Been a few weeks

It's been a few weeks, but I'm trying not to fall back into bad habits. That's easier said than done, but using the Kanban Flow checklists helps so much. I've been trying to actually honor the UfYH principle of actually taking a break instead of using the break time on another task until I reach burnout and ignore checklists and chores alike this go-round, but hit a snag over the weekend. I calculated I should be able to spend nine hours Saturday and Sunday on sewing broken into 45/15s. Same amount of time I spend at work minus the commute. That still left plenty of time for food, sleep, and other chores. Except it didn't work out that way Saturday. Precious little of the chores got finished, I only got four hours of the sewing time in, and basically felt like a complete failure for wasting my time in such a way by taking breaks. So Sunday I decided that the 15 minute break must be spent on one of my other Big Rocks for the weekend, followed by a 20 minutes on a housekeeping chore and a 10 minute break playing a computer game. Boom this scenario gave me much more progress and I didn't feel burnout at the end of the day. I'm going to keep it next weekend and see if it really works or if it was just a better day than Saturday fluke.

In health news, I've been diagnosed with mild diabetic retinopathy. The real fear of losing my already wonky eye-sight took some time to deal with, but I'm better with the news now processed. I also got a detox foot bath on my last visit to the chiropractor to flush the aspartame out of my system. But it also showed my chronic dehydration (been drinking three quarts daily for a month, how long does it take to clear up?) and chlorine, which we figured must be coming from the increased tap water I've been drinking. I finally got a ZeroWater pitcher this past payday. My home water registered 112 on their provided meter, which is about the normal range for most US households, and the filtered water does taste better. My next visit to Dr. Jessica is tomorrow, so we'll see what's changed since the last one. I also enrolled in a prescription benefit plan offered by my insurance, but I probably won't see any savings on the refills I have to pick up today. :p Oh and I found a PDF file for a Don't Break the Chain formatted calender, so I printed one off for tracking exercise. Sixteen days straight of the Fifteen Minute Results Yoga routine. :D

Television: the Fall season watching has started. So far I'm up-to-date on Gotham and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, watched the premier for Haven and haven't been home to see an episode since, and have fallen asleep before Castle comes on. I'll save my thoughts on the shows for a slow blog day.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

19 Things to Do This Weekend

Okay, so I started jotting things down that I need to do so I won't feel guilty about seeing Iron Man 3 (item #8) as long as money allows it. I reached the end of the sheet of paper and had 19 items. What the hell brain? What happened to our plan to do a little every day so the weekend isn't spent catching up on everything?

Okay, in my brain's defense, 15 items on the list are one-off projects that can only be done at home and hey, this is the first weekend home in a while to do them. The rest are usual chores that I have to do anyway and maybe a few items I can do while at the paying job today. But still, I made the list thinking five items top.

JIMM's birthday went off without waterworks and he racked up some really nice gifts. He's reached the stage of walking with support, so it won't be long before he walks without help.

My blood sugar hasn't hit the 200s since Tuesday, which was the day I was clogged with a head cold. I called in, took some medicine and then went back to sleep for five hours. I don't know if it's the medication (which I've only missed one dose of and I know I packed it, damnit) or if it's the diet. Either way, it's good news to fasten onto. Especially when the weight didn't budge.

And after researching a couple of yoga studios in Baton Rouge, I'll be getting a new yoga DVD either with this pay check or the next one. For the price they charge, I'd want to go to class at least three times a week. Usually the class that sounds like it will help the most is only offered once and then at times that don't work with my work schedule. A DVD is more cost and time effective, which is disappointing because I want to work with an instructor again. And I can test drive my choices via YouTube.

And now I've got 20 things to do this weekend. :p

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Leaving Town Again

Nothing better than starting the day off with an early wake-up from a mild nightmare. Nightmare because it woke me up thirty minutes before the alarm went off. Mild because once I outline it, most people will probably say "what's so scary about that?". I was driving with someone wearing a coworker's face (not someone I deal with on a regular basis, but I ran into him at the elevators the other day) and we found a little brick house for sale so we stopped and looked at it. (There is an empty brick house down the road that will probably be put up for sale soonish, the house in my dream resembled it slightly.) I decided to buy it. (I just had the meeting with the CCFairy on refinancing my house yesterday.) Then the dream shifted to me meeting with Dad and my sister who lives in Texas discussing my desire to purchase this brick house, which shifted in location to between my current house and my parents'. This meeting was taking place in my current living room. Then my father's younger brother knocked on my door to speak to my father and he was moving into the brick house with his children and step-children (all who are old-enough to have their own places to live). And I knew my father had hijacked my buying this house by telling his brother before I had a chance to even make an offer. I spluttered something at my sister, who never answered me and wouldn't look me in the eye either. I turned to my father with his brother right there and spluttered again. "How can you let THESE PEOPLE have what I wanted?" My father's brother sneered, "She's just like her mother." Then I was watching them move in and Dad backed a car that they don't own up to my window and told me to get in "Mustard is at the Monroe house." And that's when I woke up.

