Day 163: The Best Day of Your Life

"The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.   ~Bob Moawad~

I love this quote because it pretty much describes where I am now. My life became my own again the day Alex died but I continued to live in his shadow until the fire. After the fire I leaned on and relied on my family to get through that. Same when I broke my wrist. I guess I really didn't decide my life was my own until I actually moved back to my house. My family really wanted me to sell the house and move closer to them, but I love my house and I'm happy here. So today I'm back on my own. That's not to say my family would not be there for me if I needed them, because I know they would. What it means is that I've taken control of my life back and I'm doing what I know is best for me. 

I neglected to weigh myself this morning so I'll take care of that tomorrow ! 

Breakfast was a 2.1 ounce 180 calorie cinnamon roll with french vanilla coffee. Morning snack was a 155 calorie chocolate shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 3.7 ounce 200 calorie grilled chicken sandwich. I dressed it with a mixture of buffalo wing sauce and zero calorie ranch dressing. Also had a nice fresh chef salad with it. Sliced up a couple of radishes and some cucumber and added Kraft Zesty Italian dressing (60 calories). Afternoon snack was 1/2 cup of cottage cheese (80 calories) and a 0.65 ounce 100 calorie bag of Skinny Pop popcorn. This left me with 425 calories for dinner and an evening snack. Dinner was a 4 ounce 180 calorie artichoke and spinach stuffed chicken breast with fresh green beans. Talk about a delicious dinner ! Evening snack was a 3.5 ounce 130 calorie ice cream sandwich. Calories for the day were 1085.

Instead of lazing around the house I got out early (for me!) to get the mail and grocery shop. Picked up some wonderful fresh produce at Wegman's: green beans, brussel sprouts, carrots, radishes, red & yellow peppers and salad greens. I also got another tub of romano cheese since it's my favorite condiment ! Also stopped at Walmart to pick up frozen veggies: broccoli, spinach, riced cauliflower and riced broccoli, Also picked up a seedless cucumber, some yogurt and cottage cheese so I'm all set for the week ahead. It's still surreal to leave the grocery store with nothing that is "bad" for you. I no longer care if people look over what I'm buying because it's all healthy ! I made sure to stay away from the prepared foods at both stores because Wegman's pizza and Walmart's rotisserie chicken are so hard to resist !

It was a beautiful morning, warm and sunny ! I enjoyed being out with the sunroof open on the car for a change. Ran into a road closure in Cicero for the Cicerofest parade so that was a pain finding a way out of the traffic and onto 81. I have to say everyone in traffic was patient and courteous but the local police did absolutely nothing to help with traffic flow. Everyone was turning right onto a dead end street and then having to turn around and come back out onto the main road. Clearly they need to work on managing traffic because all they had to do was direct everyone to turn left and there would have been no traffic jam ! Instead you had people whipping out of the dead end trying to go in the other direction while others were trying to turn left. I was expecting lots of horn blowing and bird flipping but there was none that I saw. I was glad to get out of there ! Mexico is a little busy today too because it's community garage sale weekend. So people are parking all over or driving slow to browse from their cars. Needless to say I was glad to get back home and I'm glad no one on my street is selling anything ! By the time I got home it had clouded up some but it was still warm (mid 70's) so I shut off the heat and opened the doors and a couple windows. Rain showers moved in around 2:30 pm so that was the end of our "nice" weather for today !

I got a workout done in between lunch and my afternoon snack. My hip was sore for about the first 10 minutes but it resolved itself and didn't hinder me the rest of the way. I had to dig deep to complete the workout today. It's funny that some days it feels effortless and other days I feel like I just can't do it. I picked up some 8 pound hand weights at Walmart today so I can start working on my flabby upper arms. The 5 pound weights I have just didn't feel like a challenge at all. I had planned to get a second workout in but I lazed around on the couch too long ! Tomorrow is another day.

For now I'm headed for a shower and my bed.