Week 5

This is the fourth week of my goal of loosing 60 pounds.

For the first 20 weeks, my goal is to loose 1.5 pound per week.

Total weight lost: 10.8 pounds
Week 1: 3.2 pounds
Week 2: 2.6 pounds
Week 3: 1.2 pound
Week 4: 1.6 pound
Week 5: 2.2 pounds

See the weight plan is still in force. It’s going a little better than plan, I might go to McDonald to slow down the process. Just a joke Cruella!

I gave up on trying to reach my water limit… I hate that liquid stuff! I drink a lot more, this is an improvement, no?

Boy Sunday the weather took a turn for the worse… From a “mild” 0° C (32° F.), it went to -15° C (5 ºF) in a couple of hours. This really makes it cold to shovel the shit-uation of the previous Friday snow fall.

We spend the weekend at the trailer, Friday snow was a nice sight… at the beginning! After a while, I was a little worry about having to wait for spring before being able to get out of our lot. Saturday, I started to work on my tax return; I owe the government some money… discussing!

There is silence over the trouble water and there is my silence and even the trouble water would be freeze over.

I'll blame it to whoever decided that a day will only be 24 hours! I started reading a blog from Glen (To simplify) and I’m so taken by his story that my mind is in a reading mode, not the best to generate some writing of my own!

I also read a lot of the comments that he generated, and one comment that kept popping up is in the style “I catches up on your blog and…” All the blogs I read so far, rarely someone mentioned that they read the whole thing. He got this mentioned almost weekly. I’ll add mine when I reach the end of my ‘catching up’ I’m still a whole year of reading to do. I’m not in a hurry; I like to savour slowly his blog!

In March 2011, he made first page of the LA times, following that, he got a “spike” in people reading his blog. The spike was in the thousand and then it went back to only 500-600 readers a day! Poor Glen his fame past… maybe he could take example on me, I get some day spike in the 10 (not thousand) persons… LOL and it gets me excited… if I would get in the hundreds… would my heart stop?

Time travel to summer

Tomorrow forecast is for 10 cm (4 inchs) of the white fluffy hellish stuff that is coming from clouds (not the nine one). So it seems to me, appropriate to start thinking about summer – I know it make no sense, I’m a senseless man in a frozen… state of mind :)

After talking with my wife about this summer 10 fun fill days of RV rallying… she call shotgun on the passenger seat. How could she refuse? 10 wonderful days with the author of those lines, she should be paying extras for the opportunity ha ha

The rally is in Montmagny, about an hour east from my hometown of Québec, and is by the St-Laurent River. This is the river that brings the water from the great lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. It is also a river that has Whales visiting (it’s a big one!).

There will be shows every night. Some country (of course it is a RV rally!), some music form local artists, but also one show at the beginning with André-Philippe Gagnon. For the one that are not too sure who this is… he went to the Carson show couple of decades ago and was doing the “We are the world” and imitating all the voices in the song. He also had his show running several years in Vegas… I can’t comment on that: What happen in Vegas… you know!

Gregory Charles will close the RV shows; this is an artist really big in the province of Québec, he is knows for “I think of you". He also spends a lot of time touring in New-York .

There will also be several workshops on RV mater, and visits of touristy stuff.

I’m already excited, but there is more in the planning…

If we don’t get an early retirement coming now, we also decided to take 2 weeks without pay to visited New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

One of our daughters live in New Brunswick and we will also have her sister coming with us. So we could spend something like at least a week the whole family in our trailer and have a nice vacation.

After our week, our daughter living in Ottawa would fly from New Brunswick and my wife and I would spend more time visiting the area.

This will give us a month of vacation, we haven’t done that too often and would be a nice way of practicing retirement life!

Pick me, pick me!

The Canadian government is trying to limit its spending so that the national debt doesn’t start running aimlessly because of more deficits.