These people are just some of the ones I call the white trash I'm genetically tied to. Them moving next door to us again (yes, the trailer I kept wanting to fire a cannon at was one of the children) would be a nightmare for everyone. No, I don't think there is anything in the wind that this could happen. But I really didn't need a dream about family dysfunction when I have to take my mother to my sister who lives in Shreveport for wedding dress stuff.

And Mustard was out all night and ran in after I stumbled to the door after this dream. "Monroe house" doesn't mean anything to me, but it does resemble how my parents refer to houses in the neighborhood by who lived in them when they were children or who built them, and not by how they look to help me identify the location.

Other news, based on recommendations, I've been trying out Feedly to replace the Google Reader. The interface is better after the changes they made yesterday, but I'm finding it hard to get my feeds down. I accidentally got logged into Google+ when I couldn't convince Google that my account name did not need to be the same on my YouTube account. *headdesk* Bye Internet anonymity, I'll miss you. I still don't know what to do with Google+, which is the same way I feel about Facebook.

Can't think of anything else to deal with. I have to run out and buy cat food before we leave so toodles.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Have I Spent Any Weekends at Home This Month?

Out of town to see friends this weekend, and hopefully we can squeeze in Oz: the Great and Powerful. I survived last weekend's trip with my parents, and got more writing done than I feared I would, and picked up some smoke but managed to keep it off the papers for the most part, yeah! But as I passed the pile of cans to take to recycling that haven't left yet while I got in the car this morning, I couldn't remember when I was home last to deal with that stuff. I could look up my previous weekend plans, but more trouble than I want to go through for an answer. I'll just have to stay home next weekend.

I'm slowly catching up on reviews that I've been procrastinating on since the funeral. The "I'll do that later" procrastination has tipped over into "you’re worthless scum for not doing that!" guilt; and I'm slowly battling past that to actually leave the reviews on the merits of what I read. And I haven't even faced Facebook yet. Next week, I swear.

So Google Reader is shutting down. *Sigh* Add finding a new RSS reader to next week's to do list. I've hit my resigned point over the news, and just hope I won't run into any headaches trying to move my feeds over to a new reader.

And that's all I have for today. Time to post this and concentrate on Strix: Forget the Sun.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

I Need More Self-Correcting Clocks

Oh good, I don't have to be my mother's entertainment this weekend; Dad is coming too. *Sigh* I don't gamble, so what I get out of these trips is peace and quiet without my usual distractions to write. However, when I took Mom the last trip, I discovered that even when I gave her the television, had all my papers covering the table at the hotel window (best light), and was hunched over them with pen in hand, she still had to talk and talk and talk and TALK because I was THERE! She was supposed to be napping; she came back to the room to nap!

I love her, but Dad's ears will be there for her to yak to and I will be using the mp3 player and earphones to enforce my writing time. Hopefully, I'll avoid the papers-absorbing-cigarette-smoke this time.

This is one of those free association posts, but it will sound like I'm bashing the 'rents. I'm not, but… okay, here's the story. Dad came to me with a request earlier this week: to look up my grandfather's insurance policies and see what is what with them. To which, he didn't even have to finish the request because I was already giving the answer that we all have to give the public who is confused about what the Department of Insurance actually does. "We don't track what policies the citizens of Louisiana have bought; we regulate the companies and agents who sell the insurance." The spiel can get longer, but that's essentially what many people want and we can't it give them. So Dad's just as confused as many other citizens; no big deal.

Except… except, I've been working there twelve years come May. And you guys have never asked me about details so you know what I do and who I work for? I don't feel hurt, but rather a pull between two voices in my head once I had that realization. Voice One: *Shrug* Maybe the DOI should address how confused people are about what we do. Voice Two: Let it go. You know you're not the kid they give a shit about, so why are you even surprised? They don't know anything important to you and it's safer that way.

I know this is a situation to listen to Voice One. But Voice Two is inside me, and I'm more puzzled that I have this need to hide what's important to me and protect it from everyone.

Okay, enough serious shit this early in the morning. I have to go put my hours in on the paying job. I'm not looking forward to Daylight Savings Time this weekend either. I also need to review things I have read AND answer people's birthday wishes. Pete's sake, why is that making me freeze up?

