Number Crunching 125

09/13/2008 – 9/25/2008

Quicken Cash Flow = -134.41

“No shame, no blame.” This is a mantra from Your Money or Your Life, which I’m currently working through to regain my grasp on my finances. I may have to repeat it a lot during this post because I dropped the ball badly. But I can’t afford to get caught in the self-beat-up game.

Though my honest question to myself (the one that currently makes me squirm as I answer “I don’t know”) is why do I think I will hold onto the large chunk of money by ignoring it? I can trace my fall down to when I cashed my last student loan check. There has to be a reason for it, but I’m waiting for the epiphany.

Also I’m apologizing in advance for the length of this post. It’s going to be a dozy.

May – August Budget Meetings

Reconciling Quicken with Bank Statements: I have received all bank statements for these months and everything reconciled.

Reconciling last month’s budget: Well, here’s where it gets interesting, folks. I made a budget for May, so that can be done. However, I never created a budget for June, July, or August. I will forward May’s budget to the other three months to figure out what happened.

September 20 Notes: As you may have guess, I didn’t finish writing on the 13th. Power got disrupted in a thunderstorm and I didn’t have the printouts I needed. I finally got back to it on the 20th. Thunderstorm knocked out power again, and my computer battery charge lasted five seconds. Yes, it has been bugging me with updates to buy a new one and I just figured it was a pathetic sales tactic.

• Idea 1: upgrade computer backup battery.
• Idea 2: upload budget spreadsheet to Google Docs when I have to balance at work. Easier than keeping multiple files on flash drives.
• Idea 3: Edit category list in Quicken to list Late Fees for different loans.

So now I’m tryin to finish this by hand so all I have to do is type when I get electricity back or get annoyed and plug-in the generator.

I think I spent thirty minutes trying to reconcile by hand. What I have figured out is I need a Quicken report with spending broken into Categories and then listed by each payment. I’m fairly certain that payments I made to medical debts ended up under Medical in Quicken (which is fine) but that’s not how I was trying to track them on the monthly spreadsheet. *headdesk*

After two teases with electricity being restored, I went to plug in the generator. Then power was restored while I was trying to do that. I decided no tempting fate and watched a DVD and saved the math for tomorrow.

September 21 Notes: Today, I did a check through the window before starting Quicken and Excel. Nothing but blue skies, so I got started. Why was the sky completely overcast when I took a break and went to check on the laundry? I have taken to printing every fifteen minutes so I should be able to finish by hand if I need to.

Results for May: I had five unexpected sources of income in May: a sale of things at Mom’s store, selling cans for recycling, a return to a store, borrowed from Dad, and a school loan. So I was left with a positive balance at the end of May, but not due to me watching my money.

Good points: I did payoff some outstanding liabilities, so I don’t have to worry about them anymore. I am upset that I paid the mortgage and CitiFinancial late, and I earned $274 in bank charges.

Argh, and now it is raining just as hard as it did yesterday. Do I press on or try again tomorrow? I’m voting for trying again tomorrow. My brain hurts and I’d like to play a game now.

September 24 Notes: I’m certain I have dragged all necessary paperwork to the paying job to finish this in my free time. Let’s see how right I am. Another thing to remember from now on: monthly Itemized Categories reports from Quicken get the job done much faster.

Results for June: I’m good with not messing up what is deducted from the paycheck, but heath insurance went up in June. I really can’t say that I overspent anywhere else since I hadn’t budgeted anything since May. I did end up with money left over; too bad I didn’t do anything constructive with it. I added a new bill: waste disposal with a new company split with my parents.

Results for July: July’s tabulations came out a tad odd. Because of the way my credit union works, it ended up being my three paycheck month instead of August. So I had a bundle of leftover, but I’m afraid it all got spent in August. Added a new bill: newspaper subscription that my father should reimburse me for since I never get to read the paper before he does. Ever. :p

To double check in Quicken (i.e. why reconciliation is never done) big jump in Atmos in July, go back through the statements.

Results for August: And as expected, August is the mouth I ended in the red. How was that possible with a little extra thanks to the way the paychecks fell?

Crap, I need to recalculate the previous months. This is the issue I have with how transfers are totaled in Quicken reports; I forget that I already categorized that money if I knew where I spent it. Okay, got that recalculated and must remind myself for next month that the transfer balance only shows deposits and withdrawals between the Quicken accounts. Quick answer for what I pulled out of the ATM, bad answer for what I spent it on. Back to where I messed up August question.

1. I blew through nearly $600 and have no idea where it went. At the end of August, I put a correction into the Quicken Cash in Pocket account, since I stopped using the spending notebook in February. I didn’t spend it all in August but I had to balance Quicken at some point.
2. I made nearly $600 in bank charges because I wasn’t watching my money. I think I could have paid off a year in my mortgage with what I have given the banks in NSF and overdraft fees. It has to end.

I also renewed my subscription to Big Fish Games, which was probably a bad idea all around.

Creating next month’s budget: Yes, I know September is practically over, but I can’t skip it. Especially since this is a pay week and I have to get bills in line. One ray of sunshine, thanks to Gustav, I qualify for disaster food stamps and I got them. It’s a one-time thing, but at least I can put $0 in groceries and no be lying to myself.

1st Step: correct all my deductions since health insurance plan changes went into affect back in July.

2nd Step: adjust the amount of all other bills—especially the ones on automatic payments. Most advice recommends you estimate on a yearly basis. I’m going to use the average of what I have paid for the last eight months.

3rd Step: go ahead and cuss because the amounts you have to spend have ran into the negative on a zero balanced budget.

4th Step: copy everything to October, erase negative starting amount, and see the negative amount decrease, but still didn’t go away. Damn, I was really hoping it was all due to the carryover from August.

5th Step: realize this budget is already blown because I have spent money in categories with $0 already this month. *headdesk*

6th Step: see if the check stub for this week is ready to print out. It is so plug in the numbers for the deductions at least.

7th Step: cuss the powers that A) made me come to work when I didn’t have to and B) paid me overtime for it and increased all the taxes I had just gotten normal.

8th Step: take a break, copy over October to November and December spreadsheets, undo everything in September to print out a beginning budget sheet.

9th Step: realize I do have the paperwork for how much I borrowed from Dad and add it in before printing. While doing that, realize the formula is wrong and probably wrong on every sheet. Fix sheets, plan to double check at home. Still have the negative amount. Give up and print.

10th Step: move onto next step in monthly budget review after vowing to not spend any money. Also deal with September in the weekly budget review.

Home edits to spreadsheets: adjusted May—wait a minute. If my course correction was done in Quicken in August? To bring me into balance with the actual cash in I had in pocket? Argh! Is August amount on spreadsheet now wrong because of what I have in other months?

Add in May’s adjustment to Quicken and change August adjustment. Now add in the rest. Okay, so I have to adjust the August spreadsheet again but at least I don’t look as bad in one month. I was bad, but it took longer.