Another way of dealing with deficits would be to increase tax… however, we are already so overtaxes that I guess the current government feel guilty of going and asking people with empty pockets to empty also the little money they have aside in their socks. Who would have guess that the Conservative could have a conscience!

Limit spending when you are ruling a country… almost invariably mean that you will be cutting programs, and have a leaner employees pool to pay.

Soon there will be a new budget; the sentiment in the government workforce is that we will have to face a lot of employment cuts.

Yesterday, we had a meeting with our union; they were already getting us ready for the imminent cut coming up. We just don’t know when and how many, the axe is already up in the air how many heads would fall?   

To me, it is exciting news, if I get layoff, I would get a cash allowance (equivalent of 42 weeks of pay) that would mean not waiting 20 months to retire but just few more months to go.

But even if I am not offer a layoff, if someone else is offer and don’t want to go, I could change position with them and still get out sooner.

In this spirit, this morning, I talked with my chief, and let him know that I would volunteer to get my head cut off… this is a one time offer (just have one head after all). I let him know that they would be much better to keep the young worker than an older man in a decline caring curve!

My wife is also considering this, I brought home last night some information (numbers) for her to see… and I can tell she was really excited too…

So stay tune… I’ll post if we get some (for us good) news.

Week 4

This is the fourth week of my goal of loosing 60 pounds.


For the first 20 weeks, my goal is to loose 1.5 pound per week.


Total weight lost: 8.6 pounds
Week 1: 3.2 pounds
Week 2: 2.6 pounds
Week 3: 1.2 pound
Week 4: 1.6 pound

In wine there is wisdom,
In beer there is freedom,
In water there is bacteria.

I don’t know why (could be the sceptic me!), I was expecting my weight this morning to be around .5 pound loss… But I loss my weekly goal!

After all, I know that getting older your metabolism slow down. Before loosing 15-20 pounds was a quick process… and knowing all of that, I thought that I wouldn’t loose as fast.

Funny how your mental work, I have all the right tools, I am not cheating and follow my change of eating habit rigorously, and I still have doubt! Me of little faith! But this morning I saw now I believe :)

So far the picture doesn’t show much (or rather doesn’t show less), but I know from my belt (I am one hole further), and the way that I feel, I lost some weight. It will be interesting to have the next picture on Week 8 to start seeing the change.

The main difference for me, this is not a crash diet, It a change of habits. I was not expecting a radical change within a month, I don’t even want that to happen, I need to stay focus on slower healthy loss.

The past week, I have eaten some not-that-healthy-snack, but I control the amount. I don’t eat from a bag of chips, I measure the amount and I don’t go back. If there is no room for anything surplus in the day, I don’t snack.

29 Jan 2012

19 Feb 2012

29 Jan 2012

19 Feb 2012

Going once...

Today I sold 3 small camping mattresses that were in a closet for the past 2 years. This in itself seems mundane but why I’m excited about is that it is one of the steps toward downsizing the house.

At work, we have an electronic bulletin board where you can post pictures about things that are looking for a new home. My post was so popular that I end up telling 2 persons (and rejecting a bunch of others) that if the first person change her mind, they would have the first right to the mattresses. I might look for a second career in sell!

This brought a whooping $40 in my very-thin-wallet. I think that any money from any of those windfalls should go toward a fun fund for our first year on the road.

When I told my wife about my sell, she was so excited that she starts looking for more stuff I could peddle. If I was my daughter, I would lock my bedroom door, and to be safe, get a deadbolt for her door.

As you might recall, this weekend for my birthday, we cleaned some closets. That was another step toward downsizing. The less junk we have now, the less we will need to deal with next year.

The weekend is around the corner but I don’t think that we will go to the trailer. We will use more time to sort and dispose more useless possessions. I’m sure my wife will find some goods to sell, after all she will probably agree with a fun fund… she does like to have fun!

