Writing Letters to Myself (Part One)

    7. Write letter to myself to open at end of 1,001 Days

    Writing yourself a letter is just weird. For the next item crossed off of my Day Zero List, I went with writing myself a letter to open when this list is done. It's even weirder when you're in a bout of depression, and you write yourself a letter to open nearly three years in the future.

    What's in the letter isn't that important, and I'm sure it won't be important then. Depression is a horrible thing. I don't have the means to get therapy. I don't have the means to get medicine. It's all my own fault, so I don't expect pity. I'm just not the man I'm supposed to be. I'm working on getting my income where it needs to be, though it may take a little while to get there. Maybe when I get my income right, I'll get the help I need. Maybe I need to put THAT on the list.

August Goals

While I have a Day Zero list, I've never been great at short-term goals. Who am I kidding, I've never been great at ANY goals. My first Day Zero list could tell you that, if lists could talk. I'm sorry Original Day Zero List. Anyway, so for August, I've decided to make a list of goals I'd like to try to accomplish, or at least work on, and things I'd really like to buy, or save for.

I've also put $5 into the Day Zero fund since I made a page for the list. And I watched one movie I haven't seen yet. I'll write about that once I watch maybe five I haven't seen, so I can fill up a blog post about it.

Day Zero Items:

• Make some Top 10 Lists
• Find a picture challenge to attempt
• Write letter to myself to open at end of this list
• Write letter to myself at 50 (10 years)
• Write letter to my future Grandchildren (if I have any)
• Work on '101 things I've achieved' list
• Work on '101 Memories' list
• Come up with recipes to put in a personal cookbook
• Write letter to Clayton Sage Johnson
• Work on Halloween blogs
• Watch some movies I've never seen
• Read some books I haven't read
• Work on my weight loss
• 31 Days only water (July 31st was 15 days)
• Eat at a new restaurant
• Try some new recipes
• Have a Lemonade Stand with my daughter
• Send some autograph requests
• Pay some on my debt
• Start a scrapbook
• Work on my music folder

Things not on my Day Zero list, but I want to accomplish or buy in August:

• Start my website
• Continue learning HTML/CSS & JavaScript (DON'T GIVE UP!!)
• Portable monitor for my laptop
• PS4
• Learn how to make a banner for my website in Gimp
• Buy (and workout with) DDP Yoga
• Look at Treehouse for my coding/site
• Take blood pressure every day before breakfast and going bed

What are your goals for the month, for the rest of the year, or your Day Zero list?

Developing my (Beginner) Coder Skills

Besides my health journey, I've decided to try something new to better myself: learning how to code. I'm starting with HTML and CSS. I attempted learning it back around 2012, but gave up about halfway through the book I bought. Then again, with the same book, tried around 2017 or so. Now I'm at it again.

HTML isn't terribly difficult, as most of it, I'm learning to memorize as I go, since everything you make basically has the same things in it. CSS is something I want to memorize some of, but I think as long as I know where to look when I have questions about a problem I have, or am trying to build something, I'll be good.

How I feel after finally understanding something I've been stuck on.

Where it gets tricky is, what to learn next. I've been hearing to learn JavaScript next, then on to other programming languages (the one I hear most). But others say I should learn React, Node, C++, etc. So I'm going to focus on learning HTML/CSS for now, then move on to what the majority says.

Learning new things is scary, but as I tell my daughter all the time: No one grows up knowing everything. You just have to go into something knowing you're not going to know it, and learn what you can.

One of my first goals once I learn what I need to is to create my blog from scratch instead of using a template. If you have any insight into what to do after HTML/CSS, let me know in the comments.

My Health Journey

If you've read my '101 in 1001' list, you'll see that one of the list items is to 'Get down to 200 pounds'. That's the exact same list item I had my original 2011 version of the list. Back then, though, it was slightly easier to get there compared to where I'm at now.

