Food/Calorie Journal
Scale
Walking App
Meal Calendar
Digital Food Scale that Weighs in Grams
Weekly, Detailed, Shopping List
Walking Buddy (My Daughter & My Dogs)
Yeti 36oz Rambler
Walking Shoes and Walking Socks

Let’s explore these one at a time.

FYI: There are a lot of calendar pictures in this post.  Plus it is long, so I will be splitting it up in to several parts. This is Part 6, the last part. Parts 1 & 2 contain all of 2018, Parts 3 & 4 contain all of 2019 and Part 5 in the start of 2020. Look back on the last five posts if you would like some meal ideas or to see what was going on during those months/years.

Our dilapidated, main bathroom was tore down to studs and built new in our Hartford house.  It had the same tile issues as our front entry, now Luke’s office, did.  The walls were not put in correctly and the paint could be washed off the walls.  The dry wall paper (if you will) could be peeled off in strips.  The toilet was never bolted to the floor.  The grout holding the tile in the shower was failing and the shower set up no longer worked.  It hissed as it spit water everywhere.  We knew we wanted to redo the main bathroom; we were waiting to pay off the house first.  But that was not going to happen, and it needed to be done before we sold the house. 

We had our daughter’s at-home, Facebook, birthday party on her birthday, July 1^st and then (as in years past) demo started on the bathroom.  This time, we did not do the demo, the construction company we hired for all of the room renovations said they would do demo for this one, as the tub needed to be sledgehammered out.  Lucas worked.  I entertained Catawba-Lynn.  We went for walks daily.  Due to COVID, we were not going to the zoo, library, rec center, playgrounds – I mean, even if we wanted to, many were still closed or had high restrictions on them.  Construction dust makes produce prep very difficult.  Summer with no air conditioning makes pizzas in the oven very difficult.  COVID makes going out very difficult.  So I played the days by ear and put meals together as I could. 

It was necessary to travel to Colorado to visit family.  We were happy to be of use for support, a listening ear, and for meal prep for the family.  When we arrived, I sat down with the family and we went through my cookbooks and picked out meals we could make – most of them in the slow cookers.  Usually when anyone goes out to Colorado to visit, that family pulls out all the stops and makes huge, tremendous meals, but it was not the time for it.  No, this time a lower key visit was necessary, and I was happy to be able to facilitate some meals.

Our Wisconsin house was listed and sold in less than a week.  Closing would happen at the end of August.  We hung out in our house for a couple of more weeks as be boxed up the last of our stuff.  (We sold our dining room furniture, gave our living room furniture to my parents, all before the quarantine happened.  We had been without furniture since March).

Yes.  Fuck.  That is correct.  The last of packing and shoving it into a 35-foot moving truck had commenced.  Shoving all belongings into a storage unit that is smaller than the overly full moving truck was another fun filled day.  Driving to Philadelphia to stay in an AirBnB – being literally homeless – not owning a house and not having a rental lease was terrifying to me.  Homeless in a pandemic.  Luckily, so very luckily, my family helped us pack and my father and two cousins came to Philadelphia to help us move into our storage unit.  With small hiccups along the way such as needing to stop for the night in Ohio with two hotel rooms rented, only to be told there was nothing available when we arrived (they figured it out an hour later), to being in the storage facility way too late (we got a reprimanding on that one), to having a hard time returning a 35 foot truck with car trailer to a tiny parking lot in a not-so-great neighborhood, only to lose the truck keys (momentarily) and to get to our AirBnB a sweaty, disgusting mess at 23:00…we made it through that leg of the journey unscathed.  We did order Domino’s, as people were starving and that was the only place open at 23:00.  Thai happened the next day because we ran out of snacks and were still too tired to go grocery shopping.  With family in Philadelphia, and the feeling that I still needed to host them, plus find a house, I brought out my food calendar and made a very quick plan.  Fajitas, chimichangas, and pizza – family could get on board with these meals and I did not need to stress about it.

Family left on the 2^nd.  We went to one of Luke’s co-worker’s house for dinner.  The 3^rd we moved all our stuff to our long term AirBnB.  (We paid for a nice AirBnB in the Philadelphia Art District while family was with us.  We downsized to a smaller, less expensive, no parking included, AirBnB in Clifton Heights, a Philadelphia suburb).  And we found our house, Green Monster, put in an offer, and started the process of owning our new house.  We did not buy a rowhouse or a twin like I thought we were going to.  We did not buy in the location that I wanted, Ridley Park, the farthest away suburb that we were able to move to.  We ended in Norwood, very close to Ridley Park (but only allowing three dogs instead of Ridley Park’s four), in a freestanding, American Foursquare.  We named our house Green Monster because it is three different shades of green on the outside and it is slightly less than 1,800 square feet – a much larger home than what we were expecting to get.  With a three-car garage and second story above the parking in the back yard, plus an attic third floor of our house that we can finish, we have a lot of room.  Almost too much room.  What was I thinking?!  I like tiny homes!!  But I love the propriety of an American Foursquare and my husband was excited about the garage and the basement – half of which is his woodworking shop.  My daughter has three rooms – playroom, bedroom, and classroom.  And my kitchen is massive.  We have long term goals of making our kitchen into the kitchen of my dreams – a Viking kitchen – but in the meantime, my kitchen works great.  Like I said, it is huge.

But before we moved in, we stayed at the AirBnB in Clifton Heights.  Catawba-Lynn and I walked every day.  There honestly was nothing else we could do.  Libraries and playgrounds were closed here.  The zoo and museums were closed.  We had no need to go shopping for anything other than groceries.  So we worked on “classwork”, read books and walked every day.