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Daily Chores and Me Take Two

Last I checked in with Mom, Mama Ree was responding well to the treatment and was due to move out of ICU for another room in the hospital. It's been a few days so I don't know if that has happened yet or not.

I spent the weekend, Lundi Gras, and Mardi Gras dealing with a nasty head cold. I'm still coughing, but I can breathe through my nose even if my voice still lives in another register (or maybe it's just my hearing). The achies are gone, which goes the longest way to making me feel functional again.

So all the chore changes I wanted to implement last Friday fall on this Friday instead. Which is all good, because I found Unfuck Your Habitat this week. Despite my Jerkbrain's insistence, my house is not a disaster area. I'm fairly good at putting things back where they go. My fall downs are dishes—that spills over into the rest of the kitchen—vacuuming, and dusting. So why do I keep having freak-outs over not following my checklists and staying on top of the chores? Third-generation packrat who knows just how nasty it can get if I let my ass fall into the inertia of laziness.

The second part of this issue is I have time scheduled for the chores in the morning before I leave for work, but I haven't been waking up on time so everything has fallen off schedule. I know the biggest issue with that is going to bed on time, which hasn't happened in a while, but last night it didn't happen because I was finding my kitchen again. Yeah, definitely time to have every chore on maintenance level, so I can use the free time to exercise and write and relax.

What I like about UfYH's tactics (besides the sighs of relief with the before and after pictures "I'm not that bad yet") is her insistence on breaks. You either work for 20 minutes and take a 10 minute break or work for 45 minutes for 15 minutes. It may have took four 20/10s to find my sink under all the dirty dishes last night, but giving myself permission to sit at the computer for ten minutes in between sessions was liberating. And I didn't cheat and stay on the computer longer after the timer went off.

So the goal for this shake-up is to keep all the chores at maintenance level (where a few minutes everyday equals done) and to move it back to the morning unless that's completely impossible. Currently, my chores are broken down into what must be done daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

Daily Chores

• Make bed
• Empty sink of all dishes
• Spend 15 min. on budget subtasks
• Worked on Writing Project #1
• Worked on Writing Project #2
• Worked on Writing Project #3
• Set out stuff for tomorrow
• Exercise for the day
• 30 min. on website maintenance
• Weekly chore for the day

This works—except for the minor fact of actually DOING them—so the only tweak I'm making is to change the time limits to 20/10s.

The goad attached to weekly chores that if you miss doing them, you aren't supposed to do them again until the days rolls around next week. That way two weeks' worth of ick factors into making you do it. Your mileage with this tip will vary; since I don't remember the last time I vacuumed, it's probably not working as intended.

Weekly Chores

• Monday – take garbage out to main can
• Tuesday – Update Fiction Tracker
• Wednesday – Vacuum whole house
• Thursday – Change litter and clean bathroom
• Friday – Pick up whole house and Post to blog
• Saturday – Laundry and Cook meals for the week
• Sunday – Weekly Review, take body measurements, add measurements to FitDay.com, and write Hot Bod post

This would be the stuff that's not being done in a timely manner.

Doesn't matter what weekday I put vacuuming on, it doesn't happen. And when it does, I'm cramming it into my weekend. So first thing is to officially move it to the weekend, Sunday in fact. What was on Sunday for diet and exercise tracking is moved to Thursday. Updating the Fiction Tracker works better on Fridays when I'm writing other blog posts, so that leaves Tuesday free to pick up the whole house.

Updated Weekly Chores

• Monday – take garbage out to main can
• Tuesday – pick up whole house
• Wednesday – change litter and clean bathroom
• Thursday – Take body measurements and add measurements to FitDay.com
• Friday – Write blog post, update Fiction Tracker, and write Hot Bod post
• Saturday – Laundry and cook meals for the week
• Sunday –Weekly review and vacuum whole house

The Kanban Flow looks a thousand times better with those streamlines. The only thing I have left to do is add in the Writing Projects #2 and #3.

Weekend plans: As much as I would love to see Bruce Willis blow up Moscow, I'm broke when it comes to movies. So I'll stay home and work on my taxes and see if I will be unbroken in the near future.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Derailing the Plans

I feel like crap, coming down with the post-nasal drip cough. I dragged my butt to work, dragged my butt home, and the plans I had was to tweak when I do what chores and blog about it followed by curling into bed and not getting up until Monday.

Mom calls me when I get home needing a ride to the hospital after dark. Mama Ree is back in and she has pneumonia. I wasn't planning on celebrating Mardi Gras but I can't believe she's back in on a major holiday again.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

February's Here Already

Time is relative, but I think that was the fastest January has ever flown by. So how did I do on my monthly goals?