Though I wasn't attempting a Day Zero List back in 2021, I did have a moment of realization in November of that year. I was testing out Reddit's live-streaming after seeing others do it. Being an extreme introvert, it took a week or two of watching other people to finally take the plunge. One day, I just signed on and went live. I had nothing in particular I wanted to talk about, but I just wanted to talk. Maybe I wanted people to interact with.

Though I'm an introvert, and have severe social anxiety, some part of me wants to socialize. I haven't had a friend since May 2004. That's 19 years. It's a long time to not have anyone to 'hang out' with. It wears on you, even as someone who always says he wants to be alone.

Anyway, I went live, and during the near one-sided conversation, a couple people showed up to watch me ramble, and somewhere along the way, it 'clicked' in my mind that I need to take losing weight seriously. So I actually started to. I took one of my Field Notes notebooks, and started making pages to keep track of my weight, what I ate, and over the next several days, how much I walked.

For THREE months, I was on top of it. If you take a look at the first page above, you'll see I went from 292.4 to 259.4 in just 12 weeks. Thirty-three pounds in 12 weeks. I was walking almost every day, jogged on the treadmill a LOT, and was working out. I got to the point where I could jog for 1.1 miles on the treadmill without stopping or walking. Then depression took over. Over the next 16 months or so, I've went back to just one pound shy of my original starting weight.

But on June 2nd of this year, me and my daughter both decided to do something about it once again. I started at 292.4, and am currently 286.2. There was a two week period where I gained five pounds. If it weren't for that two week period, I would be close to 280 right now.

What's crazy is, I took progress pictures of when I started, compared to when I was around 260, and even I could notice the difference. I just wish I had kept it up. Because if I had, I would be around 200. That bums me out, but I've just got to keep going.

Building my pen/paper collection

Part of the reason I wanted to start my blog back up was because other than the journal I'm writing for my daughter, I don't really write a lot. Back in the day, I was told I had a narrative writing style. I really don't know what that means, but looking back on it, I think that person was just trying to call me a personal blogger. One of the things I want to get out to the masses is my love of pens & paper.

I no longer have close to 100 pens, and a huge pile of notebooks, but over the past couple of weeks, I've started collecting again. Take a look:

What I have here is (all are black or blue):

Pentel EnerGel 0.5 & 0.3

Pilot Precise V5

TUL 'Fine'

Pilot G2 0.38

Three editions of Field Notes singles

Two 'Stone Paper' notebooks

Cambridge spiral notebook

Mint Green top-spiral notebook

The Pentel EnerGel and Pilot Precise pens have been my go to for the longest time. The G2, I only have because I saw the 0.38 size in Wal-Mart. They're good pens, but on certain papers, I just can't use it. The EnerGel and Pilot Precise pens just write great on everything.

You can look forward to many posts about future acquisitions (some coming real soon).

Day Zero Update #1

Like with my Day Zero list of old, I'm getting a quick start on it. Here's what I've got going on.

I've got quite a few books to start reading. In the past 15-20 years, I've only read two that I can remember: Can't Stop Me by David Goggins (his second book is below), and Atomic Habits. So I look forward to working on this particular list item. Any books below you've already read? What did you think of them?

I've got the IMDB Top 250 Movies from July 17th, 2023 saved. I don't want it to change over the 1001 days, and it be confusing. I'm going to look through my Netflix, Paramount+, Max, and Hulu queues to see what I can watch that's new to me. I tend to just watch what I've already watched over, and over, and over.

I added a page link to my '101 in 1001' list under the page banner. Updates to the list will be made there. Soon I'll be adding an 'About Me' and a few others.

Watch out for pen/paper reviews. I'm chomping at the bit to start posting about those. I've got an order to JetPens.com that I'm SO close to completing.

My (NEW) '101 in 1001' List

Hey, two posts in a row. Not too shabby. 😱(My daughter made me add that.)

