Cook Those Projects

Sunday, February 15, 2026

Strange start.  Could not get to sleep last night.  Not super tired and with just enough sinus irritation to make it a challenge.  It was after 1:00 before I crashed.  Sleep itself felt okay, I guess.  But then I woke up and could not get back to sleep.  Finally looked at the clock, 6:00.  Ugh.  So I'm running on less than five hours today.

Scale minimum up, BP okay, let's have a day.  Lots of cooking and stuff to do but first off to Meijer for the mid-month restock.

Breakfast:  Lazy bagels with chive and onion cream cheese, coffee

 

Made with the little container of greek yogurt I bought on the first (since they were out of big ones) and some olive oil.  Tasty as usual.

Lunch:  2 eggs (plus two egg whites) scrambled w peppers and onions in EVOO, 2 strips Meijer bacon

Will also have tastes of today's cooking projections, which include mashed potatoes, bone broth rice and oatmeal cookies. 

Dinner:  Chuck roast w gravy, mashed potatoes, carrots, NSA peaches, 12 oz Miller Lite, oatmeal cookies

 

Sunday dinners.  All very tasty and I have roast and carrots for the next two nights.

Exercise:  Nope

95.8

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 13.06 / $ 0.39

Forgot I had five dollars of store perks so I was able to get what I needed.  Whew.   Also noted that I had not updated my spreadsheet when I bought a slightly more expensive bottle of olive oil at Walmart ($8.79 vs the $7.36 I had planned) the other day in order to get glass instead of plastic, so I didn't have as much available to start the day as I had thought.  Now to get through the next two weeks with zero spend.  

Fully Blocked

Saturday, February 14, 2026

Ah, the annual holiday that celebrates the fact that February is half over.  It truly is the worst month.

Many hours of complete blockage appear to have finally convinced the sinuses to settle down.  We'll see if that continues, but it's been good so far this morning.  Plan for the day is mostly office time, so the change of environments may test it.  Still, TGIS.

Scale was down this morning thanks to a nice system reset, back down to the low mark.  Today will test that.  BP was fine.  Feel okay, though I can't say that I slept well.

Breakfast:  Sprouted oatmeal w butter and maple syrup, coffee

 

Standard of late, though given that I plan to make another batch of oatmeal cookies on Sunday I'm not sure if my bag of oats will make it through the month.

Lunch:  Taco meat, bone broth rice, guacamole

 

Usual portion sizes.  Those 1C glass containers sure are handy.

Dinner:  Home pizza with pepperoni, ground beef and jalapenos, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

You have to love pizza night.  So, so good.  On one hand I'd like to increase the size of my dough balls a bit and get something closer to a 14" pizza, but the flip side is that would be a lot more pizza.  Which my mouth would love, but my waist not so much.

 

And the capper, oatmeal cookies plus 2% milk.

Exercise:  Nope.  Active but nothing that counts.

95.6

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 0.00 / $ 14.88 

Yearning To Breathe Freely

Friday, February 13, 2026

Very happy to see Friday, though it is going to be a crazy busy day.

Also happy to see a small drop on the scale.  By all rights it could have been up due to another night of excessive eating of very calorie dense stuff.  But it wasn't.  Still essentially flat for the month as I drag my feet on exercise, but is what it is.   BP was a bit higher than usual but not crazy.

Also hoping for a day of no sinus irritation.  Very tired of that.  (ETA:  LOL, nope)

Breakfast:  Meijer extra sharp cheddar cheese, coffee

Last of the block.  It was interesting having the scaled down portion sizes this week (ate 4 oz over the five days instead of the usual 7 or 8 oz).  Can't say I really recommend it.

Lunch:  3 eggs over medium in a bit of EVOO, 1 C bone broth rice, 1 C chorizo gravy

 

Another day another bowl.  Gravy instead of patties or bacon does make for a heartier bowl.