• Exercise 30 days in a row. – I managed 10 days. Exercise also doesn't travel well.
• Cut out grains as much as possible. – No, I didn't stay away from the sweets like I should have.
• CCFairy's homework is due Jan. 18th. – Done.
• Finish all alien languages for Stellar Gift of Death - I'm going to run a day over.
• Write 20 days on Strix: Forget the Sun - I have wrote and brainstormed, but not 20 days worth.

I could have done much worse.

February Boulders

• Use BodBot for a month. – I want to kick up my exercising and push what my body is capable of. This web-app tailors exercise programs for you.
• Cut out grains as much as possible.
• CCFairy's homework is due Feb. 20th.
• Write 20 days on Strix: Forget the Sun.
• Read through Stellar Gift of Death and wiki catalogue details on aliens and locations.
• Post all the TDKR fanfics.

Another do-able list; let's hope I get more done.

I had a good time this past weekend. I ended up playing a wizard, which I don't recommend after too little sleep and too early for cleaning. It was a fun adventure, even if we didn't get to finish it.

This weekend's plans: avoiding the Superbowl and starting Krista's wedding dress. And if Mom isn't up for sewing, I've got writing and housework to do.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

How did I manage to do that?

So CVS had an awesome sale on Coke products (4 twelve pack cases for $10) along with a spend $30 on specially marked items and you'll get $10 CVS Cash to spend in the store. Mom leveraged this deal into a lot of Coke products. I saw that many things on my shopping list were some of their specially marked items, especially make-up, so I made it my first stop on my shopping trip yesterday.

Why did make-up end up on the list since I don't subscribe to the must wear it every day or there is something wrong with you beauty culture? I do managed to put away my insecurities about how I'm turning myself into a clown with it for special occasions and sometimes those special occasions are just so my mother doesn't bitch about it. I wore make-up to the dinner theater event with Sha-Na-Na last weekend at IP Casino and the lipstick wasn't working right. It finally slid on after generous use of Chap Stick. "How old is it?" Mom asked. Turns out, I bought it when I moved back home from Natchitoches in 2000. So yeah, time for a new tube of lipstick.

Where my title comes from is going into CVS, picking up stuff that was on my shopping list (so I really can't blame it on impulse buys), and surprise at the register: $107! "How did I do that?" Needless to say, I earned the $10 CVS Cash and spent it on more Diet Dr. Pepper and Sprite Zeros (wiping out the store of both and the store was already out of regular Cokes when I got there). So my grocery spending next month will have to reigned in, but if I ration right—which I should do so I won't miss out on sleep—I shouldn't have to buy soft drinks until April.

We made it to IP Casino just in time for the show, which was awesome! The only bad thing was feeling so rushed because there was no buffer in the schedule. The next Friday night show we go to, I'll be sure not to schedule a meeting after work the same day. The only bad thing about the trip was my papers picking up second-hand smoke.

Money matters: The meeting was good, so there was no reason for me to be so nervous about the outcome. My homework assignment this month is to find a contractor to give me a pro bono quote on how much the house renovation may run and to apply any tax refunds to my debts. The hold up: my family doesn't know any contractors.

The online calculator I found made the whole thing sound so out of reach, and I'm not even planning anything massive.

This is what I've come up with this go around. The wall between the kitchen and office that also separates the bedroom and bathroom is the end of the original house. This plan means tearing off the addition that contains my now kitchen and back bedroom and building on a larger kitchen, a master bedroom with en suite bathroom and a closet, a laundry/mudroom with a walk-in pantry, and extending the roof to cover where I park my car. My living room and office remain the same with a few minor tweaks. I want to a built-in desk in my office and I'm leaning toward re-purposing the old kitchen cabinets for that. The bedroom I sleep in now (top right corner) will become a guest bedroom. The current bathroom's plumbing will be fixed to code (real bathtub faucet, real shower installed, NO MORE HOSE FAUCETS) even though I'm planning on reusing most of the fixtures. The toilet is only a few years old and the bathtub is enamel-covered cast iron. I'd rather keep using it than tear an outer wall down to get it out. The roof needs to be replaced and Dad pointed out from this image the roof profile will probably need to be changed all together. Since I know the house will have to be recovered in new siding and I'd love to have more insulation along with central AC and heat, the idea of changing the roof didn't faze me. Considering how well I usually handle the idea of change and how I have waffled about what to do to my house to make it better, Dad was probably expecting this:

Instead, I was like this:

Totally not the end of the world.

Off to my friends this weekend, and a one-shot D&D game is in the plans. I'm thinking of actually not playing a ranger. :D

Read Free!
The BookWorm

So About This Week

So I made a new item for the checklist; Friday is blog post day. And today is the first day I have been able to fulfill it. *Sigh* The goal is to be more communicative than last year. Beating forty-nine posts isn't that hard, but I'm already off to a less than stellar start.

