What the Junk?!

I sat down to make this post last night and got distracted. I don't even know what distracted me, now.  We went to Reidsville and went to Salvation Army and Goodwill.  I was able to find a Coca-Cola crate at Salvation Army. I already have two, so I was happy to add another. I also got a stamper, a little tray, and some stickers. The tray was neat. It hs the Eiffel tower on it and it's got French writing on it. Very cute.

At Goodwill, I found a clear Starbucks cold cup and a tumbler.  I also found a little pack of four mini notebooks and a silicon tray with pumpkins. I'm guessing either for candy or ice cubes. I'm going to use it for pumpkin ice cubes. :) We got back to Danville and went to one of the Goodwill stores here.  I found a red and white Starbucks holiday mug and another small pack of stickers. Decent haul for all. Here are the Starbucks things:

We went to Reidsville today and went to Salvation Army and Goodwill. I got a Coca-Cola Christmas ornament (still in the box) at Salvation Army. I collect Coca-Cola stuff. At Goodwill, they have had a Dolce Gusto coffee maker.  I look at it every time I go in. They had $8.00 on it but today, it had a new sticker. $4. I bought it!  It powers up so I'm sure it will work. I ordered some pods to try it out.  I can't wait to try it. I couldn't find a manual online for it, but I watched a few YouTube videos from when it was new and learned how to use it so that won't be an issue. It's going to be fun to try!  The retail on this when new was $129.99 and I paid $4.00. Score! :D I love great thrift finds! I'm also glad I waited to buy it. :p

I totally forgot to post last night. I thought of it after the fact.  Oh well, yesterday was all out of whack for me anyway! I usually get up with my Fitbit alarm at 10:30 every day. Yesterday, I woke up and looked at the clock to see how much time I had left to sleep and it was afternoon. I said, oh, I have time and then it hit me, NOON.  I was so tired because I had been having a stressful dream right before I woke up.  I was all out of sorts and my day was totally off after that.  I usually relax from 10:30 - 12 and get myself together and ready for the day. That didn't happen yesterday. The day just seemed so off-kilter.  Luckily, today, I woke up at the right time!

I didn't leave the house today. It was raining off and on all day.  We had a small thunderstorm here, too.  It wasn't bad, though.  No power outages or anything.  The power didn't even blink.  I sat in my window and watched the rain.  It was coming down fast and hard at one point.  I stayed inside and stayed dry! :p

I tried something new today.  I few grocery visits ago, I bought two of the Coca-Cola with coffee cans.  One was dark and one was caramel. I tried the caramel today and it was surprisingly good. I was all set to hate it, but it was pretty tasty. It had the bite of Coca-Cola, the taste of coffee, and there was the subtle hint of caramel.  Pretty good.  I would buy it again.  This is what the can looks like:

I will try the dark one later. I found out that there is a vanilla one too. I'd like to try it, also.  I just looked at my can for the caffeine content. It's only 69 mg. That is less than a 16.9 oz Moutain Dew!  I just looked at an old empty Coke can in my room and a regular 12ox Coke only has 36 mg.  So this is lmost twice as much as a normal Coke.  

So, tomorrow it is supposed to be a high of 91˚.  Yes, in May!  Wowee, it's going to be fun walking tomorrow. :P  Also, we have a annual festival that is at Ballou Park.  I walk through/past Ballou on my daily walk.  The past few walks, I've had to detour as they were setting up.  The festival started today, so I bypassed and walked on the sidewalk out front.  Luckily, the festival doesn't start on Friday until 4 or so.  I didn't have to fight a bunch of crowds.  Tomorrow will be different.  There will be a lot of people.  Luckily, it should only be bad right on that one block and then I'll be past it.  On the way back, I'll pass the park but on the other side of the road.  That is a shopping center and you can imagine that the parking lot is full during a festival.  Tomorrow's walk will be interesting and probably annoying. :P

Today's wasn't so bad, but it was hot and I wss so ready to get a Coke at my turn around point.  I remembered to carry my change with me, but the machine was totally sold out. Phooey!  I didn't get to drink a nice cold Coke on my way back.  Hopefully they'll fill it soon.  