Before I do that, double check Atmos bills. Right amount, but they took me off budget billing. Wasn’t aware it had a time limit. So onto fixing August. If I have everything right now, the bills are paid and I have money to buy gasoline in September. Now I’m going to add in what I have already spent in September. Oh goody, I had already put in my fuel allowance, now for the bills.

Determining how much cash to withdraw for the pay periods in the next month: Recognizing that my spending is out of control in certain areas, I think I need the envelope system. I also need more income and fewer bills, but I’m tackling things as I reach them.

Plenty of people have praised the envelope system as the only way to curb irresponsible spending. I have never taken the full plunge—too afraid to actually control my impulses and cause a bigger backlash. But something has to give with my personal mess and the greater economy mess. There’s no more time to be chickenshit over finances.

First thing is to figure out what categories need to stay on the debit card or in the checking account. So I color-coded September’s spreadsheet. Categories for the envelope system:

• Household yard = 99.41 (60 months) 35.26 (8 months)
• Household: maintenance = 99.41 (60) 335.26 (8)
• Clothing = 11.93 (60) 27.44 (8)
• Grocery = 54.02 (60) 104.81 (8)
• Eating Out = 72.09 (60) 163.96 (8)
• Personal Care: Items = 7.25 (60) 44.10 (8)
• Personal Care: Workout = 3.66 (60) 9.38 (8)
• Personal Care: Vitamins = 13.05 (60) 26.09 (8)
• Personal Care: Massage = 4.67 (60) 7.50 (8)
• Gifts Given = 7.93 (60)
• Entertainment = 84.33 (60) 63.40 (8)
• Hobbies = 44.69 (60)
• Writing Expense = 7.58 (60) 15.62 (8)
• Vet = 3.51 (60) 5.89 (8)
• Donations = 0.41 (60)
• Personal Money = 58.26 (60) 115.21 (8)

Even though I don’t have the money this month (or probably next month) I will spend money in these categories. I don’t need to spend as much as I have been spending. Since I had the totals, I decided to do monthly averages based on all my spending (60 months) and what I have spent this year (8 months). Now I need to settle on what I can reduce spending in. I’m not going to quit cold turkey, which leads to me going nuts with a windfall.

Okay, stopping for another night. My desks are a mess with paperwork everywhere.

September 25 Notes: Brief pause in this while I pay my bills and get my cell phone back in service. Okay, that’s done and got email confirmation. Now to check my phone. Huzzah, I’m connected again! And since I already reduced that bill, it shouldn’t be as painful the next go around. Back on the how much cash topic.

Yesterday’s math not the exercise in futility that I thought it was in the middle of doing it. My initial thought was to reduce spending in all categories. That thought quickly followed by how that has backfired every time I’ve tried it and I end up blowing the money in the vending machines (which is a whole different but related to money issues problem).

So while fixing the spreadsheets last night, I remembered the “60% Budget Solution” article. I had despaired the last time I tried to set it up and moved to zero-based budget. But I thought it could work for the cash categories. I could make much broader categories for the envelopes, but once the percentage of money allotted is gone, it’s gone. And it wouldn’t matter if I decided to buy clothes instead of eating out or going to a movie. (I know, I know, the goal is to leave money in the envelope and toss it to the wind, but I’m trying to work around the stubborn mule inside of me who throws a spending tantrum upon hearing can’t. Oy, that’s bloody good symbolic imagery that I must explore later.)

This morning I grouped my expenses into stay-in-checking-account bills, debt payments, savings, and pay-for-with-cash. Then using the amounts I had budgeted, I calculated the percentages of my gross monthly income.

Bills = 73.71%
Debt payments = 33.19%
Savings = 1.92%
Cash = 0%
Total = 108.82%

After I stopped twitching over the overspending built into my lifestyle, I started tweaking and settled on this is what the percentages should be:

Bills = 63.39%
Debt payments = 19.69%
Savings = 1.92%
Cash = 15%
Total = 100%

Upon adding up the totals of the categories I figured out yesterday, I found this:

8 months average cash spending total = 706.95 = 27.14%
60 months average cash spending total = 572.20 = 21.97%

Since my historical spending is between 27% and 21%, reducing it to 15% is doable. Now reducing the bills and debt payments is a whole different barrel of monkey bats (If you have made it this far and recognize the quote, I will send you real cookies—not just virtual ones.)

Does any of this tell me how much I can draw out today for the next two weeks since I’m already in the budget black hole? Not entirely sure yet. My car insurance and mortgage payment are both past due, and I don’t have enough to cover them, much less my loan payment. What is left needs to stay put for gas payments and to get my brakes checked. So the answer is “no” for this pay period.

Automatic Payments:

Missed in August: Liberty Mutual
Atmos Gas – paid in September
Demco – paid in September
Missed in September: Liberty Mutual
GMAC Mortgage
CitiFinancial

And there is not enough money left in the checking account to cover them. So I have phone calls to make at lunch, and I have no idea what the verdict will be—since I won’t be able to afford a double whammy from any of them in October.

Verdict of calls:

• CitiFinancial – already moved September’s payment to the end of the loan because of Gustav. Just pay October’s bill normally. So how did the evil personal loan lenders end up being the most understanding about a hurricane?
• Liberty Mutual – taken off automatic payments and need to call in as much as I can on the past due when I get paid again on October 9th. Changed the deductibles and got $92 credit on last bill and I can change again after renewal in November.
• GMAC Mortgage – set me up with a repayment loan (probably not the proper term for it I didn’t note it) that has no grace period for the next six months. I have to make phone call payments and I think I can pay it off early, if I end up in that situation, but will have to wait on the letter to explain that again.
• Sallie Mae – cancelled online payments that I accidently signed up for. Call center guy was adamant that I didn’t need to turn in a deferment form that he couldn’t find where I had faxed it anyway. Funny, the two people who called me before Gustav hit and then right after were adamant that I had to have it and have mailed it to me twice. Need to call the phone number on the letter and find out what’s going on.

Not going to lie; the mortgage shuffling is going to be tight. Luckily, I get paid on or before the 10th all six months.

Reviewing Short-Term Saving Goals: It is time for me to get serious about getting out of debt. 33.19% of my monthly income is nothing to dismiss. I can barely meet my bills, I can’t save, and let’s not talk about groceries.

Side note but related I promise: I’m going to look for another job, part-time while I finish school and start my Internet revenue stream. Wal-Mart is currently hiring, Winn-Dixie had a sign up too, and Best Buy is opening in Hammond and will be having a job fair. Retail sucks, but desperate times….

To manage this debt nightmare, I’m going to follow Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover with a few modifications. As Cash Money Life explains, it’s “a rough guide, not an absolute road map.”

Step 0 is no more debt. Okay, no more borrowing and I’m going to get a second job to meet in the middle.

Step 1 is establish $1000 emergency fund. And here’s where I veer away, since I established way back when my STEF needed to have $2202 in. For now, I’m going to stuff it into my second credit union saving account that’s not tied to my primary checking, nor is it accessible by ATM. I might move it later and get a better interest rate once the economy stabilizes a bit more. And since today is payday, I moved half of my automatic savings to the restricted account bringing the balance to 149.96. Great, I’m already on my way! And if I’m really good with my checking account, hopefully the other half won’t get spent and I can add it too.

