a website http://www.kidney.org. Ok, so I hit that site trying to find out exactly what it is that I missed before. Well.....come to find out that GFR is a kidney test that determines how your they are functioning. Oh, and by the way, anything below 90 means that your kidneys are not functioning as well as they should. Now, there are a lot of factors and age, race, and something called Creatinine are the three major ones. Using a calculator online (yes, kidney.org provides you with one if you know your Creatinine level). I confirmed that my GFR is 61. 61. That is NOT above 90. And the lab report really doens't do much more than that. Doc did NOT go into any of this with me so I called his office this morning. I got to talk to a nurse, which is great, they are very busy people and I really appreciated them taking the time first thing in the morning to listen to my babble. The one thing that I didn't like was the lack of knowledge of GFR. If its on the test results that you give me then please at least know enough to tell me what I am looking at. So now, here I am, thinking that I have kidney damage and having to wait a week to talk to my doctor about it. So I took today and Googled GFR. Found lots of sites with information. None of it promising. A lot of technical info from a professional standpoint and not much from the patient standpoint. I have to assume that this means that GFR is a fairly new test and that not enough is out there yet. Again, here I am. Worried.

Not good for someone that needs to lose weight. There are two things I do when I am worried. First, I get quiet. Second, I get jittery and eat. I hope to the good lord above that I can fast Thursday until 3 with these wonderful assumptions rolling around in the gray matter.

nip it nip it nip it

Busy today....
One guy out with appendicitis
One guy out with sick kids
Two left
busy today...
Not much to update anyway
status quo on diet since I forgot to weigh myself this morning
I did remember my badge, that's a small victory

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

A good weekend...not diet wise so an update to that right here would be useless. Kind of like me actually driving PAST a DQ. Useless. Saturday morning I worked at a local midwestern college being a proctor for the ACT test. Basically, a poorly paid hall monitor making sure all the high school kiddies didn't try to cheat the system. Besides the fact that every single one of the students there was born AFTER I graduated from good old Woodward High, June of 1986 in case you were wondering, some of them actually thought they could get away with it. Lemme splain how this works. They seperate the students into 4 groups, all seating in a huge gym. Seperated into 4 areas. With at least 3 adults monitoring the sign-in, seating, and actual test taking. There are very specific rules to the tests. Timed tests. Sealed test booklets. The whole shebang. Still some tried to copy or to go back and make up answers that they ran out of time for. Very amusing. The whole born AFTER I graduated thing bothered me some but not enough to walk out on the extra cash.

One week from today is D-Day. Its not going to be a pleasant conversation, I have a feeling. I have prepped for the morning off but somehow I have the feeling, that the whole day is going to be necessary. Just a feeling that I have.

Hump day

Ah yes, the middle of the week. Looking forward to the weekend without too much regret for what the week has brung so far. Its been a good week, I will admit. As far as the diet is concerned status quo. Although a really good salad at lunch today will help that along nicely. Buffalo spinach...with buffalo, not buffalo style chicken. Tender and delicious. Best part was it was free. Salesman paid for it. Another baseball game tonight, this time my youngest one. Thursday is practice and the Saturday is games. Although we will be working and we will miss my youngest's game. But the extra pay will be worth it. Payin off those bills. Even though they are baby steps, I can feel the steps getting closer to having the house. Man, I cannot wait for that. I would love to be able to whine about mowing in the heat.

Not in the mood

I am not in the typing mood too much today so I will keep this short. No big update to the diet...still holding steady. Less than two weeks till D-Day and I am hoping against hope that I get better test results than the last time. I am thinking that a trip to the dietician or nutritionist (is there a difference) might help. I have a lot of questions about what is best to eat. Not just for losing weight but for staying healthy. And I just know that not getting to the gym because of a busy sports schedule for my kids is NOT going to be a good excuse for the Doc. I can see the look I will get now.

Under the microscope

This past weekend. Lemme give you a glimpse into this past weekend before I do any diet updating. Saturday was baseball...at least one game. My youngest's game in the morning was a washout. But my oldest played in the afternoon with his new team. Now, I am more than happy to goto any of his games and it really doesn't matter who he plays for as long as he is having fun. That being said, the difference between a select team and regular knothole is absolutely mind boggling. First of all, he got to pitch. That in itself was a victory for him but the team he played against....wow. I was shocked to see how poorly they played. Now, I understand that not all kids are baseball greats but I just forgot how the level of play falls off when you go back to knothole. I was actually stunned at the competition. He did seem happy to get his chance to pitch and he did seem to be enjoying himself so, other than some left over hostility to a certain person, I am ok with his decision. Again, and I cannot emphasize this enough, it wasn't the decision but the way it was handled, that pissed me off. Ok, I am done bitching about that. The rest of Saturday went something like this...got up early as usual to do the laundry.

