January 2023 Flow – 1/5/23 – Being The Best Mover I Can Be :

After the steak it’s everything in the pan.

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For dinner I reheated some leftover rotisserie chicken, which had remnants of baked potato in with it, and melted american cheese over it.

I ate the above while drinking apple cider as I had a 1lb steak on the pan.

Chocolate covered pretzels as the second course.

Third course, main meal – dinner, a couple bites of steak, 3 fried eggs, a tiny amount of cauliflower, broccoli, and tater tots.

The last three fried in the beef drippings, then the desire for eggs, so a bit of butter down, and fry.

I really enjoyed the eggs, the hit the spot.
I used similar spicing on both steak and eggs.

When I cook multiple things I always try to get them in the beef drippings.

You’re not wasting the fat that way, and I like the taste of it on a bunch of stuff.

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At work I drank a 16oz bottle of cranberry juice, a 16oz bottle or milk, and ate two cheese sticks.

Upon arriving home I took a swig out of the big 3l bottle, 8-12oz, of cranberry juice.

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Work today was gross, but light.

Filthy customers, another crew refused them on Tuesday.

We got to go to their house today. Yippee!
What will be walking into?

Scuttlebutt hinted cat piss everywhere was the FIRST issue the other crew found…

I guess they decided to throw their nastiest stuff into the second bedroom, which looked like a bomb went off in it, but wasn’t on our list of to do.

We did everything but that room which the customer okayed even on the final walkthrough.

Made it “presentable” that way.

Stains on everything, nothing having been dusted in the three years they’d lived there, but as the driver pointed out “ikea – gotta love those swedes, they only make furniture light”.

I’ll remember them as the dusty “it’s a mustard stain – and dry anyway” job – the wife saying this to me upon my making a eww face almost putting my finger on it – this being highlight of the job.

Whatever that, thank god yellow (instead of red or brown), crusty stain was – why are you saving that pillow?

Toss nasty shit instead of packing it halfway across the country.

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I have a great pump.
I figure it from yesterday, though all these short moving shifts mixed with brief daily lifts – it all feeds well into each other.

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I’m half tempted to go run bleachers, I’ve got a brief amount of daylight, though I just ate.

The audible so as to still exercise pointedly today, which is a different act from physical work, is empty bar overhead squats.

I will do some tonight.

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I have noticed that today, January 5th, I can not say I did a chin up or pullup daily, some day or two thus far I have missed.

I do not stress this.

The doorway bar is only useable for chins, I have no 8′ high (or so) bar access incorporated into my day to day.

I much prefer training pullups at proper height, and being able to add weight to them.

Plus chins/pullups are genuinely something you have to watch working moving which is pull labor.

You don’t want the chins/pullups to make work a problem.

So you do it on the fly, listening to your body.

I’m good to still get some training in daily, I simply am smart about it.

…..

Early day tomorrow.
The job is an hour fifteen or hour and a half commute, a good deal of stuff in theory.

The manager scheduled all hands for it.

surely an accurate depiction – I love mover stock photos – always so clean & pristine

5 will show.
It’d be amazing (cause of how many no call no show regularly) if 7 were to be at the shop in the am.

The low end of the american wage scale and labor pool is an interesting thing.

And many of these managers, though desperate for good help, don’t realize that it’s not hard to go get some other, honestly, dead end job.

You can shop around for another not full time, probably low pay, job quite easily.

Bounce around till you find one tolerable overall as the money in the moment of your current day to day.

Aside : why does everyone value “with benefits” so much?

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It wouldn’t be hard to have work food be, instead of sandwiches, a tupperware (though getting eaten cold) of such delights mixed together as tuna, cut up steak, fried eggs, pepper, onion, cauliflower, broccoli, baked potato, cheese melted on the mix the night before.

I love that I’m eating more and more clean, and enjoying it.

2023 = visible abs.

And the universe may be having me join a gym again.

It’d be the simplest way to help a buddy get fit and strong.

It’d be a way to get out of the house, powerlifting gym though it be (no college girl hour – the best part of going to many commercial gyms when we’re honest about it).

…..

If at all possible riced cauliflower and riced broccoli over rice.

Of all grains I rate rice lowest.

Brown rice is inedible in form as rice, I only have it on rare occasions, generally as rice cakes where I can stomach it.

White rice is too sugary, hence I keep away from it most of the time.