Dinner:  5 oz taco meat, 1 C bone broth rice, guacamole, 12 oz Miller Lite 

 

Also a repeat bowl.  Yum.  I might make March the month of many slop bowls.

 

And the capper.  Sprouted oatmeal cookies and 2% milk.

Exercise:  Nope

97.0

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 0.00 / $ 14.88 

Here come the test, I will get my restock in tomorrow or Sunday and so far my list is almost $ 2.00 over budget.  I probably have enough returnables (home and work) to cover that, but it will be close. 

Absurd Appetite

Thursday, February 12, 2026

I do not know what is causing it, but I have the hunger this week.  Just a relentless desire to eat.  It is quite annoying.  I have pretty much worked through my supply of readily eatable stuff other than planned meals so I won't necessarily be able to indulge going forward but this week has been bad.

Which is why it was oddly pleasing to have the scale give me the same number for the third day in a row.  It's not a great number or even a good one, but at least it was not up.  BP fine too.

Breakfast:  Meijer extra sharp cheddar, coffee

Again.

Lunch:  3 eggs over medium in a little EVOO, 1 C spicy beans, 2 Meijer sausage patties 

Again.  Testing out the EVOO I got yesterday, seems fine.

Dinner:  ~ 5 oz taco meat, 1 C bone broth rice, guacamole, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

I do like the slop bowls.

 

And the capper.  Ferris cherries berries and nuts with dark chocolate and 2% milk.

Exercise:  Nope

97.4

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 0.00 / $ 14.88

Underappreciated Miracles

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Here to sing the praises of a truly underappreciated miracle drug.  We're talking ... Afrin. 

And I'm being completely serious.  A couple times a year I just can't stand the sinus issues any longer, crack and use the stuff.  And it works.  Five minutes later, I'm breathing freely the way the body is designed to work.  It truly is miraculous.

Obviously last night was when I cracked.  Just before I went to bed.  And you know what?  I slept better.  Deeper, probably.  Had a very lengthy dream.  Didn't get extra sleep (my fault) but slept through right up to my alarm.  Woke up and felt good.  Got going without incident.  Had a blood draw and I actually felt a bit of pep.  Noticeably more with it, like I could actually do things.  Sleep is good.  Oxygen is good.

Now if I could just get rid of the sinus issues without needed pharmaceutical intervention that would be great.  Not sure I can though.

Scale was flat which is miraculous given the minor meltdown last night, BP good.  Let's go. 

Breakfast:  Meijer extra sharp cheddar, orange juice, coffee

Last of the OJ.  Not planning a rebuy, that's a carb I can easily cut.

Lunch:  3 eggs over medium in butter, 1C bone broth rice, 1C chorizo gravy

 

Quite a bit of food.  Tasty.

Dinner:  Leftover chili, rice, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

 Last of the chili.  

 

Also Ferris winter spice mix.  More Christmas treats.  My desire to eat is relentless tonight.

 

And the capper   Truffles and 2% milk.

Exercise:  Nope.

97.4 

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 7.36 /  $ 14.88

Had to pick up a prescription so I grabbed olive oil at Walmart.  I'll get the rest this weekend.  It will be tempting to pre-buy a couple non-perishable things for March - there are a few good sales.

Failure Fatigue

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Yesterday was, truth be told, another failure and a big one.  I was exceptionally unproductive at work.  It was largely a wasted day.  I was unable to make myself do anything productive in the evening.  No exercise.  I couldn't even follow through on going to bed early.  Ate too much and way too many carbs.  All bad.

But then at least I slept a little bit better overnight and it's a fresh day.  Feeling better so far, we'll see how well that translates to productivity at work.  Let's hope.

Scale was down thanks to some clearance but still elevated, BP good. 

Breakfast:  Meijer extra sharp cheddar, orange juice, coffee 

Notably small bit of cheese this morning.  Good thing I am not hungry.

Lunch:  3 eggs over medium, 1 C spicy beans, 2 Meijer sausage patties

 

Again.