Update NetworthIQ statement: If nothing else didn’t hurt like a MF, this will.



Yeah, I knew that wasn’t going to be pretty.

Update NCN Savings Chart:



*Snort* Well, I totally screwed up on my goal date, didn’t I? And that’s information I can’t update. Still the money amount is right and that’s what matters.

Overview and Plans: NEVER let this get so out of control for so long. I CAN’T AFFORD IT!

Plans

• Brake check for car Saturday
• Upgrade computer battery backup
• Upload budget spreadsheet to Google Docs
• Reduce bill spending to 63.39% of gross monthly income.
• Apply to Best Buy
• Apply to Winn-Dixie
• Apply to Wal-Mart
• Finish Your Money or Your Life
• Restart weekly budget meetings
• Finish Internet project so to go live
• Use monthly Itemized Categories reports from Quicken to reconcile
• Set up a small expandable binder/folder (like for coupons) for money envelopes
• Unsubscribe from Big Fish Games
• Contact Atmos about budget billing
• Analyze the stubborn mule comment
• Call phone number on letter for my deferment form
• Organize financial binders and paperwork
• File paperwork
• Call Sonnier Chiropractic. for what Datapath needs
• Need to add PayPal and Revolution Money Exchange accounts to Quicken and October spreadsheets
• Rename Transfers between Quicken accounts to “Added to account name” instead
• Give STEF balance its own worksheet in the spreadsheet file.

My Gods, I actually finished this damn post. Eight pages long in Word. I’m already flinching to see how long it’s going to look on screen. Sorry, but I did warn you.

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The BookWorm

Reasons Why I Shouldn’t be Financial Idiot

Thought about doing a top ten list a la Letterman, but I don’t have the brain power to waste on that. So straight to number one:

It takes a whole month to get back on track again. And another month to fix the filing binders.

I exploded out of the two-inch binder, so I’m going to have to retool my storage of the paperwork. But I’m only letting myself get distracted with that AFTER I’m caught up with doing the paperwork. I don’t need someone to do it for me, maybe I need someone to remind me to get it done. But I’d want my personal assistant to do dishes too.

The more I think about it, one of the scanners that rolls the paper through it (like a copy machine does) instead of the flatbed makes more sense for me. I could file digitally. No more papercuts. Course the reason I have a flat bed scanner is for the scanning I do out of books and colored artwork done on tracing paper that tears very easily. Course, I keep tempting to try out the email a PDF of what you scanned feature of the multifunction copier/printer/fax machine at work, but when I actively packed papers to play with, I forgot about playing.

3:53pm – I hate working on the budget because it’s the song that never ends. I find what I have done wrong plus I never finish!

6:50pm – Morning writing has also escaped me. I haven’t been doing it for a while (along with exercising) but now I have to get dressed in the 4am hour to leave between 5am and 5:30am. When I understand the crazy traffic, I will be the first to explain it.

Programs are now cooperating, so back to making sense of my finances again.

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The BookWorm


Progress Bar from Writertopia

Still alive

Still alive, just really swamped right now. Hopefully, I will get all caught up by the end of the month.

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The BookWorm

Number Crunching 126

Interrupted the regularly schedule weekly check-in and analysis of financial matters (thanks to unreliable power source) to start working through the steps of Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. The book’s background started with the same information shared in church seminars, so like Dave Ramsey, you occasionally have Christian spirituality talk mixed with money talk. The authors have a point that you cannot separate money from the rest of your life—including spirituality/religion. So far, I have made it to chapter three and the quote scriptures from the Bible less than Dave Ramsey. Consider yourselves warned.

The subtitle is the best summary: “Transforming your relationship with money and achieving financial independence.” I read some PF bloggers rave about this book and grabbed it on the shopping trip to Half Price Books while visiting my sister. But I only serious started on it in the beginning of September. Knowing there’s no money in the bank and no power to double check that, it seemed like the perfect time to get back on track. (Much like today, I am being teased with electricity promises unfulfilled.) Anyways, I’d like to transform my attitude about money, stop falling into my bad money habits, get out of debt, and be free to do what I want to do instead of what I have to do.

Dominguez and Robin give a nine-step program to help you achieve financial independence. The first concept they give you to wrap your head around in “Having Enough.” It’s a different monetary amount for everyone, but it exists. Money does not equal fulfillment, but reaching the point of enough “for survival, comforts, and little luxuries; appreciating and fully enjoying what money brings into your life and yet never purchasing anything that isn’t needed and wanted.” (25)

Okay, I’m ALL for that. Onto step 1: Making peace with the past. It has two parts; most steps are multi-parters. Step 1: A). Find out how much money you have earned in your lifetime—the sum total of your gross income, from the first penny you ever earned to your most recent paycheck.

I fudged. I didn’t want to try to remember how many times I babysat as a teenager or what I got as gifts. The gift thing goes against my grain. You didn’t earn it and you can’t depend on it to pay your bills. And babysitting back in the day was not a regular gig. So I started with my first income tax returns independent of my parents. 1996 – 2007 equals $160,117.00. Year-to-date for 2008 equals $24,810.72. So my grand total for lifetime earning equals $184,927.72.

Holy rusted metal, Batman! That’s only 12 years. Evidently, I am capable of earning a nice chunk of change without even selling my writing yet. However, judging by my current bank balance, I am capable of overspending that nice chunk of change.

Step 1: B). Find out your net worth by creating a personal balance sheet of assets and liabilities. I have that now that I have updated NetworthIQ.



Not that I’m terribly surprised by being worth a negative amount. I can’t ever recall being worth a positive amount.

Chapter Two starts with the question what is a universally and consistently true definition of money? And like any good nerd, I came up with the textbook answer: money is an economic tool to exchange goods and services between people.

But the textbook definition isn’t how people deal, feel, or see money, so the authors show four perspectives of money to get to the nonmaterial aspects of money.

Street Level

physical pieces of paper and metal, all financial transactions over a lifetime, jobs, insurance, savings, investing, etc.

Neighborhood

emotional/psychological realm; personal thoughts and feelings about money; money myths – money as security, power, social acceptance, evil

Citywide

cultural realm; history of money; principles of economics, sociology, and anthropology of money. Growth is good, more is better.

Jet-Plane

personal responsibility and transformation: money is something we choose to trade our life energy for.

When discussing the neighborhood perspective, the authors ask you what your money style is? I fluctuate between impulsive and worrier. The roots of this is usually in how you were raised, and I have studied that dynamic before in detail. They also ask you what your money mythology is. I see money as security. I feel worth more when I’m out of debt or when I know I stand financially, but as soon as I have a positive balance in the checking account, I quit watching. Even knowing I’ll frit it away, I still don’t watch it.

Once we get to the jet-plan level, readers are introduced to the “one consistently true statement we can make about money that will allow us to be clear, masterful, and powerful in our relationship with it? Money is something we choose to trade life energy for.” (54)

Pause for the Keanu Reeves “whoa” moment.

