December 14th

Back to yesterday. It was a very randomly fun day. I went disc golfing for the first time and it was so much fun. I went to a toy/collectables expo that came to LaPorte…check out my awesome haul:

I saw an original foam 2×4 from 1988 that was Hacksaw Jim Duggan’s trademark. I had it when I was like 7…7 year old Ben is tickled pink right now.

I bought it for 15 dollars. Here’s the only listing for one on Ebay:

33 year old Ben is tickled pink too! I have no idea if that’s accurate but I can’t find another one for sale online in my quick 2 minute Googling…so basically I’m a millionaire.

As for the other stuff that I took pictures of from yesterday:

Organized:

Dinner was really good. I made hummus crusted chicken breast with zucchini and yellow squash:

I’m pretty proud of that one.

Onto the crochetttttting:

I got decently okay at doing this:

I learned the real importance of tension/less tension on the yarn as you go, and what the most comfortable way to do that is for me:

So that was enough crocheting. Got invited to go Disc Golfing with my buddy Craig. He was nice enough to bring me a set of discs and everything. It’s pretty cool stuff. You basically throw long distance/medium distance/shorter distance frisbees for 18 holes of “golf” that are between 250 feet and 450 feet long each. Each hole ends with the frisbee sitting in a basket like this:

It’s the best walking exercise you can get in my opinion. It’s a semi-steady pace, hills and valleys…and it takes about 2 hours. Also, it’s competitive so you forget that you are actually doing something healthy.

After golf, I cooked that amazing dinner and then went to the Jaycees ugly Christmas sweater party…and I forgot to get myself a sweater. I was able to improvise. I stapled Christmas ornaments to a red work shirt and wore a green t-shirt underneath:

No, I didn’t staple them WHILE I was wearing the shirt.

It did cross my mind though.

So that was a busy day/night.

I woke up really, really sore. I forgot on this journey there have to be “rest” days as far as the exercise stuff is concerned or I’m going to break something. Yes, probably my vagina. Regardless, I woke up at 7:30 and just laid in bed planning a winter trip. I’m flying into Tampa, FL at the end of January for GASPARILLA. It’s a pirate festival. Read: drinking and parade and bad decisions.

I did my crochet…here’s how it’s going:

Yeah…something about not being good at crochet just said “Shave your beard”

I didn’t leave it like that, but I probably should have.

So now I’m creepy and clean shaven instead of being creepy and bearded.

I made an onion and garlic stuffed burger for dinner.

I got a burger stuffing thing a while back but I threw away the directions and I’m not using it correctly, oh well. It was still surprisingly good. I’ve included a picture of the “bun” which is a 100 calorie sandwich thin. I toss a 1/2 a serving of potato chips on the plate and add a few to the bun with a dab of bbq sauce for some texture and taste without sacrificing a bunch of calories. It tricks my dumb brain pretty well. Sargento pepper jack cheese is the best!

Organized another cabinet (added some supplements to the routine)

Random act of kindness cannot be discussed because someone may see it on here and that would ruin the surprise. They’ll find out Wednesday and then if I remember I’ll post about it. It’s no big deal but hopefully it makes her day happy.

Today, I was able to give a very genuine compliment to my friend Liz that I only see like 2 or 3 times a year. She’s always so well put together even though she has two kids and a pretty hectic life, and I told her that I thought so. That’s the best kind of checking off of a blog item. When I sit down to write, sometimes I just mentally go through my day to see if I can count anything random towards the blog goals and today I remembered complimenting her on her “put-together-ness”. The unforced compliments are always better than the “Shoot, I better use this opportunity to get that out of the way for the blog”.

The reason I saw Liz was that I was at the sporting goods store in town to purchase some goggles and swim trunks because I’m going to start swimming in the morning at the YMCA. Thank you to my comedian buddy Brian Johnson for coming up with a program for me to follow!

So tomorrow I’ll be doing this:

• Warmup
  • 4 x 25 swim
• Kick Set
  • take 15 seconds rest in between 25s4 x 25 w/ kickboard

    2 x 25 no kickboard

    4 x 25 w/ kickboard

    2 x 25 no kickboard

• Swim Set
  • 2 x 50 easy -30 seconds rest in between 50s4 x 50 medium -20 seconds rest

    5 x 50 medium-hard -15 seconds rest

• Cooldown
  • 1 x 100 very easy

I had improv rehearsal tonight. I’m forming an improv group with some other very talented people under the guidance of Bob from Disposable Improv over in Chesterton, IN. By “I’m forming”, I mean that Bob had the idea to form another troupe and asked me to be in it. On that note, If anyone doesn’t know by now, I put on two comedy shows a year and we give the profit to charity. February 7th is going to be the next show and it’s going to be IMPROV. Tickets are going on sale this week ONLINE so keep an eye out!

You can watch Whose Line episodes online and they are just fantastic.

I did everything else on the list. This includes flossing while listening to a new audio book (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less) while driving to Improv.

 Listening to a book about doing less while doing more is like using a book about procrastination to procrastinate. Did I mention how good I am at books? So good.

Last thing…I’m going to weigh in tomorrow to see how much if any pounds I’ve lost. That should be fun. GOODNIGHT!