I finished the current puzzle today!  I have to pick out the next one I plan to do.  I'll start it tomorrow.  I also plan to get my pen pal letters written and sent this weekend.  I hope to get to the post office to pick up any that I have and answer them all and mail them all off.  It will be two weeks before I can check my box and answer letters again as we leave for the beach next Monday.  I am so ready to go!

Yes, I'm less than 100o words from finishing Camp NaNoWriMo! Yay!  I just wrote 1508 words tonight.  I am not sure what that last bit is going to be.  I've hit on all the characters that I wanted to do. I might add to one of the ones I've already done to make it to 20,000.

I worked on the puzzle today. I didn't get a lot done, but I did get some!  I will post that picture at the end of this post.  I walked and it was in the 80's and it was pretty darn hot! Considering it was April and in the 80's. Yikes! lol  I got home and had to sit down and cool off a while.  I worked on the puzzle while I did.  I was working on that for a while and then my friend texted me that if I could wait a little bit to eat, he'd bring half a pizza to me!  I can wait for pizza. :P

He brought it by and I had delicious pizza for lunch.  I wasn't as good as our usual places, but it was not bad at all!  He was even nice enough to bring me a 2 liter of Coke since I'm out of soda at the house.  Watch out world! LOL Good thing I still have plenty of coffee.  I don't run without caffeine. :P

Okay, so I am feeling just bleah and I don't really want to post, but I am going to.  I got up today and I felt like hell. I didn't sleep well and I surely didn't feel like walking.  I went anyway.  It did rain for a short while but it didn't last long and after that, I didn't have to use the umbrella at all.  I got home and decided to skip my workouts.  Then, I got up and did those too!  I put a load of clothes in to wash and my friend texted me that we'd go eat.  I didn't know where, but I am usually up for food!

We went to South Boston, Virginia.  It's about 25 miles or so away.  Maybe more, I'm not sure.  We ate a local pizza place. It was great!  The pizza was delicious.  The crust, the pepperoni, the cheese, yum.  Everything was delicious.  The only thing I'd change about the place is they serve pepsi products.  I prefer Coke when I have a soda.

We left there and went to the Goodwill.  Sadly, it was almost closing time, so we were only in there a few minutes.  We didn't want to hold them up.  After that, we stopped at a McDonald's.  He got some ice cream and I got a caramel macchiato. :P  I ordered and he paid for a small.  I didn't realize until we were down the road a bit that they gave me a medium!  

I came back here and watched an episode of Cold Case Files and read the new Stephen King short story that he has for free on his website: Stephen King .com

It was good as most of his works are.  Now, I'm waiting on a load of clothes in the dryer and I'm going back to the true crime book I started last night. It's really good so far!

I gave up soda for good in early February.  I did a reset in January and didn't have soda for 28 days.  I drank a lot of water.  In February, I finally decided to give soda a go.  I drank a few sips and it just didn't taste right to me anymore.  This was HUGE.  I have been drinking soda since I was a small child!  I never thought I'd be able to give up, "The nectar of the Gods" as I was known to call Coca Cola!  Well, after drinking that little bit, I felt all out of sorts and bloated.  I don't have that when I drink water!  I knew right then that I didn't need soda.  I was a bit worried about water with certain foods. (PIZZA!) I had pizza and drank water and it was just fine.  I'm a happy camper!  I don't need soda.  It's just empty calories and it's not good for me!  I do need my caffeine though!  Caffeine withdrawal is NOT a nice thing.  I already love coffee and Starbucks, so coffee is my go to.

I have a Keurig (I love that thing!) and I make myself a fresh cup everyday.  Sometimes two cups.  It is so good and so much better for me than soda!  Plus, it's a hell of a lot less calories.  I use a creamer that is 10 calories per little cup.  I use that and honey.  I am trying to cut out added sugar completely.  I really like my coffee with honey.  It's perfectly sweet and it's good!  I  wish more places had honey instead of sugar or those nasty artificial sweeteners.