Ok, sorry but I need to vent again. So here is a bit of an aside. We meet my mom for laundry on Saturday mornings around 6:15am. Why? First of all, the place we go to is usually pretty empty at that time and its a good time to catch up with my mom if we haven't had the chance to all week. Second, we usually go out to breakfast right after for some more BSing and a good meal. Now, that being said, the laundrymat that we frequent is always open. The hours on the door say 7-10 but we have been there well before 7 for several trips in a row and its always been open. Now, you know, since I said "always" that, YEP, it was closed Saturday. So we waited a bit. Then went ahead and ate. Returning with 5 minutes to spare before 7, we waited again. 7:10, 7:20, and yes, 7:30 goes by and still locked. What a way to run a business. There was a phone # on the door. I called, and SURPRISE!, I got an answering machine. Nice. Back to the weekend....

The rest of Saturday was great. Got some painting done and did our laundry at the apartments using the much smaller room in the building next door. God, I cannot wait to get a house!!!!! Saturday night was an early one...asleep by 9. At least I think so, I don't remember anything after the first commercial break during Bambi. Yes, Bambi....that tells you what summer TV is like.

Sunday was interesting. Woke up fine. Even fixed a nice big breakfast for me and my honey. But by afternoon, my head felt like it was going to explode. I was sweating, hurting, puking. It was awful. Finally, sometime around 8 or 9 that night all went quiet on the pain front. I actually got to eat some chicken noodle soup with crackers (this is where my fiancee stepped in and does what she does best, take care of me). Suffice to say, I was not worried a bit about the diet this morning seeing as how I ate little or nothing yesterday. There is just about nothing worse than having a headache that keeps you in bed. Light, sound, movement, all bringing it home worse and worse. Then getting that sick feeling in your stomach. Knowing its coming and there is nothing you can do about it. Knowing you haven't eaten anything cuz of the damned headache but still you can't help but praying to the porcelain goddess. Dry heaves. Ugh. I tried everything, a cold wet cloth, heating pad on my neck, I slept off and on for 3 hours in the afternoon, nothing. It wasn't quite a migraine, at least not to the point of others that I had but it sucked just the same. Thank god I have someone that takes such great care of me.

happy happy joy joy

Today is friday, today is friday....I was actually going to make that my whole post today but that would be boring. Ok, slightly more boring than this normally is. Today has been a pretty good day, diet-wise. Kept to my breakfast and lunch with no extras. Although tonight may be a bit difficult depending on where dinner comes from. Gotta keep the mantra....lifestyle change. I really need to step it up and commit better than I have. I do ok until something in my little life changes then it all goes to hell and I am better than that. Focus, bear down, put the blinders on, pay attention, nose to the grindstone, work harder, all of that stuff. So easy to type, yet so hard to follow...........

hmmmmmm

Things are starting to chill out a bit, at least they feel that way. Even though I am still in an uproar over some events of the past weekend, my emotional state is returning to normal. As far as the weight loss, status quo. That's usually a bad thing but when the past 5 days have felt like 5 weeks and the stress level makes you feel every beat of your heart then just keeping steady is as good as it gets. Back to the grind today, somewhat. Counting down to less than three weeks before D-day. I am thinking that even though my weight is not where it needs to be that my change in HOW I eat is going to make a difference in the tests. At least that is my hope. I am keeping everything that can be crossed, crossed.

I almost forgot...

Holding steady, yes even after a weekend of burgers and dogs, at a total of 6 pounds. Too bad I wasn't better this weekend cuz with all of the work I did I am sure I could have cut a few more. But oh well....I am back on it today. Less than 3 weeks and counting till D-day.

Quite sure of one thing....

I will not stop trying to be a good person. I want to be a good dad. And although it may seem increasingly difficult to remain above the fray as it were, as a dad I must. As a team, WE must. I just hope that we don't drop down to her level of pettiness and stupidity. We can sling with the best of them and it would be so easy to start. I could be the Disney dad....all candy, ice cream, and staying up late, but what would that do? Right now, the struggle is to show them the right way to live your life. The consequences of thier actions and decisions. Using thier heads instead of thier mouths. Believing that you can make a difference in your situation instead of quitting it and moving on to another one. Communicating.

What weekend??????

Well, its Wednesday, I haven't updated this in almost a week. I am a baaaaaaaaaad boy. But on the other hand, we were a little busy running a baseball tournament that started Friday. I even took Friday off of work so that we could get to the fields early enough to start setting up and getting ready. Of course, it rained Friday, that set the mood early as tentative but the sun peeked out and things got rolling. So far, I can say, we made pretty good money selling burgers, dogs, etc....and it will all go to a good cause. The down side to all of this was that my son quit the team directly after the tournament. Now, I was fully aware that he had an issue with one of the coaches as far as him not getting to pitch as much. But then to hear on the phone that he quit and that him and his mom had been planning this for a while was, and IS, a bit upsetting. Of course, he has already landed somewhere else along with his mother, so I hope he truly is happy with his decision. I would rather him play somewhere where he is having fun. The process of the quitting along with the way his mother informed everyone is where my problems begin. Once again she pulls the strings and gets her way. I fully believe that he might not have been happy but I also believe that she was there to help him make his decision. Time will tell if that decision is the right one. I will tell you that it was very hard last night to take his uniform up to the field and turn it in. We have a lot of friends up there and even though we know that it was by no means goodbye, it was still hard to leave the team as parents. Right now, I am just tired of being pissed off.