On an unrelated topic; this week, I started reading a new (to me) blog, it is by far the best blog I ever read. It is about this man that sold all his possessions and start living in a class B motorhome (he calls that VanDwelling). He is really articulate and has a great sense of humour. I’m reading it from the beginning. When he started writing his blog, he was living and working in LA. He sold everything and moved into his VanDwelling. Stilled working in LA, he was doing an urban type of camping. Just outstanding! Here is the link to his  tosimplify and he is in the list of the blogs I follow on the right side.

I am smiling... $40 richer!

$$ Valentine $$

I always wonder how far off I’m from the sos-iety path. For me, Valentine’s day is an absolute ordinary day. I always felt like there was some imaginative merchant out there that make this “holiday” about their profit, nothing to do with love!

Talk about peer pressure:

-     “Hey Richard what do you do for Valentine?”

-          “NOTHING!”

-          “I gave my wife a large chocolate heart and send her flowers”

-          “Good for her!”

-          “We are also going to the restaurant! I’m sure I will be lucky tonight!”

-          “Yes, you are a lucky man!”

To express your love, you don’t need a holiday; it should be live in each day, it should be freely given after all you can’t buy me love!

If you need this holiday, I think you might ask about buying couple therapy instead of the flowers or chocolate shape in heart. Why on earth would people line up at restaurant tonight? We don’t need any special day… We could go to the restaurant any day without “having to” for this special occasion.

I thought it was just me, this morning I answer a small survey on “The Weather Network”. 37% respondent seems to think like I do! And, I thought I was special!

Enough is enough of those make believe you can buy your way to express your sentiment.

This morning, I found a site that really expresses what I think about “consumerism”.

But in a more articulate way that I could ever tell, I invite you to look at it: love-life-not-stuff

If you are smiling... It must be your lucky night!

Week 3

This is the third week of my goal of loosing 60 pounds.


For the first 20 weeks, my goal is to loose 1.5 pound per week.


Total weight lost: 7 pounds
Week 1: 3.2 pounds
Week 2: 2.6 pounds
Week 3: 1.2 pound


Oh oh I missed my weekly goal by .3 pounds, not bad considering that Saturday I had restaurant food and cake. Before, I would have had my fair share of that delicious cake... Instead I had one resonable piece and didn't go for second (some others did ha ha).

I have a drinking problem. Yes you read right, I do have a drinking problem. I think that in the steps to solve a problem you have to admit it. This is hard to do. Some would say that you have to hit bottom…

I don’t know all the steps but another one is to get right with God. I’m not too sure about that one. From several witness, he turned water into wine. How could I relate to that?

Now I would say that knowing that my boss is on a holiday, in a beach, somewhere warm in the south and it is unlikely that he will read this. If you are serious about solving a problem, you have to look at where and when the problem occurs. For me, most of my drinking is at work. It doesn’t interfere with my work… but maybe I shouldn’t be trust with that one.

I know that I need help; I might look for some meeting around here. I might have to attend them everyday at the beginning, it is when I need as much support as I can get. Maybe in a few months, I could get by just going couples of time per week.

Please if anyone of you know where I can attend a WA meeting. The Water Anonymous meetings are just not easy to find. Meanwhile I’ll start practicing: “Hi my name is Richard. I have a problem. I can’t drink 8 cups of water a day!”

The last step that I should consider is to amend to the one that were harm… Other than my cat that get more water, Spark people that register only 4-5 cups a day and Cruella that is treating me of increasing my amount… I don’t see any one that suffers!

I know I can, I know I can

One down three to go

NO one say I have to swallow it

I don't know if the cat will notice!

If you are smiling… I’ll drink to that!

SOSiety

Several days last week, I didn’t post anything. This week, you get two posts the same day.

I’m just back from a grocery trip; I went to Costco and then to one of the grocery chain (Loblaws). I was really lucky; there was only one couple ahead of me at the cash register. They were finishing packing and paying.

The cahier started to scan my stuff, when suddenly, I see the couple walk back in. They were looking at their receipt and I’m thinking: “Oh no, don’t tell me they paid 79 cent for a can of soup and they should have pay 69 cent”  So pessimist of me!

