Protein drinks from my viewpoint.

You could say, I'm hung up on this picture. OK, I'm sorry.
The summer thunderstorms have hit, even though it's not summer.
I went to see my wife last night and almost didn't make it home. I was tired. My end of year schedule has me driving early dismissal for one school but not the other. So, I put in about 30 extra miles, and I miss my afternoon nap. I get up at 4:30am every morning, and have been missing sleep for awhile. I end up waking up around 2 and can't get back to sleep. My afternoon nap is usually what saves me. So, I was grateful to not run over anyone and not fall asleep behind the wheel at 8:30pm. That's a long time for an old man like me to stay awake.
I slept well through the night and awoke around 6am this morning. I felt better too.
I have a busy schedule this evening. One that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't lost the weight. I remind myself of this obsessively so that I never forget how far I've come.
This morning, after going to the park to make sure my equipment was set up, I went over to Ollie's Outlet to pick up a kitchen table with chairs, and a universal TV remote. My wife's remote fell and when they reloaded new batteries, it wouldn't work. I tried looking up the codes online, but didn't find them. So, I paid $4.00 for a new one.
Now, after getting the table, I headed straight for the nursing home, thinking I would be lucky to get everything finished this morning. My wife would have TV again, and I would see her once more and still be able to get home and maybe assemble the table and chairs.
Not to be.....
The damn remote didn't work. I tried everything I could think of to no avail. The batteries work, I checked them. The remote didn't. Now, I have to take it back to Ollie's, and my wife is without again.
I downloaded the old remote's manual since I now have the codes for the TV, and will try again with that. I know it works because the lights work on it, so all I have to do is follow the instructions to reload the code....I hope! In my younger days, I would have ridden up there after my gig tonight and then drive home. I'm not as stupid as I used to be. I'll do it tomorrow.

The storms are going to move through right about the time I start playing for the Teen dance tonight. We have been lucky to get rain the past 3 days, without too much wind, lightning, or damage. the areas around us weren't so lucky. Our number will be up sooner or later. I'm going to try to remember to carry a flashlight. I'm going to call the others to remind them too.

What does this have to do with protein drinks?
Nothing. I'll write about them int he next blog which will be titled "My Friday and Saturday".

Almost finished with school

The school year is winding down, and my next step in my weight loss plan is about to begin.
I am excited and scared at the same time.
This will be the first time in my entire life that I will be making decisions, life changing decisions on my own.
My wife is still in the nursing home, but is no longer active in my daily life. She is in her own little world and seems happy.
So, I have been collecting things in the house, and throwing things out. I have been cleaning, and getting ready to paint. I have been giving things to others so I don't have to deal with them anymore. De-cluttering is the correct term for today's world, and that is what I am doing.
Damn, it feels good.
I have trouble walking away from it, or taking time off, however, and I need to recharge a lot more now because of the stress of seeing my wife slowly deteriorate and die.
So, even though I want everything NOW, I still have to take it slowly and one step at a time. I hate that!
One good thing, is that I am getting practice being alone. My kids have kept their distance in coming home. I have gone to see them, or met them at the nursing home, but they haven't come here. That means I can leave things for later if I have to. I work as a typical ADDer, that is, I go here and there multi-tasking, rather than staying in one place for too long.
So, I have a dozen projects in the process at one time. I finish one and go on to another, but I still leave things and go on and on.
I don't think I'll need a dumpster now. I was going to order one and fill it up, but I think I can take things to the dump myself a bit at a time. I should also be able to take bags down to the curb over the summer and get rid of most of it that way. It's amazing how much space opens up when you organize things.
Just to re-hash, my wife has been saving things since we got married. We have moved 6 times in 34 years. Each time, we took more and more stuff. I was thinking of asking the Smithsonian to throw away all those old worn out airplanes so I could display all the stuff we accumulated, but I'm not sure they would be happy about that.
I began to realize that my wife was a hoarder after I had to move out of the bedroom closet a few years back. My stuff just wouldn't fit anymore.
Over the past two months or so, I have been gathering my wife's clothes and bagging them. I use 45 gallon black plastic trash bags. I have thrown away about 5 bags of clothing that was worn out, or damaged. Yes, I went through everything.
Every pocket had a tissue in it. Every single one. I filled an entire kitchen trash bag with tissue.
I won't go into too much more detail, but tonight I finished collecting everything and brought it all out to the living room. All of her clothing.
19/45 gallon bags covered the couch, in front of the couch on the floor, on both side of the couch.
Wow. This pile of clothing is not who my wife was. She is a good person, with a kind heart. I don't know the reason for the hoarding, but I'll take it with everything else she brought along with her. It's just time for me to move into my next phase and that is what I'm doing. I am looking at this pile and thinking about my mortality and what I want people to see of me when I die. I don't want them to have to do what I'm doing, so I will be planning accordingly. It's a healthy catharsis, that consisted of all 5 step of grieving.
I have to wait until things are over before I take them to Goodwill, but there are some poor people who are going to have some great clothing. Some of it has never been worn. Some of the suits are almost brand new. The socks are already gone. I gave them to a family member.
So, this is all part of my plan to lose weight and start a new life. I'll write more...

