Forrest Lake in Methuen was frozen the last time I was there. It’s still pretty cold out, but the temps have been hitting the 50’s on most days. Here’s looking forward to the next time I visit Forrest Lake when there won’t be any ice to be found anywhere.
Nerd Streak

I should probably look into a new hobby, don’t you think? Way to go, nerd boy.
Overslept
I set my alarm for 5:00am and didn’t get out of bed until about 6:40. Oh well, after a rough few days I think I needed it. I still do, I am feeling super tired still.
I was planning on getting my exercise in for the day, then getting ready for work, then (assuming Jen was awake and not in an early meeting) I was going to add the final guitar parts to the two songs I’ve been working on. Nope. It’s after 8:00 now and I just closed my exercise ring and had a protein supplement breakfast. My stomach is okay so far, though not really 100%. I’m still feeling a little beat up after the rough week, but yesterday was 99% fine and I am hoping for a trend. I’ll use the stop watch at lunch and dinner and see if it keeps me on track. It doesn’t always work, there are other ways to fuck up apart from just going too fast, but it worked for me all day yesterday. I still don’t know what went wrong with the late night pudding cup snack last night. I was really shocked at how that one turned out.
I am planning to go food shopping after dinner tonight. Once I get home I will try to add the last guitar parts to the two songs so that I can start mixing and get them in before the end of the month.
We did a lot of planning for Bellana’s college graduation weekend last night. Once we get through all of the logistics I am going to start obsessing over the photography options. I’m hyper focusing on lens options (yes, the pun was intended… focusing… get it?). I was thinking about trying to get a long zoom so that I could get close up shots of the stage from our cheap seats. Now I’m not so sure. Now I think I might want to go for something super wide so that I can get the whole scene when the family is all together. Like, what if we go to dinner to celebrate afterwards. If I have a 40mm lens on the digital camera and a 50mm lens on the film I’m not going to be able to get multiple people into a shot unless I stand up and walk away. Maybe I want to look into getting a 28mm, or even an 18mm lens so that I can grab nice wide group shots.
Oh to be able to actually know what I’m doing. Heh heh.
Okay, time to go get showered and dressed and get ready for work. Happy Monday, he said with biting, dripping sarcasm.
Almost Made It
So close to a full day without stomach problems. So close, yet so far.
No issues at breakfast. No issues at lunch. No issues at dinner except I dished out a smidge too much food and felt too full to finish every bite. No issues with any between meal snacks until…
All of my goals had been met. I was sitting up in bed getting caught up on the last few weeks of South Park. I was pleased with my success after a whole week of struggles so I decided to treat myself to a little cup of sugar free chocolate pudding.
Just before I finished the little cup, I started feeling a little queasy. Huh. A minute later and about half of the little cup of pudding was coming back for an encore. I made it to the bathroom in time, but only just barely.
So it’s not the perfect day I’d hoped for, stomach wise, but it was a good one up until the last few minutes. Better luck tomorrow, m’kay?
50 Goals
David Pastrnak scored his 50th goal of the season today. Time to celebrate!
New Watch Band
I bought a leather watch band for my Apple Watch. I like the way it looks, but I’m not sold on how it feels. We’ll see how it goes.


Chair Lily

Robin Snoozes
Squeeze
There really isn’t enough room for both of you on top of that cat tree, but somehow you’re squeezing yourselves in there.
Take a Step Back
I thought I was doing all right yesterday. I had a bit of a blocked up stomach at lunch time, but there wasn’t any pain. I just needed to be patient while it passed.
Dinner was different. I had a mostly protein bar and snack dinner because we started lunch super late. I over did it. No blocked stomach or any fun like that, I just ate too much. I was super stuffed at first, but then it morphed into one of the worst stomach aches I’ve had since surgery. It was bad, but the pain wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it just didn’t stop.
The fun started at about quarter after 8:00pm. Around 11:00pm I was sitting up in bed, really wanting to go to sleep, but in too much pain to try. Around midnight I was still a mess but I tried to lay down. It didn’t work. Laying down made things worse. I moved to the living room so I could try to sleep sitting up. I think I nodded off for a few minutes a couple of times. Around 2:00am I went back to bed. I was able to lay down, finally, and I managed to sleep.
When I woke up at around 7:00am today the stomach pain was gone, but I still don’t feel 100%. I have a lot of gas (TMI, sorry) and I feel sort of sensitive, as if one zig in the wrong direction would send me right down into the abyss. I took it easy at breakfast, just a protein bar. I’ve had half of my daily water goal but only my morning pills. I’m about two hours late for the lunch time pills, but I’ll have them soon.
I tried a normal lunch, but I took a big step backward in the post-surgery recovery process. I used a stop watch to force myself to pause between bites. At least 30 seconds, but mostly a full minute. The end result was a very long lunch, about 90 minutes, but I’m down to the last bite and I haven’t had any problems. Just the same gas that was there when I woke up (TMI, sorry).
I’m way behind on reaching my protein goal today, but I’ll get there soon enough. I’m pretty optimistic that I can get through the whole day without any stomach screw ups. I just need to be overly, overly cautious. I can do it.