Life energy is our allotted time on Earth. It is finite. It runs out. You pay for money with your time. What does it reflect about your values, commitments, inner self? What does it reveal?

How scary is it to really find out?

This is where the slogan “no blame, no shame” starts coming into play. Because shame is a lousy motivator when compared to inspired. You look at your spending habits, and you decide how much your life energy is really worth.

I’m going to try to do a Step of the program in each of the weekly Budget Catch-Ups. After some blows to the ego getting back on track, I realize I must get out of the money traps for my own peace of mind. Plus it should at least make the next few weeks interesting.

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The BookWorm

Computer problems

Dad's been working on it for an hour. Now we've determined it isn't the switch but it could be the power supply and he's hunting for his spare.

No spare power supply--he used it in my sister's Kai new computer. So it's either the power supply or the motherboard.

Well, I'm on now, with real electricity and electricity returned to the job, so back to the daily grind tomorrow. And the computer should be safe now that it is on. The problem seems to be in failing to make the connection when turning it on. But if a new power supply doesn't fix it, I may have to upgrade the motherboard and CPU.

And now there is Ike out there. I haven't listened to any news today because, damnit, I need a break. I don't know if I want to try to ride Ike out or whether I should just pack Mom up and go to Austin. It's my responsibility kick that's making it a hard decision. I'm third-in-charge at work and I never did hear anything from my supervisor and whatever title Marian has. I don't even know if anybody's going to show up Monday. Well, somebody with a key to the firesafe file cabinet needs to. I don't have one and me and Dana locked the checks up.

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The BookWorm

Going Through Gustav Day Six

9:00am: Woke up three times last night. First to go to the bathroom. Then about an hour later before I fell back to sleep, the generator ran out of gas. It was 1:25am, so I know it wasn’t a full tank of gas. The only complaint I have to Craftsmen is that if you build something with a gas tank, it needs a gas gauge. I put what was left in the gas can into the tank and then had the fun of trying to crank it. I have no affinity for pulling crank motors. I woke up Uncle Scott, but I don’t think I yelled that loud.

“Do you get your crazy from your momma?” Considering that my mother is his sister….

“I get it from both sides, but that wasn’t as bad as I can get.”

Then that gas ran out about 4am. I didn’t bother getting up. I slept fitfully through all of it, and remember having a dream Tin Man with werewolves and a Sailor Moon plot (the part where teenage Selene is raising her daughter from the future)> I’m just glad I didn’t put a hurricane in as well.

Got out of bed at 7:30am to overcast skies again. 75 degrees and the humidity is still down. I carried just about everything out of my office to work on the front porch. Then I wanted to test out playing my mp3 player through my CD player/radio, but I only have one 3.5mm connection cord, which is currently plugged into my computer to transfer cassettes to mp3 files. Dad didn’t have a spare, so that experiment in on hold.

Fuck, we are in the five-day cone of probability for Hurricane Ike. Hell, I know there is nothing certain about the five-day forecast, but I don’t know if I can take riding out another one with my mother. Though at the same time, I don’t know if I can afford to evacuate to Austin.

No decisions need to be made right now. I’m going to listen to the home improvement show and work on paperwork.

3:30pm: Power is restored! And I can’t turn on the computer. That’s been a reoccurring problem lately. Dad says it could be the switch, but he can’t look at it until tomorrow.

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The BookWorm

Survived Gustav

I didn't get blown away, but no power. My dad kindly bought me a generator, but I don't want to spend much time on the computer while using it. I'm afraid something will blow up or shut off.

Taking lots of notes. When I can put up the observations, I will.

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The BookWorm

Going Through Gustav Day Five

Sunlight and Mustard tried hard to wake me up much earlier than I wanted to be. I opened the back door so Mustard would entertain himself outside and went back to bed. Then I rolled over and found my cat curled up in bed with me. I still don’t know how he got back in. Need a screened-in porch and a cat door.

8:30am: I woke up and realized the humidity had gone down, so 75 degrees feels like 75 degrees. Still overcast, which helps keep the heat down, but doesn’t help you feel less waterlogged. Ike could go up the East Coast or it could go into the Gulf. We’ll know more by Sunday.

9:00am: Two guys in a PT Cruiser with “Alabama Power” stickers drove down the driveway, checking out power lines. We heard two transformers blow during Gustav on Monday, but it didn’t look like either of ours. Plus no trees or branches broke the connection from the poles to the houses. I got excited, but Mom says they talked to a DEMCO guy last night who lives on Pumpkin Center too and he said three weeks before we see power. I’m trying to be understanding and not get upset, but I don’t know how much sleep I’ll be getting without at least a fan if no A.C.

10:00am: The post office spokesperson is on the radio, saying most post offices are up and running. I haven’t seen a postal carrier in three days. They must be holding ours at the office.

I cleaned out the fridge this morning of leftovers that won’t be eaten. I have to cook what is in the freezer today. And more yard cleaning since the humidity won’t kill us today. I’m going to get started now.

11:00am: The sun is peeking through the clouds. It sounds sad, but I am hoping to get a tan on my snow white legs. Not that I’m planning on laying out in the sun, but I rarely wear shorts, so my lower limbs don’t match my upper.

My parents can get a FEMA refund on the generator they bought, since Mom’s insulin needs to be refrigerated. Dad’s going to try to find me a generator, so I can at least get a fan or an A.C. running so I can sleep.

I’ve done two fifteen-minute sweeps of the yard, trying to get the biggest, longest branches out of the way first. At least now I can see a difference. I miss ice though; I like my water chilly. I may freeze some water bottles at my parents and let them melt in my freezer. Or I may go buy ice today. I haven’t decided the best course of action. When Mom and I swung around to the ice trailer yesterday, it was mobbed.

11:30am: The third yard session done, and I’m wondering if I should attempt other yard projects this weekend. My Camilla bush needs to be trimmed into a tree. The hydrangeas need to be cut back and fertilized heavily. The unwanted saplings need to be pulled up. I know my yard drainage needs improving, but I have no idea how to start fixing that. I think some of the lowest branches in the oak tree need to go. I still haven’t made a decision about the flower pots in the front yard. I can’t create a rock garden until I can pay for materials, so that one is off this list. I’m going to pause for lunch and think some more.

12:30pm: The overcast sky has broken into white fluffy clouds and sunshine with a slight breeze from the north. Time to get started on the yard again. I have noticed that my front yard is very shady all day, so I better never plant anything that needs full sun.

1:00pm: Fourth yard session done. Uncle Scott cut the cedar limb that had started growing into the edge of my roof and other dead bits on the tree. He keeps fussing about the hauling storm debris because “I can chop that up with the lawn mower.” I’m not stressing though; I’d hate for the two-inch-diameter oak branches to tear up the lawn mower.

Though I think I have hit my daily yard work limit. Nope, mosquitoes attack when I sit, covered my skin in repellent, and I’m going to haul some more debris.

