Daddio: Too Sick to Bowl and Other Updates

I've finally gotten the cold that everyone else in the family got.  I'm proud of the fact that I held out the longest, though.  But considering the pounding headache, congestion, sore throat-- and the worst is the exhaustion, I decided not to go bowling this week.  That's okay, though, since I've been happy with my performance the last two weeks.  RPG Night is also getting canceled for the same reasons, which stinks because we haven't played in a month for various reasons.

I've been informed by an anonymous source that I've failed in my blogging about No Impact Week, so let me remedy that.  Our efforts to minimize our impact on the environment have actually been pretty successful.  Our efforts to reduce our garbage have been amazing.  The first day-- when we just made garbage like we normally do-- we ended up filling an entire 30 gallon bag in one day.  But then we started being conscious of our choices in things to use and consume and tried to produce less waste.  In the last three days we have probably only filled a second bag only a quarter of the way, for all three days combined.  We've also switched over to what I'm calling "scratch" cooking-- everything is prepared from raw ingredients and no processed foods are allowed.  This is considerably more work, but the food tastes better, is healthier, and I can eat more food for less calories when the food isn't processed.  It also didn't cost anymore at the grocery store this week than it usually does.  I suspect that our reduction in garbage is largely due to not buying pre-packaged processed foods.

There have been a couple of failings on my part.  We weren't supposed to spend money except on predetermined things (gas and groceries).  This was to reduce our consumption.  On Monday I totally forgot and went and picked up (and paid for) a lunch for a co-worker that was having a hard day.  I also realized that tomorrow I'm getting a haircut and I should have brought that up at the meeting when we were deciding what to spend money on.

The other thing I did wrong was I went back on the "no coffee" rule.  Even though coffee is a raw, single ingredient, our research showed that coffee is generally bad for the environment because it has to be shipped halfway around the world to get to our local store.  Well, that's a noble goal in theory, but the reality is that I'm addicted to the large amounts of caffeine that I get in my coffee every morning, and drinking extra-strong tea just wasn't cutting it.  I was actually feeling depressed from coffee withdrawal.  So we started drinking coffee again yesterday.  But other than that, I've stuck to the rules.

In other news, I had a nice conversation with Uncle Daniel last night, who I haven't talked to in a while.  He's doing really well, has recently passed the two toughest parts of his CPA exam and only has two more sections to take.  The next test is in May- GOOD LUCK, UNCLE DANIEL!

Finally, for those that haven't heard, Gabe is having very severe growing pains.  His legs are actually outgrowing his Achilles tendons, causing sever pain in his heels. It's called Sever's Disease (could it be named after the character Mike Sever from Growing Pains?  Probably not). Some days he's unable to walk because it hurts so bad.  But the good news is that he went to the podiatrist on Monday who gave him arch supports and lifts for his shoes which make it a bit easier to bear (and make him taller), and he just called me a few hours ago after his first physical therapy appointment and he was really happy because the stretches they taught him really helped a lot.  He's been very brave through all of this and I'm very proud of him.

Also, Mother's Day is coming up in a few weeks.  For the Toes, if you have any ideas for great things we can do for Mommio, I'd certainly appreciate your input.  Don't post it in comments, though- come talk to me in person.