No guilt. Okay, so what's been going on in the past two weeks?

My grandmother was discharged from the hospital on Jan. 3rd, and is in therapy at the nursing home because she had been flat on her back for two months at the hospital and they expected her to get right back in her wheel chair and go to dialysis. Mom reports that she's back to moaning and complaining about everything, so our opinion is she must be feeling better.

The sixteen straight days of rain and gloom and cold finally broke yesterday with real actual sunshine! It's still cold, but sunshine! We've missed you! So why was today this first morning I had to deal with ice on my windshield?

And I accidentally gave my parents a kitten two nights ago. I was ready for bed and shutting down the computer when I heard mewling and not in Mustard's voice. I even went so far as to look at him when I heard it again. Nope, my cat wasn't making the noise. I put my coat on over my nightgown and headed outside and called out. A lanky cat just out of kitten-hood but not fully adult sped out from under my house and immediately twined around my legs. Practically skin and bones when I picked him up and it head butts my chin and being that night was predicted to be one of the colder nights of the year, I brought it inside.

Mustard went into grumpy old man mode with bouts of crazy dervish. The kitten, white with splotches of orange stripes, didn't do anything to antagonize Mustard, but rather "hi, big cat" and found the food bowl and inhaled what was left in it. So my theory veered to lost or dumped; the kitten was too used to people and other cats.

So I called Mom to see if she heard of anyone losing their cat or wanted one. She heard Mustard's growling in the background and offered to take the kitten to her house. Mustard finally stopped chasing his own tail and growling when I threatened to lock him in his cat carrier and put it in the bathroom so I could get some sleep. The kitten's still at my parents and doesn't belong to anyone in the neighborhood. My mother's not a cat person. She tolerated the ones we had when we were kids because a) they lived outside and b) we loved them to pieces. She has no idea what to do with this kitten that just wants to rub your legs all day long.

Haven's last two episodes finally aired last night. My reaction:

combined with "Thank the Powers That Be we are getting another season!" If we hadn't, I would have to go find the writers/producers and demand answers from them.

Diary of a Gold Digger requested that we loyal readers pass out a shout out to her blog, so it will eventually lead to a book deal. I enjoy train wrecks of family relationships (remember I call those others that have a genetic tie to my nuclear family the "Extendeds" for many good reasons), so you guys might like it too.

I ran across this article: Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals This Year, and feels like it makes sense. Much of my habit changing habits never get a chance to stick, but the inner chorus/monkey mind (that is a great term the Buddhists use, must remember to use it more often) starts in on the "how I'm such an awful failure of a person to even try" tape until I give up or just avoid whatever made them hit play. This belief needs to die a horribly fiery death, and be replaced with something else.

Changing your beliefs isn’t nearly as hard as you might think. There are two steps.

1. Decide the type of person you want to be.
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

Based on my goals for 2013,

• I am a person who exercises every day and avoids process foods about 80% of the time.
• I am a person who manages money well to maintain a lovely home that is welcoming to friends and family.
• I am an indie-published author.

Now it's time to start scoring small wins, so I can feel like this:

Weekend plans: Mom hasn't had a break since we got back from Texas for Thanksgiving, so we're going for a girls' weekend at the IP Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi tonight. Vicki Lawrence is doing her stage act there tonight and Mom had free tickets. Now, I'm too young to have watched the Carol Burnett Show (but she will always be Miss Hannigan to me) regularly, but me and my sisters loved Mama's Family. They were Southern and just as dysfunctional as our own; what's not to love? That's what I'm looking forward to while Mom gambles responsibly.

The only wrinkle is I have to meet with my CCFairy after work and find out if I have any hope of remodeling the house or if I will just get to pay off bills. Yeah, I'm a little nervous about this step and trying not to think too hard about it.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Reconciling What I've Learned

The weekend resulted being more introspective than I had planned. Friday's paying job portion of the day ended with a trigger setting off the Perfect Girl abuse in my head. Finally settled that down without casualties, and had a chat with the Muse in between blood work and dental appointments on Saturday. Sunday resulted in positive reinforcement.

All that mental work distills into two ideas. 1). Every writer's journey is different, and I hate my back seat driver (Perfect Girl). 2). (After the Muse and I stuffed the Perfect Girl into the trunk of the writing metaphor car), I need to reclaim the fun in creating to keep the Perfect Girl from messing with my writing life.

So my checklists. I make no secret that I need the checklists because otherwise I will forget continuously to do the chores I must do and my life with spiral out of control. But I also think that setting time limits/word count goals/quantitative control measures to prove I'm doing something have contributed to sucking the fun out of writing.

