Get Routine For Once

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Last evening would have been a good opportunity to get going with an exercise routine.  I was not dead tired when I got home, dinner was quick and easy, and I was up and doing things by the time I figure I will need to leave in order to hit the Y.  There was a reason (on the Y end, weirdly enough) not to start yesterday, but it would sure be nice if I have the same chance tonight.  I did get an unusual number of things done for a weeknight, so that was good.  Dishes are all caught up, kitchen clean, laundry good.  I have some detail cleaning - a fair amount of it, actually - and lots of decluttering on the to do list, but the day to day stuff is in pretty good shape.

I did spend entirely too much time watching pizza videos on Instagram.  I might have to start some dough tomorrow and do a regulation pizza on Saturday instead of a cracker crust.  We'll see if that happens. 

Scale was down this morning, it helped that things cleared out.  BP good if still on the high end of good, pulse WTF low.  I don't see much point in resetting the cuff and redoing it for pulse, I would know if my pulse was super low or high.  Since today should be almost an exact carbon copy of yesterday - other than an extra egg and fewer spicy beans at lunch and add leftover green beans at dinner, hopefully tomorrow is good too. 

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

 

Again.  I still would like to know what genius decided to put 11 slices in a package.  Come on guys that's not divisible by anything.

Lunch:  3 eggs over medium,  3 strips thick cut bacon, 1 C spicy beans

 

Didn't mention yesterday, but I trimmed the bacon to use some in the beans so these slices are about 25% shorter than a normal slice.

Dinner:  Leftover busy day casserole in a bit of EVOO, leftover green beans, leftover biscuit, 12 oz Miller Lite 

 

Last of the leftovers.  I really should eat at the table, you know?

And the capper, peanut cookies and 2% milk.  Finished off the whole milk yesterday.

Exercise:  Nope.  Did not happen.

96.2

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $ 0.00 / $ 22.24 

No spending to report.  Feels good.

Bit Up

Monday, February 2, 2026

Lots of words yesterday, not so many today.

Scale up a bit, not a surprise with the weekend diet and being rather backed up.  Screwed up my routine and forgot to take a BP.   A fairly sluggish morning, though I'm not overly fatigued.

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

 

Sargento was cheaper than the store brand this time (with careful shopping).  Found I had one more OJ in the fridge so I'll be using that up this week.

Lunch:  2 eggs over medium, 3 strips thick cut bacon, spicy beans

 

A little heavy on the beans since this was the oddball quantity from yesterday's batch plus I used up all my 1C and 2C containers.  Not crazy excessive though.  And they turned out good even with less bacon and no bell pepper.

Dinner:  Leftover busy day casserole w a bit of EVOO, 12 oz Miller Lite

 

Lots of leftovers this week.  And how about that, this was even better the 2nd night.  Let's hope the same is true when I eat the rest tomorrow night.

 

Then you have the capper, peanut cookies and a glass of milk.

Exercise:  Nope.  I considered it, but for reasons not worth getting into decided against.  Man I wish I could get on a consistent schedule where morning workouts were a realistic possibility again.   I'm going to have to settle for evenings I'm afraid.

98.0

Dollars Spent / Remaining:  $0.00 / $22.24

No reason to track consecutive days this month since that's not the goal.  Also, in case it wasn't clear, the $16.20 on yesterday to Amazon is the flour that I pre-ordered so it would arrive in time.  Turns out I didn't need it - I still have about a half pound left of the last bag - but regardless, I am including the expense in February's budget.  After beer, it's the second most expensive item planned for the month.

The February Five

Sunday, February 1, 2026

January is in the books.  I'm going to call it mostly successful. 

On the weight loss front, the surface view is tremendous success.  The scale is more than 25 lb down.  If you look deeper you see that somewhere between 15 and 20 of that was insta-dumped water from eating dreadfully around the holidays.  So it's not all THAT impressive.  But still, there is some actual drop.  And that water needed to go.  I was pleased to see a small drop today after a LOT of carbs yesterday.

Exercise was a complete fail.  I'm not in good shape.  Though one positive, when carrying in the groceries (a heavy load) I effectively stress tested my bad knee and it did better than last time.  It's not strong, it's not 100%, heck there may not be any ligaments attached, but it wasn't outright bad like it had been.  I think it's time to see if a little walking will be OK.

Work was a mixed bag.  I made progress on organization.  I still have too much going on and an enormous backlog.  But I have identified some goals - I want to get to a position where I don't have to put in more than 4 hours on the weekend so I can do that sometime on Saturday and take Sunday off to do chores, cook and rest.  That's the goal.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff.  No spend (on food) January was a tremendous success.  I decided to count the bag of pinto beans in January, so I ended up with an out of pocket spend of negative 14 cents.  I made less than ten dollars of purchases, which were fully covered by bottle returns.  I pre-ordered flour for February via Amazon gift card, so nothing out of pocket there.  I enjoyed the challenge and it was rewarding to see the sheet where I track spending be almost entirely blank this month.  I used up a lot of stock and saved at least $500.00, probably more.

For February, I have decided on something similar but not quite as dramatic -- I'm budgeting $5 a day, which is $35/week and $140.00 for the month.  Thankfully I still have a few things on hand.  But I have menus all mapped out and I think it is absolutely doable.  We will see.

Breakfast:  Spelt lazy bagels w chive and onion cream cheese, coffee

 

Baking the lazy bagels longer is definitely a good thing.  Highly enjoyable.  Bought the premium cream cheese as the store brand, while much cheaper, has three different vegetable gums in it.  Come on guys. 

Lunch:  Soup and samples

 

A soup from the freezer.  I'll also be eating bits of things I'm cooking today, of which there is quite a list.

 

Including some spicy beans.  No bell peppers and about 75% less bacon, but still tasty. 

Dinner:   Busy day casserole, cheesy green beans, NSA peaches, grands biscuits w butter, 12 oz Miller Lite, peanut choc chip cookies

 

Sunday dinners.  I made up my own recipe on the cookies, since I only had about 1/3 as many chocolate chips left as I needed to do pure choc chippers.  They turned out decent.

 

And the capper, a glass of whole milk. 

Exercise:  Nope.  Active but not dedicated.

96.8

Dollars Spent:  $ 101.56 ($1.56 out of pocket) Meijer + $ 16.20 ($ 0.00 out of pocket) Amazon. 

Dollars Remaining for February:  $ 22.24 

Shopping was interesting.  I had my list all worked out, checked all the prices in advance, and went.  I had to make eight adjustments by my count due to things being out of stock.  The only thing I couldn't do a direct sub on was a quart of yogurt - the premium brands are multiple dollars more.  Impulse bought one thing.  With the plusses and minuses I was about $2.00 over my budget, more than half of which was due to the fact that I forgot there is sales tax on beer.  I have enough wiggle room in my mid-month restock to cover it, plus I earned about $5.00 in rewards that will cover a container of yogurt if I can catch it in stock or another pound of butter if I run low. I'm on track so far.

Used gift cards to cover nearly all of the spend.  I'd go for another zero out of pocket month, but I am planning on hitting Wal Mart for the mid-month restock and they don't participate in the gift certificate program.  About twenty five dollars cash would be just fine.