Insomnia

Every once in awhile, I can't sleep.
I am usually smart enough to stay in bed, because sometimes, I am actually sleeping and don't know it. Also, the mind and body still rest, even though I am not sleeping as such.
So, I thought I would write in my blog to see what comes out of my fingers, instead of trying to sleep.
First, off, I went to bed at 7:30pm tonight because I was exhausted and couldn't keep my eyes open. I figured I could use a full night's sleep, and even if I woke up early, I would still get my night in.
Wrong!
I woke up around 9:30pm and haven't been able to go back to sleep.
I got up and checked my email. I surfed Face book. I also have a site that I like to read stories and I thought that might help.
Wrong!
So, around 11pm, (it's 12:55am now), I got up and surfed the channels on TV.
I haven't seen Saturday Night live in some time, and I found out I wasn't interested after a few seconds.
I found some really bad movies, and a TV show about Piranhas eating people. The guy actually went into the pool with the fish and they didn't touch him. I guess you only make that mistake once, huh?
Then, I got hungry, so I made some oatmeal with a banana since I had eaten nothing but high protein meals today in an effort to start to change my diet. That filled me up, so i went to lay back down. I am still awake.
I am not worried, because this only happens once every few months, and since I have had an awful lot of stress lately, I guess I need this for some reason.
So, I will go lay back down after I finish this and will spend the rest of the night staring at the lights, or whatever I do when I can't sleep.
I am working on a total remake of my food intake, including changing out my breakfast meal. I have been eating way to little protein and too much carbs, so that is not a good start to my day, and I need to change it. Oatmeal, and yogurt have too much of the wrong stuff.
My Chobani actually has sugar added. I didn't realize it until last week when I reviewed the label. I had thought the sugar content was from fruit added, but I was wrong. So now, until I can find a substitute, I will not mix the yogurt, and only eat the top portion of it, and leave the fruit on the bottom. I know the fruit sometimes gets mixed in, but Chobani is pretty thick, so it will only be a little bit of sugar.
The oatmeal is sugar free or reduced sugar, which really isn't that much better than the full on sugar oatmeal. I have been eating this combination since I stopped eating eggs about a year ago. I got tired of eggs, and quit. I still have them from time to time, but not as a staple. I will re-examine that.
I also eat the oatmeal as a way to increase my fiber intake. It is gluten free, so every bit of fiber helps. I may start mixing my own fruit into plain oatmeal and plain yogurt, but use them during the day as a substitute for salad dressing, or whatever.
I know when I come home after my shift around 8am., I have a real hard time if I don't get some food in my right away, so I think the extra sugar is messing up my system.
On a related note, I have my blood test and scheduled checkup with the Bariatric team in July, so I will have a new diet plan figured out by then to present to the dietitian. It's time I did some adjustments anyway so I can start to lose the next 40 pounds.
The weather has finally improved enough so that I am spending more time outside, and getting more exercise.
I plan on starting my own business (gee, already my mind is wandering) and need some help to do that. I hope to be able to use the business to make enough money to be able to live, and to stay in a warm climate so I will be able to exercise by doing things, instead of being chained to a treadmill all winter inside.
I plan to be able to head South for the Winter and come back North for the Summer.
OK, I can't wait to re-read this after I catch up on my sleep. I can't imagine if I am making sense or not.
Oh yeah, I wanted to comment on my fellow WLS explorer. Barry Atric's blog comment. He hasn't been making entries into his blog for awhile because things haven't changed too much recently. I thought about what he said, and realize that in order to maintain weight loss for life, that the surgery has helped me to do, I have to keep re-inventing the wheel.
I have to continue to make changes, and adjustments, in order to not become complacent and start to regain the weight.
So, I will do my best to keep this fresh and continue to post as much as I can. I may start to sound like a broken record, but it's my blog and I can do what I want.
Night Night.....