2:00pm: Don’t see any more big limbs in my yards, so I’m don’t for the day. DEMCO’s report is supposed to be released at 3:30pm. So I’m going to read and start writing until then.

7:00pm: I have electrical power! Through a generator. Took all afternoon, but I will be able to sleep with an A.C. and take a hot bath.

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The BookWorm

Going Through Gustav Day Four

7:30am – At work for over thirty minutes and I’m already bored out of my mind. Got here early since have-to-go-to-Baton-Rouge traffic was reduced with schools closed and nonessential state workers told to stay home. (And I really feel so essential right now.) Parked in the really empty parking lot about 6:45am having left home at 6am. I sat in my car soaking up the AC and charging the phone until a few more people showed up.

We got in at 7am. Minimumal power means emergency generator power. One elevator worked, but no computer, no phone, no calculators. I added up the deposit with my cellphone calculator and wrote the totals out by hand. And since I have never done a deposit manually before, I can only hope I did it right. I finished my Jimmy Dean egg McMuffin breakfast, and updated my blog notes. I found Blogger with my phone but can’t figure out how to update an existing blog through a mobile device. Don’t really want to start a new one. I think I will wander and see if the ice machine is on emergency power.

8:11am – And nobody else is here in my section. When I checked on ice—none—no one was in Fiscal. I’m on my last character’s compelling need questions; I’ll search again when I finish them. I hate how quiet it is. There have been a few more arrivals, but with them so quiet, it makes me paranoid that they’ve been sent home and nobody told me.

8:20am – Phones do work, internally at least. I just got a call from someone trying to figure out the main phone number for the department. The display on the phone doesn’t work, and neither do the “hey I’m ringing” lights.

Dana showed up, I turned over the deposit to Patti in Fiscal, and then Dana and I traded hurricane stories. They actually delivered some mail for us to open, which was all we could do with it.

About 10:30am, I looked out my window to see a DPS unit (a section of the state troopers who patrol the state buildings) with lights flashing and the trooper running to the garage entrance three floors below my window. I got closer to the glass and saw we had another unit plus a city police SUV and another DPS unit pulled in from the other direction. “What the hell is going on? People haven’t had time to get pissed off at the insurers yet.” Dana didn’t have any ideas, and another thought occurred to me. “You don’t think they evacuated and left us here, do you?”

“Let’s check P&C, and see if they know.” The P&C division is next door to our division and looked deserted. But people had been here just at 9. Someone finally answered our hails, two of the supervisors, with a question “Why are you still here? We got the phones covered and they let everyone else go home.”

“Nobody told us.” They also didn’t know anything about what DPS was doing, but no evacuation had been called. So then Dana and I started our trek to find somebody in charge of Management and Finance to A-okay our leaving. We finally ended up on the fourth floor and a secretary told us to go home since all the department heads were in a meeting with the Commissioner. They only needed P&C people for the phones, but thank you for showing up.

So we left around 11am. We ran into Anna on the way and she was upset with DPS. “What happened? I called in to report some broken glass in the garage from storm damage or vandalism. Guess which word they heard?” I can’t be too angry with them. We would have stayed until 4pm or when somebody told us to go home if it hadn’t been for DPS overreaction.

I stopped to check out Walker Wal-Mart, but decided against buying a new plastic cooler. I bought Popeye’s and tried to buy ice but the water had to freeze in the freezer trailer thingy. Course, I spent the rest of the afternoon fretting if I had to go to work Friday or not. The updated COOP message only called in the P&C response teams, no electricity so the building was closed to all other employees.

Then Entergy put out a neighborhood estimate list of when electricity will be restored. Capitol Park is not listed, some of downtown is already on, so no one knows when DOI will get power.

Night breezes finally died and I had to soak up some AC in the car last night, and took a Tylenol PM before finally getting to sleep after 11pm.


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The BookWorm

Going Through Gustav Day Three

From what I understand from the press conferences last night, the power issues start at the grid. The transmission lines got damaged and that knocks out power for whole regions. If it wasn't so damn humid, no air conditioning wouldn't hurt as bad.

New Orleans is being stupid with politics again. The surrounding parishes opened at 6am for the people who can't afford to remain away. The closest place I heard with power and said we could get gas and food was Waveland, MS. During Katrina, most people could get stuff from Baton Rouge. No help there with Gustav. I've heard from one of my coworkers, and I was the first one she was able to contact.

DOI was closed again today, and Jindal said in his press conference last night that non-essential state workers would probably be off the rest of the week.

New Orleans opens up at midnight and set up roadblocks this morning to keep people out of the city. WWL has Garland on right now and the roadblocks have come down. I hope they are taping this rant against City Hall. Evacuation went so well, so of course, they screwed up reentry.

I moved out to the front porch. My parent's generator died yesterday, so the breeze and light are better outside. Though, I need to measure when I buy chairs for my porch table. My folding camp chair is too short. Today, I think I will start cleaning the yard. It didn't rain through the window last night, so hopefully no more debris will fall.

9:30am - Before I got to the yard, it started drizzling. I found a pillow I don't care about keeping to put in my camp chair and that makes a difference to reach the table. Talked to Mom, Dad thinks the generator problem is a spark plug and he went to look for gasoline. I don't know if anything is open in Hammond. Hell, I'd love to go window shopping if they had A.C. I could soak up for a while.

I need a better 16oz athletic water bottle. It doesn't have a good airflow to keep the water flowing into my mouth. Looks like the rain has stopped, so I'm going to do yard work.

10am - I'm at puttering speed in the yard. I got the front steps clear and realized I have a lot of different saplings growing up next to the porch. I guess the squirrels have been busy. So then I wondered if creating a rock garden where the roof runoff hits would help with weed issues like that. Grass used to grow up to the base of the house when Gram lived here, but I think she had a green arm and encouraged the plants. I don't want to create a cesspool for mosquito breeding, but I need to do something with the yard. There's a cedar limb that is growing into the tin roof that needs to go.

11am - Ate lunch with Mom and told her the creek was flooding the lowlands. It has never flooded our houses, but it has blocked the road.

Individual assistance has been declared, so FEMA will pay for hotel bills. Now I wish I had left. :p I have no house damage, so no reason for to even register with FEMA. Dad found a working gas station in Hammond, and has returned.

The radio just warned that urban Jefferson Parish shouldn't use the tap water or flush or pour anything down the drain. I'm glad I'm a) not in that parish and b) on a septic system.

I don’t consider myself a lazy person—well, unless I’m on a kick-myself binge. But it’s like I can’t make myself move once I’m sitting down. I have brain work to do, but I also don’t want to start that either.

I’m glad I switched over to Verizon. I haven’t been out of contact with anyone and I can get online—sorta—and check my email. Most sites are not mobile friendly, so I haven’t tried to update my blog or send emails.

12:45pm – I think I spent thirty minutes hauling sticks to the burn pile and I think I have hit my limit for today. It started drizzling as soon as I made the decision to sit down on the porch again. Can’t see a difference in the yard either.