One of the major parts of blogs of my past was the inclusion of a Day Zero List. Otherwise known as a '101 in 1001' List. Not a new idea by any stretch, it's something that almost seems like it's required to be on a blog for a person to be a true 'blogger'. I started one, but never finished it. I did take quite a few of the things on my original list, and create a non-timed Bucket List. Have I done any of those? Maybe one or two.

The basic explanation of it is you make a list of 101 things you want to accomplish in the next 1001 days. That's about 2.75 years. Anyone going to come after you if you don't get it done? No. Will it add to your depression if you don't complete things on it? Probably, if you're anything like me.

Back in the day, the people that got other bloggers to create their own lists were mostly:
*Sarsm (sarsm.wordpress.com) &
*The Laughing Housewife (poetryfluff.wordpress.com)

Anyway, here's my list.

Date Range: July 17, 2023-April 13, 2026

          Blogging/Writing (0/19)

1. Create a page on thepixeldad.com for this Day Zero list
2. Write a blog post for each of the Day Zero list items completed
3. Blog for 31 straight days (0/31)
4. Make at least 15 'Top Ten' lists and post to my site (0/15)
5. Have at least one week where I get 1,400+ page views on my site
6. Participate in a 'Picture' challenge
7. Write letter to myself to open at end of 1,001 Days
8. Write a letter to myself at 50
9. Write a letter to my (hopefully) future grandchildren
10. Earn a front-end-web-developer certificate
11. Get 1,000 visits to my blog
12. Write 100 blog posts
13. Write a list of 101 things I’ve already achieved in my lifetime
14. Make a list of 101 childhood/early adulthood memories
15. Make a 50 recipe cookbook
16. Buy 10 each of new notebooks and pens
17. Participate in NaBloPoMo
18. Write a letter to Clay Johnson, and finally let go of the hurt
19. Have a holiday countdown
    * Halloween
    * Christmas
    
    
    Movies/Music/Books (0/11)
    
    
20. Watch every episode of a TV series I've never seen before; 75 episodes or more
21. Spend an entire weekend watching a marathon of one of my favorite TV shows
22. Have a 'Lord of the Rings' movie marathon; no more than a 5 minute break in between each
23. On a Friday the 13th, watch every 'Friday the 13th' movie, including 'Freddy vs. Jason'
24. On a Halloween, watch every Micheal Myers related movie in the 'Halloween' series
25. Watch 101 movies that I've never seen
26. Have an all day movie marathon
27. Watch 150 of IMDB's Top 250 rated movies
28. Read 50 books I've never read
29. Read 5 self-help/well-being books (Not included in '50 Book' challenge) (0/5)
30. Read a book that has at least 200 pages, in one day
    
    
    Health/Improvement (0/9)
    
    
31. Get down to 200 pounds (286.2 on 7/17/23)
32. Participate in a walk/run event
33. Make five 3-pointers in a row
34. Bench press a max of 200 pounds
35. Complete the '100 Push-Up' challenge
36. Learn how to shoot a handgun
37. Get a college diploma
38. Be in bed (to actually go to sleep) by 10pm for 14 straight days (0/14)
39. Complete an official 5K in under:
    *1:30:00
    *1:00:00
    *0:45:00
    
    
    Food/Drink (0/13)
    
    
40. Buy (& drink) a bottle of Dom Perignon
41. Make homemade ice cream
42. Drink only water for 31 straight days (0/31)
43. Go 31 straight days without eating junk food; Little Debbie's, Doritos, etc. (0/31)
44. Go 31 days without eating fast food
45. At a restaurant, pay for someone else's food; ask waitress for ticket and pay
46. Try 10 new restaurants (0/10)
47. Tip 100% to a waiter/waitress (0/2)
48. Attempt 5 well-known food challenges (0/5)
49. Attempt 50 recipes found online (0/50)
50. Make a cookbook (through Shutterfly, etc.) with at least 25 recipes
51. Eat an expensive meal
52. Make homemade pasta
    
    
    With Liberty (0/9)
    
