Day 1308

It's been raining for two solid days and I haven't gone up on the roof once. There's still a lot of water up there, but I'm not nearly as worried about it because there are no longer any leaks. Any regular reader will quickly realize that two days of standing water on the roof with no attempt to remove it is nothing short of astonishing. Even without troublesome roof leaks, rain can still be problematic though. It's hard to walk the dogs. Today was a waiting game. The rain was fairly steady throughout the day, but I discovered if I kept an eye on the iPad weather radar, I could still manage to find little pockets of relative dryness when the rain would slow to a trickle and the dogs became brave enough to venture outside. It was one of those days where I used up a lot of towels. We would get wet. Then I would dry everyone off. And then we would repeat the process again.

I was invited today to send a recipe to be included in the 2014 SXSW Interactive Cookbook. It was quite an honor, since my recipe will apparently be included with other recipes from luminaries like Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, and BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti. This invitation just shows how far I have fallen in recent years. Yes, I not only used to attend SXSW on a regular basis, I used to be a speaker there as well in the early years. There's only one problem with submitting a recipe of mine to this cookbook. I don't have any. I can only think of two original recipes I have created in the past twenty-five years and I can no longer eat either of them.

These days I hardly cook at all. I've succumbed to stopping by Central Market several times a week and picking up some tasty, semi-healthy items from the Chef Prepared section. It's kind of like eating out, except that I can eat at home with the dogs and there are no waiters to tip.  Today, I picked up a container of Kale, Chard, and Orange salad and another container with Walnut, Grape and Blue Cheese salad on the way home from the gym.

The gym is already starting to feel like a familiar place. I'm starting to establish a routine that suits me. I stay about an hour or so and work mostly on exercises designed to build up my upper body and core strength. A lot of people at the gym seem to be doing cardio workouts using treadmills and elliptical machines. I don't think I need this type of workout quite as much, since I spend so much time walking the dogs. Maybe I do though. I'm just making this up as I go along.

Even though it was a slow day, I still managed to get a few writing assignments finished. I have a feeling that tomorrow will be busier.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day