It also just occurred to me that the abuse tape loop in my head that I have labeled Perfect Girl was aided by the fact that I started writing so early. Nobody took it seriously because who takes an 11-year-old seriously. Writing is just you playing around and it's nothing serious and it will never be anything serious and why are you wasting so much time with it. Your sister won the young writer's contest never you; why are you still messing around with it and grow up. Soaking up the condescension like a good little sponge, ready to throw it back at myself with so much anger should I rise above myself. Yeah, I'm undecided about that insight.

Working with KanbanFlow, I'm allowed to have three projects open at a time. I like having a I wrote today marker, especially since I don't know when I'll start typing and will get word counts. I need time limits on some stuff, otherwise they'll turn into time-sucks or I'll avoid them because they feel unmanageable. The rewards system has successes in modifying my behavior, so I should continue using it (instead of letting Perfect Girl scream at me that I'm a failure for not vacuuming). Changes made:

• Add reward to dishes, it's too damn easy for me to ignore them.
• Replace the time details for writing and editing with "worked on Writing Project #1, #2, #3"
• Writing Projects #1, #2, and #3 get separate task blocks from the daily chores block, but I don't want to copy what I have set up on the Writing Projects Boards. So all I filled out was the name of the project, a due date, and how much time I have spent working on it. The last is to keep me from scheduling more into my day because it must be free if it's not already obligated. And yes, a due date because I don't want to waffle on my next steps or toss a project aside because I got scared. I want to work daily and consistently.

So far the changes look good, the test drive is for the rest of this week.

In other news: between appoints on Saturday, I found a new mp3 player in Office Depot of all places. I ended up going in just to kill time and already annoyed because all that I had found elsewhere were Apple products or not-Apple that played video. Not what I need. Office Depot had 2GB Polaroid mp3 player for $9.99. Doubled the storage space of my last one, will miss the built in flash drive, way cheaper than what I payed how many years ago?, have a FM tuner for the car and headphones already, so okay, next paycheck.

After my teeth were finished, I remembered that Office Depot had sent me rewards money to spend. It should cover the whole amount unless they have a rule that I must pay taxes out of pocket, so I don't have to wait.

Now I'm off to work on writing before the paying job sucks away my time.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Isaac

So Friday I wrote a note to myself on the chores I needed to do this weekend, mainly because I needed to do them and a tropical storm/hurricane headed our way is just the extra push to get things done. I added to it after making the list of 25 items: "This way if I'm home thanks to Isaac I can concentrate on writing. And now that I'm planning for that, it will bypass us completely."

Yeah, I was wrong.

Jindal really should stop promising to speak at the Republican National Convention. He promised in 2008 and had to cancel because we got hit by Gustav. This year it's Isaac. :p

I gassed up the car and bought some groceries on my way into the paying job this morning. The fun has began. I have never seen Walmart that busy my time in the morning and most of the people at the gas station were filling up gas cans. We're crossing fingers that they let us go home early or at least tell us when we should try to make it back to work. I have no faith in the stupid COOP system that is never updated until AFTER I reach Baton Rouge. (See SNOW and Gustav tags) I don't expect it to be bad enough to run, unlike Katrina who was a three or four gearing up to five seven years ago. So it's a wait and see game to which way Isaac is headed, how strong it will get, and when the power will go out.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

August Reboot Not Running Yet

Getting back into my groove in August has not happened yet. What I have managed to accomplish: a Batman short story and a drabble set in the Dark Knight Rises. I'm glad I did something creative, but I need to spend this weekend working on chores and creative pursuits, while keeping a dental appointment and dealing with library books.

Laundry, dishes, the house needs a scrub over from ceiling to floor, website work, figure out where I am in writing projects, write, and cook; I'm exhausted by just the list. Course I'm also exhausted from eating too many carbs and not exercising enough. The ice cream was good though.

In other news, tabs I have left open to talk about. Time to clear them off.

• Headspring Press: need to read and see if they are a fit for my fiction.
• Wordhaus.com: another potential market
• The CanAm Missing Project: tucking this into the ideas folder. Possibly can work with the Piper of Shadows universe.
• New thoughts on "write what you know": I found this video interview compelling.
• Guest Blogger Starling: Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced: a post to explain to men that just don't get it.
• Not So Big House: concepts I want to use in the remodel of my house.

Last but not least: Batman: Puppet Master! This fan film is set after the Dark Knight and introduces the Riddler and Scarface to the Nolan Bat-verse. Kudos on the effects and the Batsuit, I like the tweak they gave the Riddler (not so much the actor's choices) but the real power of the whole thing is Wesker. If the actor playing Riddler had brought the same chops to this fan film that Frank Birney did, we'd have one hell of a film here.