7:40 pm – DOI will open tomorrow. Since I can’t get in touch with my supervisor and the lead worker, and I’m third-in-charge, I’m going into minimumal power (whatever that means) and no AC. Yeah, I haven’t seen a postman in two days and have no idea what we can do without mail, but I’ll go open the office. I’m going to pack a smaller bag rather than my bag on wheels. I’m hoping for a computer so I can at least put out notices that I’m okay.

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The BookWorm

Going Through Gustav Day Two

Woke up between 6am and 7 to a still heavy, gray sky and rain. It took until 7:30 to get ready to face it. But the carbon monoxide poisoning headache was finally gone. That's right, my father put the generator in the back garage with what he thought was enough ventilation but people kept leaving the doors between the house and the garages open. Both me and Mom got sick.

Gustav has dropped to a tropical depression heading to Shreveport, but it was so larger, it is still pulling moisture from the Gulf. Hence the rain.

12:35pm - Gustav, Hannah, Ike, and Josephine. This is going to be a fun month already. It's still raining off and on, and Convington has called for evacuation because their river is flooding. Amite River that I have to cross to get to work is forecasted to crest above flood stage tomorrow. I have no idea about Tickfaw or the Natalbany rivers.

Mom declared it my day to cook since I have a working stove and non-working refrigerator. By 11am, I had finished beef stroganoff, beef stir fry, brown rice, Moroccan chicken, and couscous. By then, Mom was napping, Dad was off somewhere I wasn't told about, and Uncle Scott was in his trailer.

Actually, we came through pretty good. The yard debris is branches. Some of our neighbors lost whole trees, and one with the tree in their house. Lovebugs have hatched with a vengeance. Thunderstorms north of Hammond, great.

My plans for this afternoon is to work on Strix and the rest of my Big Rocks that I can do with no electricity and businesses closed. I'm not checking on COOP until after 5pm.

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The BookWorm

Going Through Gustav

Technically, we started feeling the affects last night with light rain. I went to bed at 11pm (I'm never going to get my sleep schedule straight). My alarm went off at 3am, and I kept hitting snooze when I realized I still had electricity and WWL hadn't blow away.

I really woke up at 7am and lost electricity about 8:45. So far all I see is branches littering my yard. It's raining with gusty winds high in the treetops. Gustav's eye has made landfall, but as of 9:15 am, we haven't seen the backside of the storm yet.

Finished all my cleaning chores last night, except for washing dishes. But since I have a natural gas stove, I can boil water. No matter what happens with where I live--if I ever have to rebuild or if I actually get to remodel like I want to--I will always keep natural gas for cooking, if not heating too. Since they switched the house over from a kept propane tank to piped-in natural gas, we have never lost gas unlike the electricity.

Wow, a French Quarter resident who had left to visit Paris, France is calling from France. She's a good Catholic, lighting candles as St. Joan of Arc's thingy (I'm not Catholic I don't know what those things are called).

The weak spot in the back bedroom roof is not leaking, so the rain event hasn't been that hard, just steady. 9:30 am, they are reporting the winds have shifted from west to east. The backside of the storm has hit New Orleans, I think. I missed where that reporter was embedded at.

Gustav is now a category 2, but we could still have a flooding issue. Some places could pick up twenty inches of rainfall--not counting any storm surges. The Mississippi River rose five feet at one measuring station.

9:50am - another news conference, Mark Cooper from the Governor's Office, taped earlier. But no reports of having to rescue people during the night. Images on TV (according to the radio) are showing overtopping at the Industrial Canal. Mayor Naguin interview is the audio. No citizen arrests, depending on how things develop, people might be able to return by Thursday. Fires have broken out.

10am - Army Corps of Engineers news conference. Industrial Canal isn't overtopped, it's just wave action. Barges are loose in it. Boy, that was a stupid call. And they haven't made as many stupid calls this time.

1pm - Mom freaked out because a tree fell on the neighbors' house on the other side of them. She had a great view from her bedroom window. "I feel safer with you at our house." So I finished the dishes piled in the sink (if Gustav blows the house away it will be with clean dishes, damnit!), packed the paperwork I wanted to work on, and switched. At least, they got a generator running.

5pm - Uncle Scott got a TV and antennae working and we found out how bad Baton Rouge got hit. Gustav was worse than Betsy.

7pm - the much vaunted COOP system was finally updated. I had only been checking it all day long to hear the robot voice say "No weather-related disaster has been declared. Please report to work at your regularly scheduled time." Yeah, that matched the radio and TV reports we were able to get. New message said I didn't have to go to work Tuesday, so I took my headache home. I needed to do my back exercises and I needed some alone time.

I took 2 Tylenol PMs and a melatonin, stretched my back out, opened all my windows, drank water, and proceeded to lay in bed getting sleepy but no decrease in head pain. If I got up to close the window since rain was blowing in (three times during the night), my head spiked. I turned in the bed, my head spiked. I went to the bathroom around 11pm and my head still hurt.

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The BookWorm

Gustav

Hurricane Gustav will probably make landfall tomorrow

I'm not running this time, staying at home, so I won't have the hassle I had after Katrina getting back to work. Though I doubt I will be able to get back to work until Thursday since Baton Rouge is going to have hurricane force winds too.

However worse case scenario with work: the Department of Insurance back up location is in Alexandria. There is no way I can commute from Pumpkin Center to Alexandria. If I got assigned to it, I'd probably have to move to my sister's in Natchitoches and commute to Alexandria (depending on how feasible that is). I just don't want to get assigned to the call center again. I hated it.

Right now, I'm backing up My Documents to my website, starting with stories first. I really need to set up an online harddrive backup, but I will set that up after dealing with Gustav. And I'm cleaning house so I'm not sitting at the computer all day. Plus you can't vacuum if the electricity goes out.

I may get some more blog posts up that I haven't typed up yet, but I'm hoping to use the down time to work on fiction. Down time is after I finished cleaning house and finished off my Big Rock list.

Not too stressed out about it yet. I'm not too worried about flooding out of my home. We can get cut off; it happened before in the 80s, but Dad has a boat.

Holy shit! Obama called in WWL! And I guess I'm glad Bush is actually paying attention this time. He's supposed to monitor in Texas. Yes! Priority commitment from Obama to rebuild our wetlands.

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The BookWorm

Getting Over Inertia

An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

This is the problem with my life and why I succeed so well at procrastination. Once I get off my ass and do something, everything goes fine. Very few problems. I don't understand what I'm trying to avoid or accomplish with procrastination, so I'm putting the blame on physics. Thanks a lot, Newton. Today started horribly late but I'm making progress against the inertia. It's a start.

I didn't get as much accomplished last week as I had hoped (and this weekend felt like a complete disaster). Which I realized would happen, but I figured I was better off with everything listed before hand. I can usually finished about 40% of the week's Big Rocks. After calculations, I need to cross off eight items this week to be average. Halfway there already.

I can't seem to get my math working correctly today. Percentages just aren't working for me at all. I had to pull up an online calculator in order to figure out taxes on a receipt. :p Here's to more sleep and yoga helping out.

