Silver lining to a very limited grocery budget: it’s easy to resist the urge to binge on junk food and eat out excessively when you simply don’t have the money to do so… Sadly, a home made salad costs about as much in ingredients as a cheap fast food burger, so while I’m blessed with taste buds that like fresh veggies, both the notoriously bad habits and the good habits regarding groceries are beyond what I can consistantly afford.
I’m only 38, but obesity runs in my family and I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life. I was probably 250 by the time I turned 15 and couldn’t compete in wrestling my senior year of highschool because I couldn’t stay under the 277 limit for the heaviest weight class. Only time I was sub 300 during my adult life was a brief period around 2012 and that followed a year of fully kicking the sugar water habit and spending the 2011-12 school year taking advantage of an unlimited meal plan and making the best decisions I could think of at the university dining hall.
I so wish I had access to a pool. Gravity reasserting itself when I get out is a total pain in the anatomy, but being in the water cancels out most of the things that make exercise difficult.
Swimming is also really good exercise, isn’t it? I remember when I’d go swimming in a pool I’d come out feeling completely exhausted, lol. And then I think it did help keep my weight down. XD
Yeah, water provides much greater resistence to movement than air, so pretty much any movement requires more energy in the water than on land. And every chart of caloric expenditure I’ve ever seen gave swimming the highest value. Though, I’m thinking less about calories per hour and more about buoyancy sparing my ankles and other joints from repeated impact* forces and water’s greater capacity to carry heat away from the body.
*Best I can tell, my ankles are 4" at their widest. Estimating the cross-section of my ankle as a square of edge length 4 and my weight of 340 pounds and assuming my feet are an insignificant fraction of my body weight gives an estimate of ~21 PSI or [
~145 kilopascals I’m subjecting my ankles to with each step… modeling my ankle as a cylinder of radius 2 bumps that up to 28 PSI, and as a triangle of hight and base 4" bumps it up to ~42 PSI or ~290 kP. And that’s just my weight, logically, more force is needed to push me forward.
Of course, a major downside to swimming is that I wouldn’t be able to listen to media while in the water.
While setting up to grill outdoors for a small family gathering, I heard the unmistakable sound of an ice cream truck passing through the neighborhood a block or two over. As I was cleaning the grill plates and prepping the pellet grill, sure enough the ice cream man was coming down our street. I quickly went inside and grabbed my wallet and then stood at the edge of the street like a kid. He stopped and I asked if he had Nutty Buddies. He did! I purchased several to pass around when everyone arrivide. Thank goodness he takes plastic money! I rarely have much cash these days. Nice!
The squirrels were back and attacking the front of my garage to gain access to my attic for nesting. We had to pony up $14K last year to repair the damage they had done.
I installed a metal strip along the gnawing locations and then re-painted the front gable and trim strip. I’m pretty proud of my work!
(Don’t tell anyone. I didn’t get permission from the HOA which is required.)
PS. Now I’m off to finalize the ParserComp 2025 rules for publication.
HOA - Home Owners Association - Generally run by uber Karen’s.
“Membership” is usually mandated by deed restrictions. The HOA for our subdivision charges $65 per month fees and about $700 per year in taxes. HOAs have statutory control over your property.
More about HOA’s: Members pay dues and HOA’s are sometimes responsible for maintenance of shared-areas like pools, sidewalks, etc. But they often exist only to tell people what kind of car is ok to park in their driveway or what color flowers they can plant in their yard. Once a property is part of an HOA it is almost impossible to get out of and any sale of the property carries the membership over. In most states if a property is part of an HOA, it must be disclosed as part of any sale.
I’d sooner gnaw my own arm off than live under an HOA.
We have to put our 2 year old to a nap in the middle of the day. It’s a good chance to chill out/nap yourself. I usually do it on the weekends. I had debated bringing my Steam Deck, but he suggested it, weirdly. Sometimes it’s a struggle to get him to nap, but once we got the ball rolling, he was dedicated.
I lay down, waiting to pay games after he was asleep but he said, “Daddy play door knock game?” Which means my current obsession, Blue Prince. I got to play and talk to him about it, and he nodded off easily.
Recently I also got to talk my 7 year old through the game. It’s nice to share little experiences like that. She and I also browsed through some of my 850 odd Steam game titles. One day (through Family Sharing) this empire could be hers too.