    
53. Make a time capsule and bury it
54. Go to the U.S. Space and Rocket Museum with Liberty
55. Go to a zoo/safari
56. Go camping
57. Take pictures in a picture booth
58. Lemonade Stand
59. Vend a convention
60. See the night sky in an area designated Bortle Class 1 Dark Sky
61. Teach Liberty how to drive
    
    
    Entertainment (0/9)
    
    
62. Get front row tickets to a major event (Wrestling, concert, etc.)
63. Go to concerts:
    *Weird Al
    *Evanescence (again)
    *Wallflowers
    *System of a Down
64. Buy the most expensive lottery ticket offered by the Tennessee Lottery
65. Send 25 'through the mail' autograph requests (0/25)
66. Complete a jigsaw puzzle larger than 1,000 pieces
67. Learn how to sew or crochet
68. Be in a movie
69. Paint 12 new paintings (0/12)
70. Get a selfie with Amy Lee
    
    
    
    Money (0/4)
    
    
71. Get to a 650 credit score (~550-560)
72. Put $5 into a piggy bank (That has to be broken) or bank account that can’t be opened for each item completed on this list
73. When ‘Day Zero’ arrives, take $3 for each item NOT completed out of the money above, and donate to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital
74. Pay off debt on credit reports:
    *$129/Liberty Mutual ($0/$129)
    *$432/Money Lion ($0/$432)
    *$615/Credit One ($0/$615)
    *
    *Mystery credit account: ~$650 (Currently disputing)
    
    
    Adventure (0/5)
    
    
75. Participate in a Polar Bear Plunge
76. Go skinny dipping
77. Go snorkeling/scuba diving
78. Go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
79. Go on a road trip
    
    
    Random (0/22)
    
    
80. Spend one entire day each week without turning computer/phone on; two straight months (0/8)
81. Make a scrapbook
82. Make an MP3 album of my absolute favorite songs
83. Learn at least 25 phrases in ASL
84. Send a message in a bottle
85. Learn to play an instrument enough to play at least one full song
86. Give blood
87. Buy someone a 'just because' gift
88. Stay awake for 24 hours straight
89. Make a family tree
90. Visit two states I've never been to; not just drive through
91. Watch a sunrise from a proven great place to watch one
92. Float in a floatation tank
93. Get a pin-up style tattoo
94. Create and keep a Bug Out Bag
95. Learn how to golf
96. Set up a smash-burger stand
97. Buy luxury pillows & bed set
98. Inspire two other bloggers to create their own Day Zero list (0/2)
99. Build our own computer
100. Learn how to build 3 different fires (0/3)
101. Send a camera to space

Please follow my journey, and by all means, create your own list. Because if you do, I get to mark off one my list items! And I'd love to put a link to it on my blog.

The Pixel Dad (or DadToLibbs) is back!!

I'm back...again.

Let's start with an introduction. I started blogging in 2009 for a couple of local websites. That made me want to start my OWN blog. I wrote on 'DadToLibbs' for about a year, then switched over to ThePixelDad. That didn't last long, as my creativity took a hit. but I don't know why. I tried to start again in 2016 and 2018, but having to learn how to make my blog look like something non-generic again made me give up almost instantly.

Here I am in 2023. Thirteen years ago, I started blogging. I'm back, just in time for blogging to die out. Everyone is on TikTok or Instagram now. Or YouTube. Does anyone actually read these things anymore?

A short 'About Me':

• I just turned 40 on June 13th.
• The daughter I wrote about twelve years ago when she was one year old, just turned 13.
• I've been homeless twice since then.
• I started pixel painting back in November 2012.
• Not a whole lot else.

I'm here again because I never stopped thinking about writing. I want to continue. Plus, my 13 year old daughter, after seeing an archive of my blogs on archive.org, has started her own blog. So now we get to do more things together.

So this blog is going to be about fatherhood, painting, and random things. I'll also be posting blogs from back in the day (maybe once a week) to give you an idea of what the blog will be like. I'm also going to get the design right eventually. And a proper URL.

I hope you'll come back to read more of my writings.