Dinner:  Leftover chili, 1 C bone broth rice, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

Fast.  Tasty.  Also ate the remaining homemade cheezits of which there were not too many.

 

And the capper, (too many) dark chocolate peppermint pretzels and a glass of 2% milk. 

Exercise:  Nope.

97.4 

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 0.00 / $ 22.24  (not $22.44, I have been screwing it up since day 2)

Mapped out this weekend's restock and it actually works better to get everything except olive oil at Meijer.  Some things I need are on sale and with the rewards money I can just fit everything under the cap including another pound of butter. 

When You Eat The Different

Monday, February 9, 2026

Ugh.  Ate too much yesterday, and with the consumption of different things than the usual my guts are not overly pleased.  It's a low level displeasure, nothing active or severe, but protest is definitely being registered.  I took some leftover chili but otherwise it's back to the usual today and hopefully that will settle things down.

Scale was predictably up.  Honestly I was expecting worse, but it's still enough to be annoying.  First BP reading was a serious WTF.  I got a diastolic number vastly higher than anything I've had recently.  Reset the cuff, re-ran it and got two numbers that were perfectly fine, inside the normal BP range.  I certainly don't trust and haven't trusted the home monitoring machine, but I still use it out of habit. 

Breakfast:  Meijer extra sharp cheddar, orange juice, coffee 

Might be a bit less cheesy than usual this week since I used half of the block to make cheezits yesterday.

Lunch:  3 eggs over medium in butter, 1 C bone broth rice, 2 Meijer sausage patties

 

Standard stuff.  Very tasty today.

Dinner: Cracker crust pizza w pepperoni, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

Was going to have leftover chili but honestly this was all I could do.  Try again tomorrow.  Also had a few homemade cheezits to see if they stayed crispy.  Still tasty.

 

And the capper, yogurt pretzels and a glass of 2% milk.  Didn't make cookies, going to work on eating up the rest of the Christmas treats a little bit at a time. 

Exercise:  Nope.  Very fatigued today for whatever reason.

98.0

Dollars Spent / Remaining: $ 0.00 / $ 22.44

No change.  A couple items to restock/pick up at the end of the week.   Speaking of which, I thought up a way to make that trip a zero out of pocket thing even if I go to Walmart, I have a credit card with a promo credit balance that I could use.  Also determined that I have points on another card that could be used to shop at Amazon for non-grocery items.  But given the dollar amounts I may or may not bother.

Social Media Diet

Sunday, February 8, 2026

The day of rest.  It won't be entirely restful, of course, but as close as it gets.  I've been looking forward to it.  Even the laundry and cooking and cleaning part.  I think it would also help if I took the day off from social media, I scrolled a bit this morning and it mostly made me angry over things I have no control over and which mostly do not impact my life.  And when not mad I was mostly annoyed.  I do occasionally learn things and get inspired, but a day off still seems like an excellent idea.

Probably won't be a full social media diet day given that tonight is the Superb Owl, though. 

Scale was up after yesterday's dietary fun.  It wasn't a big jump and I'm not terribly upset, I really enjoyed the pizza.  Just need to be more active.  My diet is also excessively starchy, but that is likely to continue.

Breakfast:  Spelt lazy bagels, cream cheese, coffee

 

Last of the spelt.  Not sure if I'll restock it in March, it's expensive and I probably won't do the lazy bagels once the weather is warmer.  Probably just go with the regular flour.

Lunch:  Soup, homemade cheezits

 

Fun with a new recipe.  The cheezits were pretty easy, but they're very addictive so I had better not keep them around.  Made a half batch to test - including seeing if they'll stay crispy for a few days - and it's going to be hard not to just eat them all.

 

Also had some peanuts.  Have the hunger today, unfortunately.   And then Late July jalapeno lime tortilla chips, which were my impulse buy.  At $1.99 for the bag, pretty tasty, but wouldn't pay full price.  Nice to have another avo oil option.

