Day 200/365: Luck.

Today, the picture I'm posting for you is new, but it's... eh. Not all that great.

I took this at like... 5:30 in the morning on my paper route.

I have 16 days left of delivering the paper, because roughly two weeks ago I put in my 30 days notice. Now, if someone expresses interest in my route before that time, I gave my manager the okay to let them have it. Considering what time of year it is, though, I'm fairly certain I will have to wait the full 30 days before I get to stop waking up at 5am every morning.

I would like to reflect on that, though. Biking every single day since mid May I've lost probably 20 pounds. That's just when I started counting. At this time last year, I was at least two sizes larger than I am now. Maybe more.

For the first time in my life, I have clothes that are becoming too big for me to wear. It's always been the other way around, so it's a welcome change.

There are things I'm going to miss about biking around town before most people are awake, but in the same way the route has been good for me, it's had its disadvantages.

This summer I didn't... live it up as much as I usually do. I used to get out a lot more. This summer I never wanted to do anything extra in the way of biking anywhere because "I have the paper route super early tomorrow". It's also made my bedtime very early.

We're talking about the girl who would chat on MSN until 2 in the morning. Suddenly, being up past 9:30 is "late".

When I got the paper route, I was having no luck whatsoever finding a job, and it was the only income I had.

I have since gotten a job as a cashier. I've only worked a grand total of three days, but... I want that to be my sole income earning worry. I can earn half a monthly newspaper check in a single shift as a cashier. Plus... I'm not sure exactly what hours I'll have once I settle into a regular-ish schedule, but I will once again be able to stay up later if I so choose, such as if I had the 2-7 shift. If I had that tomorrow (and didn't still have the paper to worry about) I would be free to stay up as late as I wanted tonight.

I'm starting to ramble and not make any sense, so I'll wrap things up. 

When I finally am done with the paper, I will keep up daily biking and add to it, so not to lose any progress I've made.

So basically, I'm lucky to have had the paper route do a bunch of good things for me, but it will be nice as hell not having to wake up at 5am every morning. 

Tomorrow's theme is "Magical", so stay tuned for that.

I'm off to bed now. I should have been in bed ages ago.