(At least I believe I read that line in one of her books.)
Anyway, another year has come and gone. Yes, I just had another birthday and I'm another year older. I'm still working out, running or some type of strength training most days of the week. I had my annual follow up with my doctor Thursday and it's all thumbs up. I have gained about 10 pounds in the last year but I'm not too worried. When I hit 150 lbs I had gotten down to a 32" waist. Now I'm floating around 160 lbs but I have roughly a 30/31" waist.
One of the positives or negatives, depending on your point of view, of going from a 38"+ waist to a 31"+ waist is the need to purchase almost an entire new wardrobe. However, I'm learning to embrace my "Senior" status. Seniors get an additional 10% off at (C)Ross Dress for Less on Tuesdays (that was for you Dave). Maureen and I are planning a trip to Europe next March and we both need travel clothes for cooler weather in addition to my general need for an "S" or "M" on my clothing labels instead of the "XL" on most of the stuff I brought with me from California. What I love about Ross is that I can walk out of the store with Nike, Under Armor, 32 Degree Cool/Heat, North Face, and other name brand apparel that I would never spring for normally and for just a fraction of the cost. I bought something from each of those sporting brands at Ross this past Tuesday. I added up the original retail price tag amounts (not the Ross tags) and it came up to an insane amount for just six items. With Ross' discount prices and my added senior discount I actually paid less than 40% of the previous total and I'm stylin'! TJ Maxx is almost as good. I don't have the same luck at TJ Maxx finding the sporting brands like Nike and Under Armor, but I still find name brand stylish clothes at a fraction of the normal retail costs.
North Carolina has a number of opportunities to identify yourself as a military veteran including veteran license plates on your vehicle and having your veteran status shown on your drivers license. And a number of businesses extend discounts to military veterans. It cost me $13 to have "Veteran" put on my drivers license and I've saved that and more just buying dinner salads at Zaxbys with their veteran discount. Lowes also gives discounts to veterans every day of the year. Home Depot only chooses to honor veterans on Veteran's Day. I'll drive further and pay 10% more at Lowes just to get their 10% discount for no other reason than they choose recognize my service to this country. I recently was able to get an Air Force Veteran license for my truck and it has already saved me money. Right after I received my new plate I had to put new all weather tires on the truck. The owner of the tire store, when looking at my truck saw my plate, pointed at it, looked at me and said; "the tires will be less than what I quoted you", and then went on about his business. Yes, he's getting all my business as well.
I'm not clipping coupons yet but I'm sure that's coming. After all I am retired and on a fixed income!
My actual birthday was Saturday, October 7th. Liam came home from school to spend the day with Maureen and I. We hung out for a couple of hours at the semi-annual gun show down by the airport at the Ag Center/Fair Grounds. And yes, Maureen did buy me something at the show. I was going to make it an extreme "foody" day and eat all of the stuff that I normally forgo during most of the year but that didn't really materialize. The minimum goal was to get my slice of birthday carrot cake. I always have carrot cake on my birthday. By the end of the day Liam had to head back to school and Maureen and I were just kicking around downtown Asheville. The one place that actually had carrot cake had a line to get in just to order a slice to-go so we didn't wait. And the other restaurants and pastry shops that might normally have carrot cake were out. Just my luck.
Sunday the plan was to pick up my birthday slice, hang out for an hour at our favorite Irish pub, Jack's, catch the Celtic jam session and then catch the Packers game at the "Packers Bar" in town. In the "it can only happen to me" realm, Maureen goes into Well Bread to get my birthday carrot cake and we head downtown. We get to Jack of the Woods and I open the to-go box and start to enjoy.....something that was not carrot cake. I still don't know what exactly it was but it was so disappointing that I asked Bernadette, our barmaid, to throw it away. Then we were late getting to the Packer Bar and it was standing room only. I'm guessing Sunday knew it was not my birthday anymore and had no sympathy. I had no interest in standing for three hours so we just went home to watch the game there.
Seriously though, I had a great birthday spending the day with my son and my best girl. I got a great birthday present at the gun show. And I eventually did get that slice of carrot cake. And the Packers won in an exciting come from behind Aaron Rogers master piece orchestrated with only a minute eighteen (1:18) left on the clock! It was a great weekend.
Fall is upon us again. And as beautiful as the autumn colors can be, I hate raking leaves, almost as much as I hate painting. And you know how much I hate painting. I'm looking out across my deck into the yard and I see the leaves just waiting for me. And I know if I head out to tackle them there will just be a fresh batch waiting for me tomorrow. Oh well, I guess you take the bad with the good.
I have to go out and rake now, so until next time.....