Dinner:  Chili, cheese and crackers, veggies, tortilla chips and dip, 12 oz Coors Light, brownie and ice cream

And a glass of 2% milk.  Super bowl party.  Ate WAY too much today.

Exercise:  Nope.  Very much a day of rest.

96.4

Dollars Spent / Remaining: $ 0.00 / $ 22.44 

Happy Flaturday

Saturday, February 7, 2026

TGIS.  Plan for the day is once again to spend as much of it as I can stand at the office, but even knowing that it's still a Saturday and that means a lot.

Scale was exactly flat this morning and I was positively THRILLED by that.  I was braced for a sizable gain after yesterday's minimidafternoon meltdown.  It probably wasn't even 1k calories, hardly close to a binge by my absurd standards, but it was significant.  I'm also in need of a clearout, so bad things were expected.  Whew.

What I really need to do is get some exercise.  If it weren't so cold and icy out there I'd walk to work.

Breakfast:  Sprouted oatmeal w butter and maple syrup, coffee

 

The oatmeal is fine.  It's oatmeal.  I don't know that I'll buy it again once I eat it up - there is a lot left and I won't want to cook it in warmer weather.  Actually, summer meals are an issue in general I should start thinking about.  Might be a lot of grilling.

Lunch:  3 eggs scrambled, 2 Meijer sausage patties

 

I bought fresh sausage, cooked and froze it.  Seems to work fine.

 

Had some peanuts with my beer while waiting for the oven to heat up for dinner.  Guess I need to not buy nuts next month.

Dinner:  Home pizza with italian sausage, mushrooms and jalapenos, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

On real pizza crust I started on Wednesday, no cracker crust tonight.  A+ delicious.

 

And the capper, the last of the peanut chip cookies and 2% milk.

Exercise:  Nope.

95.6

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 0.00 / $ 22.44

No change, no food spend, all good.  I certainly would have in my previous life - went past a number of temptations while running some out of town errands.  I'm liking not spending money too much for that, though I did have to get gas, spent $34.00 relating to my upcoming vacation and about $25.00 on work-related stuff so it was not a full zero spend day.  But these things are in the budget.

Sleep Or Rest

Friday, February 6, 2026

Very glad that it is Friday.  Still have to get through the day, but there is a weekend in sight.

Scale down a bit this morning, BP and pulse good, felt okay.  But I'm again puzzled by sleep.  I probably did not get to sleep until almost 11:00.  I woke up sometime early and eventually looked at the clock at 5:00.  I was neither tired nor sleepy, so I scrolled for an hour.  At that point I was sleepy, so I dozed - mostly ineffectively - for an hour.  I was not particularly tired, nor was I tired when I got up.  I do not know why my body will reject sleep at times like that, it seems like it should be so easy to just shut down.  Maybe it is good enough to just get rest, but it sure seems like sleep would be more valuable.  I will say that I'll be curious to see how sleep goes on my vacation next month, since I'll be getting much more exercise than usual and sleeping in a different bed.  If I can avoid leg cramps, maybe it'll be good.

Anyway, let's get through this.

Breakfast:  2 slices Sargento smokehouse cheddar, orange juice, coffee

 

Again.  

Lunch:  3 eggs scrambled in EVOO, 1 C bone broth rice, 3 strips thick cut bacon

 

All good. 

 

Later, I ate more of the cherries berries and nuts with dark chocolate.  WAY too much of it.  One of the bigger fails I've had lately.  I have otherwise had good control, that was very much not the case here.

Dinner:  Spaghetti

 

Third (and last for now) time.  Same as yesterday.  Last third of the noodles and jar of sauce, I set aside (froze) about a quarter of the pound of italian sausage for pizza use.  A tasty and fairly inexpensive meal.  I have another box of pasta and more sauce, but will probably not have more sausage until next month.