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The BookWorm

Hot August Yoga 2

Week 61 = 185.4
Week 60 = 184.8
Week 48 = 191.6
Week 36 = 179.3
Week 24 = 188
Week 12 = 187.6
Week 1 = 205

My grand thirty day experiment hit a snag. I screwed my back up and couldn't do yoga all week. Tomorrow, I should get back into the routine again.

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The BookWorm

Just figured out what the ache really is

For a while now, I have had an off-and-on ache right under my jaw hinge that would sometimes move into my ears. Nothing shooting and stabby, just feeling swollen and like my ears were clogged. I always figured it was my sinuses draining funny or maybe something was wrong with my ears.

Well, I finally get back into the dentist last Saturday (don't ask why it took so long, it's a stupid story) and they tell me the gingivitis still hasn't cleared up and give me a free toothbrush with a much smaller head than the one I currently brush with. The dentist had a great demonstration. She stuck her fingers to my back molars. "You are not getting those with your brush. I can barely fit my fingers there."

Yeah, irony of my life. I have so much to say and cursed with a tiny mouth.

So I switched to the new smaller brush last night. And I hit the two bottom back molars. Holy Toledo, I think the last time I spit out that much blood I had a tooth pulled out. But the only swollen gums I have (sign of gingivitis) surround my bottom back molars. This morning under my jaw hinge feels swollen and my ears feel slightly clogged. Both areas right next to my swollen gums.

So the good news is I don't need tubes in my ears. That just sounds wrong for someone over thirty. Now I'm going to do some searching to see what I can take to reduce the swelling.

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The BookWorm

Getting up schedule needs some work

I woke up at 2am this morning. Alarm doesn't go off until 3am. So at 3am, I'm hitting snooze 'cause I'm just getting back to sleep and don't wanna get up. I crawl out of bed just before 4am, putter around for thirty minutes before waking up enough to realize I'm supposed to be a writing project, so I only get thirty minutes of writing in before getting ready for work. Clearly, the waking up thing needs working on. I'm not getting out of the bed at 2am. 3am is plenty of time for yoga to unstick my back, writing for an hour, and getting ready with some housework tossed in. Better luck tonight, I guess.

This weekend had the annoying joy of computer maintenance and figuring out what to do next. Computer maintenance wasn't anything serious, luckily. I finally got in a good spot to get automatic back-ups of my harddrive working. I think it's working now, but I should have a better idea tomorrow morning. Since I was doing that, I also worked at things to hopefully make the computer run better.

But you would think after a whole week of writing down what I think needs to be worked on and doing nothing on the list, would mean figuring out what to do is so much simpler. Maybe for other people. I had two episodes of pulling at my hair convinced everything had to be done NOW before I calmed the monkey mind. It took two days--Saturday was really disjointed--but I have my projects and next action steps wrote down and Big Rocks for this week mapped out. It's pretty painful this week, but that's what happens when I slack off for two months.

But it was such a nice two months.

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The BookWorm

Hot August Yoga 1 and End of 60 Weeks

Yeah, I finished 60 weeks without realizing it. I can't believe I reached the over-a-year point to reduce my weight.

Week 60 = 184.8
Week 59 = -----
Week 58 = -----
Week 57 = 184
Week 56 = 183.6
Week 55 = 183.6
Week 54 = 183.2
Week 53 = 183.6
Week 52 = 183.5
Week 51 = 185.4
Week 50 = 185.5
Week 49 = 191.6
Week 36 = 179.3
Week 24 = 188
Week 12 = 187.6
Week 1 = 205

184.8 - 120 = 64.8 pounds from my goal.

Starting BMI Measurements
Height is 62.25 inches/158.1 cm.
Weight is 194.5 pounds/88.4 kg.
Body Mass Index is 35.3 kg/m2 according to Better Ideal Weight Body Calculations.

End of 60 Weeks BMI Measurements
Height is 62.25 inches/158.1 cm.
Weight is 184.8 pounds/83.8 kg.
Body Mass Index is 33.5 kg/m2 according to Better Ideal Weight Body Calculations.

33.5 - 20 = 13.5 kg/m2 from my goal.

Starting Measurements
neck: 37.5 cm
bust: 119.2 cm
waist: 102.2 cm
hips: 118.3 cm
thigh: 55.1 cm
calf: 40.6 cm
upper arm: 30.3 cm
lower arm: 25 cm

End of 60 Weeks Measurements
neck: 36.8 cm
bust: 116.5 cm
waist: 100.7 cm
hips: 117.1 cm
thigh: 62 cm
calf: 41 cm
upper arm: 30 cm
lower arm: 26.5 cm

I thought I'd be further along than this, but I can't complain too much about it. I've laid off exercising for a damn long time probably beginning of June.

I decided to go with Yoga workouts along with ab ball crunches and leg raises instead of trying to move the weight bench inside. Now I love ignoring the measurements and results for twelve-week periods, but I think it's too long for exercising. I'm getting bored too soon. So I'm going to do this workout for a month before moving to something else.

No pictures today. I have a lot of household chores and other things to do before I can play with the camera. Maybe next week.

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The BookWorm

Return to Normal, I think?

Finished with editing TinMan: Dragons and Ninjas yesterday. Now I've been in a recovery daze trying to mind sweep for everything I've shoved aside in my mad writing dash. Good news, it doesn't seem to be that much. Mostly getting back on the routines, though in my case more like routine making.

As much fun as the writing storm was, I need to still do other things. It comes down to I can have the writing storm but only after I exercise and pay the bills.

Stupid responsibility.

Vacation was pretty restful for the most part. Dolly rained us out of going to San Antonio's Sea World. I wanted to take Atticus so bad. He has a stuffed animal of a dolphin and knows what it is. Well, Sea World isn't going anywhere.

Course I think he's the smartest two-year-old in the whole world, even if he has trouble with Aunt Kindra. I think we finally settled on Aunt Kin or just Kin, after he teased me with calling me "golf" and "car." Yeah, Atticus thinks he's a comedian already.

And he got real golf clubs for his birthday. [Post video] I don't know how long their TV is going to last.

Hellboy II

Abe: (refusing a beer Hellboy offers) No, my body is a temple.
Hellboy: And now it's an amusement park. Drink.

What an awesome sequel. Words fail me. You have the gorgeous fairy tale that's dark and beautiful at the same time combined with the irreverent working Joe attitude that is Hellboy. Magic happens when they collide. I still want to write the fantasy that del Toro will want to film.

They worked in a reprisal for John Hurt as Professor Bloom and kept him dead. And gave an explanation for Myers disappearance. I missed him, but it made character sense.

And Liz is such a great superhero. She is confused and conflicted by her man ...er demon on a daily basis, but when his life is on the line she choses him and still saves the world. Which does lead me to Hancock.

"Call me asshole one more time."

I have ran across feminist complaints of being annoyed that the fictional character they admired most has a penis. Implication if not out right said is the leading lady wasn't worth the admiration or placing in role model status. I always kind of shrug off statements like that. "No I wouldn't want to be Pepper Potts, either, but she is smarter than her boss to recognize when they're in over their heads." was my opinion on Iron Man.