It does have it’s uses, such as it’s real easy on the stomach, but is diabetes at 50ยข/lb.

Wheat in most forms stomachs worse than white rice, but it’s a known fact that it still manages to grow you far more robust than rice.

Potato, technically not grain, is the best grain – I can only recommend it, it stomachs well, it is not boiled diabetes, it is not brown rice, it does not have gluten – the insensitivity of which I don’t really buy into – I think most could still eat wheat without horrific effect.

A cook coworker had described gluten sensitivity in her eyes as simply being a pussy, and though I see meat consumption as far more natural than grain consumption, I’m inclined to see it as yet another commonly accepted victim’s belief commonly believed in this culture.

Still wheat is better overall than rice.
I’d rather have only wheat products than only rice products.

And back to potatoes, the only time to forgo yourself a baked potato is on a keto diet.

Though the best of carbs, they are still carbs.

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Working as a mover, no longer in the kitchen, I LOVE to cook for myself.

All of life was pretty gray at that job.

Some external stuff had hurt me, then I dug myself deeper with vices, and accepted being treated like shit for not enough pay for over a year.

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My dad has a shitty coworker.

Bout 4 years younger, late 50s, and slow as shit.

He joked to me, “I’m finishing my 3rd, then hand him his second”.

“I kinda feel like I’m that guy, the slow one, at my work right now – I don’t want to be that guy”.

And I realized, even working what I know to be dead end, that I take pride in it.

Driving stresses me out, strongly enough that I have no intention of going and getting my dot card again (the last one I had expired over a year ago), not going to drive a box truck…but I want to be the best moving helper I can be! The helper every driver wants, asks for, is happy to have carrying for/with him.

To know the pack load.

To actually be good at wrapping furniture in brown paper.

To be the box’s tetris master.

To be the best at getting weird shit into the tiny spaces that crating entails.

To build and close crates solo, and fast.

To outpace/outwork the middleweights.

To be able to solo carry up/down stairs items such as washers that everyone considers a two man item.

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Then get myself a waiter, but preferably bartender job for Friday/Saturday, see the other side of the restaurant after working for management that treated the servers like lesser royalty, the kitchen staff like slaves, make some $$$ with a work combination of carrying boxes 4 days, serving drinks 2 days, church on Sunday, lifting weights 365, then after a brief period make moves to work for myself.

Personal training.

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So eat right, continue training – walk the walk, and help some people be happy, strong, fit, and healthy.

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I had a thought ;

Depression is a sign.

When you’re depressed your day to day life isn’t doing it for you.
It’s not something to medicate.

What you need, when you feel you can’t, is find something you can, no matter how small, and build yourself that victory.

I used, use, and have advised “a small amount of calisthenics as a daily win”.

Those I’ve advised this to in my real life day to day – off the top of my head – my childhood best friend in summer 2012, my lifting partner when he was in an all out weed smoking, starving down, 16-20 hours asleep a day period in 2017, plus my chubby acquaintance just the other day.

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Lift :

Overhead Squats
bar x 15

The ohs feels great, I love the movement – it’s worth pursuing primarily as amraps, sometimes for something like 10×10 as much as possible

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Pack the full work lunch – don’t be lazy.
Refill a couple water bottles.

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If I wasn’t at the moving company, I’d be doing keto – even so, I may go that route anyway.

My weekend could be strict, a little looser on work days, but – neanderthals didn’t need carbs to hunt mammoth with spears, you could carry boxes with only a bit of steak and cold water in the lunch box.

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I can’t believe this, but never having been one to eat out, I may make it a once a week thing on (roughly) Friday night.

When I did so last week, going dutch on food with my mom, it was about $30 for me.

At about $10/day for work food and dinners, another $30 weekly seems reasonable to me, which brings a point –

Rationally I’m not making enough money to do anything but stay on rice, ramen noodles, and pork til I’ve quadrupled my income.

It’s a matter of enjoying right now.

And I am still not dreading going into work in the morning.

This job does bring me to a better place mentally!

It’s the physicality of it, and the fact moving, not traditionally thought of as an outdoor job, gives me enough fresh air to not feel like I’m inside of a box as being anywhere under fluorescent lights for lengths of time has me feel.

My dad has a laborious blue collar out in the elements job.

I get it.
Thus far I prefer much the same.

Persistence & Tenacity