They told the cashier that she forgot to add their beer case. Wow, honest people! I got a good lesson right then, I’m telling you. After the girl at the cash finish with me, she immediately serve the lady, I couldn’t help myself to stop by the gentlemen and tell him that I was so impress to have seen that.

It reminds me that the value of a person is not determined by the time they are in the spot light, it’s by the glow they have even in darkness.

This must be a warm day (not temperature wise)… I saw 3 boys playing outside. They must have been 6-7 years old, but they were playing in a snow bank around. I haven’t see kids playing outside for a long time. It remind me of my childhood, you just were not staying home… fun was waiting outside!

Have a great Sunday you all.

Smiling with a warm heart!

My goodbye

This morning, I received this email from SparkPeople:



When I read it, my mind was thinking about Whitney Houston death. I was thinking about how some people have every thing: look, voice, money but they don't seem to appreciate any of this. They forget to "live". They escape in drugs to softer their pain.

I never used drugs, not even a little weed, that is illegal drug... there has been couple of codeine after a root canal that didn't turn out right.

I bet she never receive an email from Spark People to remind her that "life is not a dress rehearsal". At the time I’m writing this, all I know is that she was found dead by her body guard in a hotel room. Because of her past, I assumed it will be from a drug overdose.

I sure hope that when my time comes, I will be remember as someone that live fully not as someone that suffer through life.

Goodbye Whitney, may your soul be in peace now.

Goodbye 51!!!

Today is the first day… of the weekend! It is also my last day! After today, I will never be able to brag that I’m 51 years old. I will be living with a younger wife by a year difference… she might probably not agree with this statement but you and I know better.

We are not going to the trailer this weekend –sigh, it is too cold, but I look at the weather forecast for next week, temperature above 0° C. (32° F.) for most of the week. Maybe those critters predicting a late spring are not that accurate.

It seems to me that we didn’t enjoy a good fire for a long time; all we need now would be for the white cold stuff to have a melt down. Just few more weeks and it will be March, and I’m expecting to see the fire pit showing up.  

Today we are celebrating my birthday; we are doing that a day in advance so that it doesn’t mess up the reading of the weight scale on Monday morning. This is not cheating on the plan to loose weight, this is within the plan, and we allow our self a “break” for certain days in the year.

We will have St-Hubert BBQ (chicken and fries) and even cake tonight mium mium. There will be NO candles on the cake… it could be a fire hazard ha ha. The cake, we bought, is half of a cake, $22 dollars for half a cake… I think organize crime has their hands in that dough!

Since today is MY day, I decide what we do… and I’m thinking about doing some cleaning up!!! Ha ha some people think that I don’t know how to have fun. I want to do the 2 closets in our bedroom and the one in the foyer. This will be like loosing a lot of weight… so much stuff in those, there will be several trips to goodwill involve!

If you are smiling… today is your day too!

Time Matter

Any of you in withdrawal mode yet? I can’t believe I didn’t post for several days. Time just fly and never stop! There should be an airport for time to land, replenish and then lift off again.

I am a morning person; I can do more before noon than what is left of the day. A while back, I was working on a project and the deadline was really short, I would come to work at 03:00 AM and start my day. It was really productive for me, almost no one around, no noise, no one want to talk to you about their weekend, child, spouse, or hockey! One of those early mornings, I had sent an email to my clients’ chief, and I got an answer right away ahh just to prove that I’m not the only nut out there!

Since we changed time in the fall, most of the days, I’m up between 4:00 and 5:00 am. I hate those time change, never understood why we do that. My own internal clock just doesn’t want to follow.

Some place they don’t change time, I don’t think that their chicken laid more or less eggs because of it. I know that farmers milk their cows at the same period. So many things I know for a city boy ha ha.