I made a meal plan, went grocery shopping as if I were at home – because that is what this AirBnB was for us at the moment – home – and I used my tools and stuck to a plan.

My parents were watching my pets while we were in Philadelphia purchasing a house.  And even though the sellers asked us twice to delay closing – stating that they wanted to sell in a hot market but not buy in a hot market, so they wanted to wait in Green Monster – FOR FREE – our signing and move-in date was scheduled for 10/16/21.  I was going to drive back to Wisconsin to hang out with my parents for a week, pick up my pets and bring them to the Philadelphia area, Norwood, to our new house.  I left for Milwaukee on the 7^th, but not before planning and packing “secret” meals for Lucas while I was away.  I planned, purchased, packaged, and cooked all of his meals and wrote down instructions as to what he was having, meal by meal.  I even packed most of them into paper bags so he could go to the fridge, grab them, and go sit down at his desk and work as he munched on his meals. 

My father and three cousins this time, drove to Norwood to help us move from our storage unit to our house.  We arrived in Norwood on the 16^th and signed on the house.  We moved on the 17^th, but not without issue.  UHaul did not have a truck for us.  At all.  We had one ordered – but they did not have it.  So they sent us running around to pick up a truck from a location in Philadelphia (which I specifically did not want to do) to then demand the truck back early and then double charge me for being “late” with the truck – which was returned 3 hours earlier then I rented it for.  Literally five phone calls to UHaul later, the double charge was reversed, and a $50 credit was given to me.  But we learned our lesson.  We will not rent from UHaul.  (We rented from Penske to get from Wisconsin to Philadelphia – no issues).  While family was here in Norwood, I cooked meals in my new kitchen and we walked almost daily (by the Liberty Bell, the Rocky Statue, and around the stadiums – my family loves sports). 

Family left and life had to continue as normal.  I went to the grocery store weekly (so thankful Aldi is out here!)  I also stumbled on a produce store called Produce Junction.  I am very lucky, as the produce sold here is high quality and inexpensive.  I took full advantage of this place weekly.  Our produce intake was already high, now it is even higher with access to inexpensive, great produce!

And I guess the normal is house repairs, because upon moving in, we had an ant infestation, mice living in our home and a dead roach in our basement.  Our electric garage door malfunctioned and opened in a storm.  A pipe was not connected in our kitchen and was releasing water all over the inside of our cabinets.  We found hollow spots in the floor of our basement and our basement leaks.  Our furnace went out in freezing weather and both of our toilets broke – one of which, the second story toilet – dripped through the walls and into the basement before we caught it.  Yes, we got a home inspection before purchasing the house.  And the resident squirrels eat everything – devouring our Halloween pumpkins before the holiday.  This makes planting a garden seem futile, but I will have to evaluate my options.  It has not quite been Home Sweet Home yet – but I am looking forward to that feeling.

And I had to make Thanksgiving dinner.  On Thanksgiving.  But I still had plenty of time to look at sale flyers, as most of the meal was prepared in slow cookers.  I prepped what I could the day before so I would have time to look at Black Friday ads.  And due to COVID and the move and all other craziness, I barely went out in 2020.  I had four things shipped to the house (I never shop online, so that was a first) and I went to the store to purchase bed sheets and vegetable lasagna.  On Small Business Saturday I went out to get one of Luke’s rings fixed that got damaged in the move (his ring fell apart, his tablet was destroyed and a small, crocheted square that I made him out of the same yarn I made our daughter’s baby blanket so that he could remember his baby while we were pregnant, went missing) and to get my saxophone cleaned up and fixed.  The store clerk in the music store informed me of the store closing in 2021.  He said that with the school music programs on hold and the quarantine earlier in the year, the owner was forced to condense his business to the one building he owned, and thus the location we were in would be closing.  Friendly reminder to think of the small businesses out there during this mess.

I am pretty proud to say that I did not miss a meal in November or December.  I had to move a couple of things around, but I prepared all the meals I wrote down.

I spent half of 2020 in my allotted weight, between 151.0 – 156.0 pounds.  The other half of the year I was around two to three pounds over my allotted weight, around 158 – 159 pounds.  I was not too happy about that, but given everything that life has done since July 2019, I take two to three pounds as no big deal. 

I started 2021 with a boast of getting my weight down to 146.0 and permanently staying at 146.0 – 151.0, so that I am always “Half A Human.”  I started this morning at 154.6 pounds.  Only 8.6 pounds left to lose!  I got this!

Why did I include all that happened these past years along with the meal calendar?  What does this have to do with weight loss?  Weight loss and health is not only about food and exercise.  It is about how you navigate situations and use the tools that you have to succeed.  I wrote the internet appropriate version of what happened during this time, as not everyone took the news of our departure from Wisconsin to the Philadelphia area with grace.  Everyone has crazy lives now and then.  But if you make health a priority and you create tools that make your change to a healthier life easier and use those tools on a daily basis, they become habitual and your success becomes easier.  Crazy times happen.  Crazy lives happen.  But we can all do this together.

Do you have any questions about any of the meals I have listed?  I listed quite a bit of them.  Let me know in the comments if you want a recipe or if you want clarification. I am going to skip out of order, just a little. The next post I will be uploading is the one on a weekly shopping list. Should be short and sweet too. Then I will post on the food scale, walking buddy, Yeti and foot coverings. We will see what happens after I finish my toolbox!
Thanks everyone for reading.
I hope the best for everyone.
Let’s have a great 2021.