Woke up to a clear, frosty morning, with a sharp blue sky. Eleven degrees, but it is supposed to get up to 32 in the afternoon. I had a rough night. I’ve been fighting Omicron since Friday. At its worst, I’ve had some achy bones and felt a bit hot. Tickly throat, dry cough. It took forever to fall asleep last night because of the achy bones thing, but I felt refreshed this morning. I think I’m over the worst of it. I was one of the first people to get it in the first wave. We were living in Virginia, outside of DC and I was working as an Army contractor. My cube mate was super sick with what in retrospect were all the classic COVID symptoms, but he wouldn’t stay home and gave it to me. That was in November 2019. I had achy bones that time too, and as a variant of the “no taste, no smell” phenomenon, things smelled weird and lots of things tasted like dish soap or metallic. I haven’t experienced that particular symptom this time around. I’m just glad that I seem to be over the symptoms “hump.” Tawnya went to Mass this morning. Out of respect for my fellow parishioners, I stayed home. Still sent in my enhanced offering for the collection basket. As I was saying yesterday, I canceled over $200 in monthly online services. It is easy to get trapped into a subscription for a cool new tool, only to realize a few months into it that you aren’t using it at all, or at least not enough to justify the expenditure. So with my giving up cigarettes and peach iced tea every day at the convenience store ($10 a day), stopping eating out of the vending machine and at fast food joints nearly every day ($10 a day), and canceling the online subscriptions (nearly $10 a day), I’ve regained nearly half of my paycheck. Intentionally. One of the nicest benefits is that I now have the ability to give to charity with a cheerful heart, without wondering if my “gift” was going to overdraw the checking account. It’s fun putting the cash monies in the church envelope each week, too.
a Jim Garlits blog