I don’t intend of posting every day. When I started my blog, I knew that I will not be posting daily. I think that 3-4 times a week will be my pace for now. I will try to find how other bloggers get a notification available of when they post. This way you will receive an email when I post.

Of course when there is thing outside my mind that is happening, I’ll find the way to land some time. For example, when we go on our cruise in May, I should have events to tell every day. I’m also trying to convince my wife that we should take some vacation this summer to visit our daughter and attend a 10 days RV rally. For now, she is playing hard to get, I’m just not sure of the bribe(s) I should offer her. (But cricket, just for the blog, it would be worthwhile!)

Now back to the excuse part… This is already Friday, my work was busier this week and my mind was being more engage by it. On week day, I usually start composing my blog (in my head) in the morning. When the clock show that it is lunch time, I started typing whatever I had store in my internal memory bank. When this process is interrupt… we go in withdrawal! Maybe I should enrol in a time managing course… but in my case, that might just be a waste of time!

Whatever you do... take time to smile! 

Week 2

This is the second week of my goal of loosing 60 pounds.

For the first 20 weeks, my goal was to loose 1 pound per week. However, we are going on a cruise in May. I have never been on one, but from what I read and heard… food keep you a float :). To compensate, I change my goal to a weekly lost of 1.5 pound, knowing that on the cruise it will all adjust back and should be within my 1 pound a week goal. You have to be adaptable in life!

Total weight lost:5.8 pounds
Week 1: 3.2 pounds
Week 2: 2.6 pounds

The weight lost for this week is still over my weakly goal, I'll take it! I will post picture of my sexy-self ha ha every 4 weeks. I think my pant have more room, must be the elastic wearing off!

All my life, I worked on keeping my weight down (keeping my BMI under 25). I always managed my weight by exercising, nothing like running several miles, to keep ahead of the pounds race. Dieting was for sissies…  in my view.

Now that my over muscle body can’t pound the pavement… dieting is for the mentally strong people ha ha. Actually, by tracking every thing I eat, it makes it easy to know every day where I stand.

I have a really sweet tooth some might say it’s the whole denture… one more things that is my problem, I’m so weak in front of a loaves of bread. I always know if I can afford to eat any of these, or I can plan to cut on few carrots stick to get a piece of cake.

So far, the hardest thing for me to do was to decide to loose the weight. Following that, it was to implement an easy plan to follow. I also have my own personal coaches and cheerleaders (at home). I also have this blog that motivated me in so many ways.

Once the decision is taken, I don’t fight it, mentally it makes a whole difference in the attitude. Before I manage the weight strictly by exercising, if I get hurt/was sick and couldn’t run, I was loosing the race. Now by changing my alimentation, there is no reason why I wouldn’t reach my goal. After loosing my first 20 pounds, I will start on a physical program, this will be low impact, with the goal of getting in shape NOT of loosing weight.

If you are smiling... your face is lighter!

Home sweet home

Yesterday was a nice and sunny day. We weren’t going to our trailer so we did some light work in the house. Last spring, we did some kitchen renovating and there was 2 doors to a closet that need to be re-install.

Following this 6 screws, 1 bracket installation, I needed a shower. So go to the shower but on my way… there is a closet that is overflow with stuff and I’m thinking that I should have a look at it. What did I find? My winter coat! So far, I have been going out with a leather coat which is not the best for winter but I don’t spend enough time out to worry about freezing. I had forgotten about buying this coat last winter. Now if the winter can last couple more months… I would wear my ‘was lost to me’ coat. Upon a search of the pockets I found my leather pouch of changes. There might be 6 or 7 dollar in that! Where could I invest this rainfall?

 After lunch, I went to Costco. I was not the only one that got that idea… I had to fight my way to get a parking space. There were only few carts left, by then I knew it was not my best idea of the day. Luckily, I knew where everything was on my ‘hit’ list. If you move fast enough, people seems to sense that they better get out of your way. But the one at Costco had no sense at all!