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The BookWorm

It's Friday Already?

Fifteen minutes late on a Friday, not that it ultimately mattered. After the insanity all week, Friday is my breakdown day. I was hoping it would wait until Saturday.

Paying bills is actually what made me late along with not getting up on time. Notice I'm not in bed yet, the posting time is actually accurate. Back on the bills: everything I thought I was doing to save money--like changing my phone plan--won't take effect until next month. I had to drop off this month's payment on a loan and misjudged the time. Then one of my coworkers called in with a car breakdown; we never saw her for the rest of the day.

After the deposit was delivered, I found a Fraud Assessment payment on my desk that I had missed yesterday. The scanner didn't work. Nobody's scanner worked because something was wrong on the other end. That was 9am. We opened mail, I put my returning check letters together, and the scanners finally came back on at 12:30pm. That set our scanning today's work back by hours.

More mail came in at 3pm, at least four full batches. Another coworker couldn't arrange a later ride home, so she left at 4pm. Since I wasn't going home until I had finished batching and had matched all the assessment payments with their copies. Yes, before we mail out the invoices, we have to make a copy for our files. This year we had to make copies of the amended invoices and keep the wrong invoices. Then we have to match the coupon the companies send back with their payments to the copies. I had two days worth of batching that I needed to match up and then separate what we are going to have to refund.

I left the building at 8pm. 7:15pm made twelve hours at the paying job.

I'm still waiting for the caffeine to wear off so I can go to bed. I'm getting there, finally. Plans for tomorrow: grocery shopping and then avoiding the public for the rest of the weekend. Hopefully, my brain will turn on so I can do something creative with it.

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The BookWorm

Day of Rest Experiment

After June 2 - 3 weekend of back-to-back projects, June 9 - 10 traveling to Shreveport for my sister's version of Say Yes to the Dress, June 16 - 17 housecleaning marathon, I finally instituted a day of rest this past weekend. Two weeks after have the epiphany that I really need to take time off. So how did it go?

My ideal: wake up, finish the hunk of daily chores, and spend the rest of the day alternating between my three writing projects. Sitting down more would be insured by writing in longhand for one of the projects.

Reality: I lost the morning researching and writing my latest Hot Bod 2012 post. Then I realized I had to cook. Followed by alternating my daily writing and editing on the chores list with my earned fun writing. I never got a chance to work extra on Stellar or Forget. I didn't finish off all the daily chores before bedtime.

I don't feel frazzled or drained this morning, which is a success. I also realize I need to shed some to do items from Sunday if I want to continue attempting my ideal day of rest.

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The BookWorm

I'm Auditioning For Super-F******-Girl

Gustav blew through here the beginning of September 2008, I took a picture of the house and the debris filled yard, and there is no Incredible Hulk Shelving Unit at that point. So Mom must have closed the shop at some point in 2009. So it has waited for three years to get off my porch. Three years of the particleboard soaking up Louisiana humidity and rain, because my porch doesn't have walls, that is now over thanks to this weekend and me proving I'm a masochist yet again.

It was an ambitious makeover plan, especially since the only worker was me.

• Put everything that belongs to Mom in the parents' garage since Uncle Scott made room
• Throw away decrepit bench
• Nail up cable wire so it's not wrapped around my furniture
• Screw table legs to desk and make a real table out of it
• Price bistro chairs for new desk
• Sand rocking chairs and polyurethane for protection
• Turn cedar log into a side table for rocking chairs

I just set myself up with a Flickr account to better display pictures on my website, but I'm using it in the blogs too. Front Porch Makeover with all my commentary is already set up. You see a hint of what I took in this post, but I don't like how it goes off under the sidebar.

My father finally noticed what was going on when I was getting the base, the one on wheels into the garage. We still call it the garage, but my parents boxed it into a huge room a decade ago now and shrank the doors down to people-sized. I had the shelf on its side, the all-thread screws that I was calling rebar bent to get in the door, and I was pulling it in. Dad came out the front door and surprised me. "What are you doing?"

"I'm auditioning for Super Fucking Girl, what does it look like I'm doing! And I can bend rebar."

"That's not rebar."

"Shut up, I'm not burning this goddamned shelving unit because it belongs to Mom even though it's ruined." I don't know if it was my extra-growly voice that did it, but the base of the shelving unit finally went inside then, and I found my cheerfulness again.