A friend needed me to ride with her to the hospital in Lynchburg Virginia.  About an hour and a half trip.  I usually have my coffee with lunch everyday and it wasn't lunch time yet, but I wanted coffee! lol  She stopped at the Pilot gas station to fill up and we went in and I looked to see if they had honey.  They did!  Actually, they had a really nice coffee station.  They had plenty of different kinds of creamers too!  I had my coffee and was in a much better mood. :P  We drove all the way up there.  We get out of her car and head into the hospital and she gets a text on her phone.  The person we are there to see is now home. ~_~; I was laughing so hard in the parking lot I almost fell down.  We drove back through Lynchburg and ate lunch at O'Charley's.  The food was great, but the service was not!  My friend treated me to lunch for going with her.  We ended up stopping by the person's house on the way home.  

Anyway, this got on a weird tangent and I started out talking about coffee! Yeah, this blog is aptly named.  What the Junk?! INDEED! :p

What a day!  I am tired!  I've gotten in 35,000 steps and over 15 miles!  I walked from the hotel to the Sky Wheel.  I didn't ride on it today, though. I did go to the Gay Dolphin gift cove!  I thought they would have some iron on patches, but they didn't! :(  I guess I'll have to order some online.  I was sure I'd be able to find a Myrtle Beach one.  Oh well.  I'll keep looking.

I also went to a store called, I Love Sugar. :D  I got a box of mints with "Ann" on them and a package of Charm's candy.  I haven't seen Charm's in many, many years.  I just had to get them.  I visited two Starbucks that I passed along the way.  I was looking for gift cards that I don't have to add to my collection.  At one of the Starbucks, I found a really cool 2016 Chinese New Year - Year of the Monkey.  I'm a Monkey, so that was that much cooler! :)

I had walked over 8 miles before I found a working drink machine.  That was one delicious Coca Cola!  I finished my walk and came back to the room.  My friend and I went out later for dinner.  We ate at a local place that had good reviews.  It's called Burky's and it was great!  It's a burger/hot dog/fry place.  We went to a Target and to Tanger Outlet.  We also went to a local ice cream spot called Painters.  They are popular!  We had to wait in a long line, but they didn't take too long.

We came back here and I realized that I had 30,000 steps.  I thought that I would try for 35,000 for the day.  I made it! :)  I went for a walk on the beach.  That got me to the 35,000 mark. Actually, I'm 35,168 at the moment!  I'm charging the Fitbit now as it's battery is low.

I need to do another picture post, but I might wait until I get home and post them all to Flickr.  I might post some tomorrow if I can get to post before so late!  I am really tired and looking forward to going to bed tonight! :)

So, I got in my walk and workouts.  It was drizzly when I started my walk, but it cleared up and it was nice for the rest of it.  I had six workouts on today's calendar. Yikes!  I did them though.  I felt good having done those.  I relaxed for a little bit after that and then went to a friend's house for a little while.  I haven't been up there since Sunday.  I stayed awhile and then came home. I got on a clean / fix up / rearrange kick.  I got a lot done, too.  I have one bookcase in my room that is overflowing with books and looks cluttered.  I rearranged it so it looks much better.  I also keep my Coca Cola collection on top of it.  I rearranged it too.  It looks great!  Here are two pictures of the collection: 

I don't have a lot to say today.  I got in my walk and workouts as usual.  I went to a friend's house for dinner.  There was cake again.  ^^;  I cannot resist it!  I really need to give up cake and soda.  I've been drinking soda my entire life. It's going to be difficult to stop drinking it.  I do not like tea, so that isn't an option to switch to.  I have considered trying to make Kool Aid with Stevia and seeing how I like that.  I like water, but not with food.  

I guess I can learn to like it with food. I am sure that if I dropped all my soda drinking, I would kick start my weight loss again.  I've cut down drastically since I began working on a healthier me.  Now, I need to try to cut them out completely.  I'm not sure the world is ready for me without my daily Coca Cola!