After my trip in the crowded aisles, went to the cashier… but of course everyone decided to go at the same time. End up going in a line to the cashier. In front of me there is a gentleman, I assumed he was retired. He kept looking in my cart. I had 2 cases of water and he said: “Not bad $2.68 for a case of water!”  How rude! This didn’t happen to me for a while, someone in a line start talking to ME. What did he thing, I was there and had nothing to do?  Well he was right so I told him: “Just too bad the price of beer is not the same?” I am not a beer drinker; I’ll drink few during a year but not my beverage of choice. I just said that to him with a smile and then magic happen! Start talking with him and didn’t notice but in no time at all, I was at the cashier.

In the evening, my daughter arrives from her trip to Spain. She had all kind of trouble on her way over there. Plane cancelled, planes late, luggage lost… On her way back all in schedule, luggage arrive at the same time. This should be a lesson for you kids, it is always more difficult to leave home than coming back ha ha.

I am so amaze by what we find on the Internet. Her plane trajectory between Zurich and Montréal was available in real time. We could see where the plane was, at which altitude, the GPS coordinate, who were the controllers responsible for the route. Unbelievable source of information! We had the map showing on the computer and once in a while we were refreshing the map. We saw when the plane was over Maine, started it’s descent toward Montréal. There was always the time to arrive available. Just amazing!

If you are smiling… you must be home!

Have you has ever been!

Last month, when I started writing my blog, being French, I knew that my syntax would need some (a lot) work. I also knew that I need to work on the tense of verbs. So sometimes (most of the times), I confuse: have, has, have been…

This reminds me when we were in Germany. We didn’t have a phone. One evening, a couple friends of us came by and invited us to go to their place to watch couple of movies. Having nothing to do and then getting an invitation… we run there before they had the chance to reconsiderJ. I don’t remember how long we were there, but later when we left we were at the door and I told them: “Thank you, it was a boring evening!” and I smile at them. They smiled back. My wife, always one to drive my nail further in my coffin said: “What did you say?” –Since when do I remember what I say… but I did and told her: “I said, thank you it was a boring evening!” “What do you mean?” said she who would not let that go. By then I’m wondering if she is suddenly hard of hearing. I told her: “It was a boring evening before they invite us!” She looked at our friends and told them that what I mean was that it would have been a boring evening. Sorry to tried to be social dear! ha ha

For the one that still care… it’s Friday. The weather is a warm 0° C. (32° F.), there is a little bit of snow coming down. But it’s nothing to blog about (but I did anyway, how rude of me J). We are supposed to see that bright yellow light in the sky this weekend.

Saturday, my daughter (the wicked witch from the East) is coming back from her trip to Spain. Her planes should be on schedule. She will stay with us less than 24 hours before going back to Moncton. She seems to have a great time, she even went to the beach, wearing shorts, the Spanish were wearing coat…

If you are smiling... you has been happy! 

Next stop... 53

I have been reading blogs for at least 10 years. I enjoyed all kinds, but one type that always draws closer my attention is the one where the persons start their retirement journey at the same time than they start fulltiming.

My wife and I start thinking about joining that fulltimer lifestyle about 4-5 years ago. When we started talking about it, we were thinking about going to a place, stay 3-4 days, move, stay another 3-4 days and so on. We wanted to “cram” as much as we could… and I can read others doing exactly that. For example, I am following the journey of Trent and Teresa since October. They retired in September and I can see that they are doing a lot of moving. I think it is normal, it will take time to slow down enough that the boss can’t find us anymoreJ. My umbrella’s mind is set now to get somewhere and spend at least a month visiting/exploring.

If we want to maximize the benefits from our pension, we should retire at 60. This will guaranty the trailer/motorhome of our choice (no need to compromise). We would have investments, security, and no penalty on our pensions.