Saturday's results:

• Put everything that belongs to Mom in the parents' garage since Uncle Scott made room
• Throw away decrepit bench
• Nail up cable wire so it's not wrapped around my furniture
• Screw table legs to desk and make a real table out of it
• Price bistro chairs for new desk
• Sand rocking chairs and polyurethane for protection
• Turn cedar log into a side table for rocking chairs
• Buy a bistro table and chairs set. Must have a top I can write on.

Sunday, I moved onto project number two and learned a valuable lesson. Lesson: schedule a damn day to rest over the weekend! Project number two was framing the hatch to the attic and cutting a door to properly fit the hatch. Sounds so simple, but it ate up so much of my time and energy that nothing else got done, including picking up my power tools from the back porch. If my circular saw has been stolen when I get home, I'll be pissed to say the least.

New attic door Flickr set. Please read the commentary, you don't get the full measure of how insane I got without it.

The good news is none of my power tools were stolen by the time I got home and I managed to do very little with cleaning up the tools. Today is my running around day. I have paperwork to take to my credit union, computer parts to drop off at the recyclers (which I tried to do yesterday and got lost), and table legs to return to Lowe's. Then back to organizing the back porch and the rest of my house work. I can't let it wait until the weekend because I'm scheduled to go to my baby sister's and help her with bride things. And that's a funny story for another post. Remember to put the massage mat that can go into a car on the seat by Friday.

Weekend Plans Got Changed

Uncle Scott got energetic on me last night. Portable AC unit is now in my bedroom, and I need to tweak my bedroom furniture placement to fit it best. And the attic is now mostly sealed, but it turned out what I was saving as the attic door (and I think both me and Mom agreed was the attic door) was the wrong dimensions to be the attic door. What the hell was it a door to? It is made of a thick piece of plywood, so the old kitchen cabinets are out of contention.

Regardless, now I have to go to Lowe's armed with measurements for a new door and get wood cut to fit into the hole. And since Uncle Scott made room in my parents' garage room for the hulk of a shelving unit that has been on my porch ever since Mom closed her shop (how many years has that been now?), I can move that off my porch! I've been inspired to finish my porch furniture and embrace the space, just in time for the hottest part of the year.

I never claimed to have great timing.

My porch furniture: three rocking chairs built by Hephaistos knows and painted green, the extended tabletop from my computer desk that needs legs, a twig/stick table built by Hephaistos knows, a log from the cedar tree that was cut down at some point in 2009 (here's reason 1 and reason 2 for why it had to come down) that I just had a brilliant idea to turn it into a side table, and that's all I can remember here at work. The plan so far is to clean the green paint off the rockers and polyurethane the natural wood look. The table top will get legs and come off my sawhorses. And turn the log into a side table. So I'll be spending a lot of time and money at Lowe's this weekend.

Rizzo needs an oil change, grocery shopping, and paying bills rounds out the rest of the weekend goals. I also need to take pictures of the progress.

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The BookWorm

Tropical Depression for the Weekend

Looks like I better cancel my weekend plans and bunker down. Craptastic, I better ask what are the contingents for NPI.

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The BookWorm

Impromptu Time Off

My sister in Texas is undergoing emergency gallbladder surgery tomorrow. We don't have a time yet and it has gotten to the point where her pancreas and liver are also inflamed.

Current family plans: I'll be taking off Thursday, Friday, and probably a good chunk of the week after July 4th to drive Mom to Austin. Whether Mom comes back with me depends on how things go post-surgery.

So just a heads up if it seems like I've fallen off the grid.

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The BookWorm

Good Start to this Week?

We got called into a meeting early this morning, my computer turned on needing a reboot, and two of coworkers are out sick. Not a particularly auspicious beginning.

I didn't get as much done this weekend as I had planned, typical. So typical I should make that sentence a macro or something and plug it in with the push of an F# key. :p However getting the closet cleaned out and the clothes I don't want/don't fit out of the house was HUGE. Especially since that project has dragged out so long. But I think it deserves its own post with pictures. Which reminds me I still need to write up the sink project that also took much longer than it should have. :p

The other thing that dragged down productivity was my dental appointment Saturday to take off one of my bridges and see what was causing the gum irritation. I didn't need a root canal but my mouth is still sore on Monday. I'm taking prescribed pain killers which is a first for me after dental work. So being off my game should be expected.

"It only took the end of the world for you to finally grow up."

Took Dad to see Green Lantern for Father's Day and was entertained. It's no Dark Knight but given that I'm not a Green Lantern fan, I followed the logic of the film and enjoyed supporting Hollywood South. The set designer did a fine job making New Orleans look like California.

What I didn't get done: chores and any work on Stellar Gift of Death. Then, surprise of surprises, I got to the paying job early this morning and marked up the next two chapters for edits. Now if I could only count on it everyday.

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The BookWorm