 

And the capper, chocolate chip peanut cookies and 2% milk.

Exercise:  Nope.

95.6

Dollars Spent/Remaining:  $ 0.00 / $ 22.44 

No change.  Not even tempted, really - while I've seen a lot of pizza videos this week they are just making me look forward to a homemade pizza tomorrow night instead of triggering a desire to go out or order in. 

Make It Routine Already

Thursday, February 5, 2026

Did better on the sleep front last night, was prepared when the sleepiness hit about 10:00.  Not sure exactly what time I woke up, it was probably around 5:00, but I didn't get great sleep after that.  In and out until the alarm went off at 7:00.

Scale minimum up which was not a surprise, felt less lean.  Also ate and drank too many extras yesterday.  Other numbers good.

Also, I have already referred to things being on Friday (instead of "tomorrow") twice today so it's pretty clear I'm not caught up.  I'll be thrilled when the weekend does get here.

Breakfast:  3 slices Sargento smokehouse cheddar, orange juice, coffee

 

Ate the odd slice since I had questions about whether lunch was going to work.

Lunch:  Ferris cherries berries and nuts with dark chocolate

 

I had planned on a package of CF jerky (pictured with breakfast, actually) but it was evident when I opened it that the seal had failed, it was dried out and inedible.  Didn't have time to go home, so I scrounged around at work mid-afternoon and found an unopened package of (more or less) fancy trail mix from a Christmas gift box.  Very tasty, but not exactly ideal.  I think it will hold me until dinner.

Dinner:  Spaghetti, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

Round two.  Same as last night in all respects other than fewer noodles.  Very tasty again.

 

And the capper, chocolate chip peanut cookies and 2% milk. 

Exercise:  Nope.

96.0

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 0.00 / $ 22.24

No change.  Still stunned by how slowly the credit card balances increase when you're not buying things, food in particular.  I should have done this challenge years ago.

Fighting And Fighting

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

Much of yesterday ended up being a battle.  First and foremost a battle with my sinuses.  Very irritated they were and there is only so much I can do.  Totally destroyed my productivity.  I mean, I limped through, but sure didn't get enough done.

Finally got them settled enough.  By 9:30 I was fighting off sleep with not a lot of success.  If I would just take out the contacts earlier I could have just slept.  But I fought it, got up sometime after 10:00 and did the pre-bed routine.  And then, of course, I was no longer sleepy.  It took entirely too long to fall asleep.  And so this morning was a battle.  Good grief.

Otherwise, today is off to a better start.  Calm sinuses, a small drop on the scale, a feeling of being more dense and less fluffy.  BP number in range, pulse normal, all good.  If I can have a better afternoon, maybe I'll be up to something more active this evening.  Maybe.

Also on the positive side, I had a distinct feeling that I didn't need as much food as I had last night.  I would have been happy with just the bowl of leftover casserole, I did not need the roll or beans.   

Breakfast:  2 slices Sargento smokehouse cheddar, orange juice, coffee

 

Again.

Lunch:  3 eggs over medium, 3 strips thick cut bacon, bone broth rice

 

Decided to have rice instead of beans today.

 

Also had some cocktail peanuts.  This is why I do not keep nuts handy.  Too many nuts.  On the plus side I was not at all hungry this afternoon.

Dinner:  Spaghetti (Bionaturae sourdough spaghetti, Classico tomato basil sauce, italian sausage) w/ parmignano reggiano, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

Some pantry stuff.  Pleased that my parmesan wedge was still good, I haven't used it for much.  I bought a microplane and enjoyed a nice shaving.  Also kicked up the sauce with extra basil and crushed red pepper and all in all one of the better spaghettis I've ever had.

 

And the capper, peanut chocolate chip cookies and 2% milk.  Had a brain cramp when pouring the milk.  Oops.

Exercise:  Nope.  Need to get this figured out.

95.8

Dollars Spent / Remaining Budget:  $0.00 / $22.44