We decide to retire at 53 because we will have better time quality for longer than if we had wait. We won’t be rich but we will be comfortable. I say that but it all depend of your own definition of rich and comfortable; For me being rich it is when you don’t need to worry about how you will pay for an item that you don’t even need. Being comfortable is when you can afford to fill up your fridge and the gas tank, go to restaurant once in a while, attend some events, pay for some outing, etc. You need a budget, but in the comfortable group, it is one that is manageable.

I read a lot of examples of other people with a lot of courage, they just go, no security, no pension check coming in every month, no health care, no nothing, they just go. Even reading them, I knew this was not for me, I like my security, I have responsibilities (a cat to feds). I always admire them, and when you read their blog, it’s not about starving, it’s not about things they miss, it’s about their journey, the ownership they have on their life, none ever regret!

Those were amazing inspiration to me. It is the reason, I decided to retire early. If a solo woman, a cowboy and a couple without any experience in RVing did it, why wouldn’t we do it with a little less security?

Payday

Today is a great day! This is one of my favourite. I have been waiting for 336 hours for it… today is payday or in my case pay-date! I opened Internet and log to my bank account… Yessss it is there! Again!

I am pay every two weeks… all I really need to do is sacrifice a little freedom. This is what I get for renting some of my life. Not a bad deal, and any way what are the alternatives? I also realize that there will be 45 more full paydates before retiring. Please don’t tell my bank manager… he could became really nervousJ

This really got me thinking about when I started to earn some income.

Before my teen, I was always on the lookout for some high values discard bottles. One person trash was a small boy treasure. I would get them refund at the store and get all the necessity of life. Of course, for a young boy the necessity was chewing gum, candy bar and chips.

I remember one summer day, I was 12, I was talking with my friends, and they were thinking about going to the movie. Apparently there was one playing in the evening where there was a peek at a women breast. Who care what the movie was about I want to go… but after doing an inventory of my pocket pants, other than some half way chewed gum… there was NO money! There would not be enough bottles in ditches to get me enough money to go sniff sniff. My friends had something call an allowance… didn’t get one of those, my allowance was more like 3 meals a day.

Sometime desperation is a good thing. I heard that at the golf course, young boy could carry a bag on grass and get paid. I didn’t know what golf was but ‘get paid’ was enough for me to go. Can you believe this, you carry the golf bags of people and at the end of 18 holes, they give you dollars. So what if the bags weights were over my own… you get paid! I had so much money, I was the one throwing my bottles in the ditch (it’s call now pay forward ha ha).

This was perfect, however, there is not much going on the green when the green are white! So for winter, I took a run of newspaper. My run was in apartment buildings. You would think that it will be several papers per building, but no, it was like one in this building, one in the next, and it seems that the people in the lower level didn’t want the paper, it only interest the one on the top floor. The paper I was delivering was a late edition, so I would come back from school and get them in my pouch and start climbing stairs. Of course, Saturday was a morning delivery.

Shortly after, I was talking with my buddy Réjean, and he was telling me that he was working at the colisé of Québec. This was where the Nordiques hockey team was playing. His uncle was managing the boys that were selling chips/peanut in the center. I want in… he talk with his uncle and I was hire! We were being pay commission on our sale. When the game was on, you were sitting in the aisle waiting for a off time to go an offer your goods. I could see all games, or any other events that were carry out at the colisé.

When there were not enough people in attendance, the boss would just tell some of us we were not working on that night. Suit me well because you could sit anywhere, and we will choose to sit close to the “ring”. The ring was a walkway around the whole center, and GIRLS, would just go around and around… It’s about the time, I started to buy my own clothes, nothing wrong with what my mother would buy… if you didn’t mind getting picked on at school.

At seventeen, I stopped buying my own clothes. I joined the military; they gave me all the clothes I needed! I have been working full time ever since.

Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

Today, my intention was not to give you my resume; I wanted to talk about the mental status before and after retirement. But I let my mind travelled on its own, and it brought me to this past time. I’ll post some other time about mental status.

If you are smiling… keep on working (for now)!