A Memorable Weekend and a Sad Departure

I really enjoy the holidays, but sometimes you are just glad when they are over. My weekend started out with the wonderful discovery that I was sick on Thursday night. At first I thought this was a good thing because I figured I would take Friday off work and rest up and sleep. Instead I had to get up early and go to the doctor for something unrelated. That doctor told me I would have new expenses for treatment to help me start running again. Then my car broke down (but I'll get back to that later). So I spent most of Friday sick and still running errands until I lost the car. Saturday was much of the same, just without a car and instead being driven around. I was up late that night and had to get up on Sunday for Easter with my family. So finally around 6:00 on Sunday I got to relax. The end total of all of this is that it's now Monday morning and I still feel like crap.

But back to the car. This is a sad, sad story. While the grim details of the car's final journey are not worth telling, I believe the details of the car itself are. This is a car that has been a part of my family for over a decade...starting in 1997 when my grandmother bought it. In 2005 she decided to get a new car and my dad bought it from her and drove it around for himself for a short time while I was driving his car (as mine had recently broken down badly). After a few months of that, this car became mine and I have been driving it ever since late in 2005. Now this red, 1996 Mercury Sable will spend the next week with me and then be sold to someone who will be able to hopefully fix it up and give it a good home. However, it is always sad to see a car go that has been a member of your family for that long.

On another note, one good thing did come out of this weekend (okay, there was quite a bit of good, but this is worth writing). I have discovered that holidays make great training for our trip to Pennsylvania. My parents were in town so I spent early Sunday afternoon eating lunch at my sister's place. I made it a point to eat until I was full, then follow that up with two desserts. The end result was that my stomach was quite full. Immediately after eating I had to leave to go to spend time with my girlfriend's family and...you got it!! Eat dinner! I had not been there more than 20 minutes before it was time to eat. So I had no choice but to eat another entire meal. The end result of this (and another dessert) was a stuffed belly that made me more confident than ever that I can accomplish the feat of eating a 2 lb burger on Saturday. While I think that I will require more training than that, I know this is a good start. If I can now just get a ride to the store to do some shopping I'll be ready to finish up my training. I plan to spend the week consuming large quantities of salad (takes up lots of space and fewer calories), pasta, and water. I also plan to eat my two footlong subs from Subway on Wednesday or Thursday and then stop eating around 8 or 9 PM on Friday, with only a small bit of cereal to eat Saturday morning. One key that would have helped me would have been me running quite a bit, but since I'm injured I'll have to start biking this week to burn off some of the calories and build an appetite. But I'll keep you posted on how my training comes along.