When I saw Hancock, I suddenly got it. Hancock the misanthrope and slowly finding a purpose was good. Ray's hero moment in the hospital was cheer worthy. However the character Mary annoyed the crap out of me by the end. "Why aren't you being a superhero too, bitch?" was pretty much all I could think of during the credits. Which was my first response at Occasional Superheroine.

And I kind of got called on it repeatedly in the post. My point being is if Mary was tired of being a superhero or just wanted a normal life--both worthy goals--SHE SHOULD HAVE HAD LINES STATING IT. As far as movie holes go, it ranks up there with nobody introducing Bail Organa in Attack of the Clones. I blame the character less than I blame the writers and director.

The Dark Knight blows every other movie this year out of the water. Celluloid Heroes has the best review. If you ever thought the "superheroes as modern myths" was a lot of academic bullshit, go see this movie. It coils together terrorism, response to it, personal responsibility, sacrifice, and the beauty of humanity into a roller coaster of a ride.

And now there are rumors that Johnny Depp might play the Riddler. That would make me very happy. Also I can't wait for their interpretation of Catwoman.

So what else is going on? Weight maintained for two weeks at 184 pounds. I know the issue is lack of exercise. Heat makes me avoid the porch gym, and when it's 80 degrees before the sun rises, ugh. So either I'm going to have to switch to yoga or move the weight bench inside. Haven't decided which yet.

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The BookWorm

I FINISHED

TinMan: Dragons and Ninjas

Progress Bar from Writertopia

The rough draft is finally finished. Of course, this doesn't mean a return to the regular schedule because next week I'm going with my parents to visit Kai and Atticus for his second birthday. I don't know how my sister's Internet connection is so I'm not promising any posts next week.

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The BookWorm

Really not dead

Current progress on TinMan: Dragons and Ninjas

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Crap, two weeks? I thought for sure I had posted when I hit the month of writing mark. I thought for sure I had posted about seeing Hancock. Great, I guess I'm officially dreaming of writing blog posts now.

Well, Hancock will go into another post, probably after I see Hellboy II. The crazy people behavior I bitched about last post has receded out of my face again, and I'm thankful. So to writing.

As of July 4th, a full month of nonstop writing the likes I haven't had in a long damn time, I had 56,294 words. I'm pretty sure that's a personal best. This morning's total before I get started on it again is at the top of the post. What's not good is how everything else is still tossed aside for the story. It's great for the writing but not so good for the losing weight and exercising categories.

*Shrug* I'm past the climax and actually got through another smut scene. I think I have four or five more sections to go before reaching the end. I want to end in Kansas, but I'm not sure how to end in Kansas yet. I'm not stressing over it. Some scenes I had perfectly outlined in my head and knew what was going to happen before I wrote them (Zack teaching DG self-defense and Cain's reaction is one example) and other scenes just came to me on the spur of the moment (Cain needs to be in danger to get DG's butt moving, research Japanese torture methods during World War II, oh they used waterboarding, wow that ends up being on par with Donnie's torture scene from Family, Friends, and Foes). In shorter words, it'll come together.

And I ended up with another theme song for it. I really don't know how that keeps happening.


Well, I have a tough scene to compose right now DG confronting her mother about the state of the O.Z. with a lot of tricky character stuff I want to do. Let me go get on that.

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The BookWorm

Zero said years

I broke down and bought the TinMan DVD. I was hoping for subtitles to see how things were spelled. There is no subtitles. Isn't that against the law now? You blew the entire budget on the CGI and there was none to code subtitles? Not to complain, I love the CGI but I have found two different spellings for one of the species in the O.Z. and would have liked to find an official version.

And not that this speculation will make any sense to anyone not currently obsessed with TinMan, but Zero says years. I will admit it took the fourth reviewing before I caught on, and it was after I decided to have DG say "years" and then correct herself to "annuals" the proper O.Z. term. Now, I am perfectly willing to go "writer screw-up" because it's damn hard to remember to change it over. Plus the writers forgot to name the Queen and gave us the lackluster ending. But watching it over again, all the O.Z. characters say "annuals." Except Zero, which makes me want to make him a Slipper. I decided to so something else with the observation in my fanfic instead, and I probably need to go find some fellow obsessed types and share the bone.

So I had finally gotten my characters to the build up leading up to meeting the villain and fun action sequences and I have stalled out. Through no fault of my own. I woke up this morning with a crazy-ass email that made no sense over Acadiana Medieval Faire. I decided to ignore it, and that worked up until after lunch when I guess the other receiptants read their emails, and I seem to be sucked into drama that I have absolutely no patience for. IT'S NOT PART OF MY LIFE ANY MORE! What is so hard to understand about that?

Me being perfectly willing to just be friends, separate from all the shit, so just let it go. But to deliberately bring the shit up two years after the events and a year after the death. And not bringing up to deal with in a healthy manner (i.e. I'm detailing this on my blog to release it from my life or so I'm being completely honest), no this is basic mudslinging that makes Hillary Clinton look good. For what purpose? And why make me part of the audience?

It's bullshit and I'm probably going to have to call bullshit on it, but at the same time, I have this reaction of "I shouldn't have to." Well, if it was a real friend behind all of it, they would have known how I feel and would not have done it. Ergo, not friend and I don't owe them swallowing my genuine pissed off, you've ruined my writing for this shit, mood.

I don't need manufactured drama either. My unofficial step-niece got hit by a car in Austin and had to have surgery. T'Lania is doing well, but still she's got a long road to go. I have finances and health issues of my own I have to deal with. This is bullshit.

I'm going to take a break, play some Cube Crash, and hopefully the ride home will recharge the dialouge batteries. I am not letting my story get derailed for bullshit.

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The BookWorm

What day is it?

I thrill at being inspired. The manuscript is officially over 30,000 words and I have no idea where it's going to end up at. What makes me unhappy is getting obsessive about it. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't live alone and had someone to cover me while I have commuted to fiction land, but I don't. I still have to pay the bills otherwise there will be no electricity to run the computer. *Sigh* I'm working on finding balance.

Took Dad to see the Incredible Hulk on Father's Day.

"I know some anger management techniques that can help with that."

It was awesome. I didn't bother with the Ang Lee version a few years back, and judging by the Internet reaction, it was a safe call. Marvel creating Marvel Studios was just what they needed to do after X-Men Last Stand and Spider-man 3. Granted, I liked both films but there were so many issues, it brought my reaction down to a meh. Iron Man and the Hulk jump-started my interest again. I still don't know how they can afford an Avengers movie though, unless they are using the line-up without Wolverine and Spider-man.

Now what I found hysterical is we got trailers for Hancock (which I added to the list on the strength of the trailer), Hellboy II, and X-Files. No trailer for the Dark Knight in front of a superhero movie with the same target audience. Any issues you wanna discuss DC and Marvel?

2008

• April 4 - Nim's Island (sounded cute)
• April 18 - The Forbidden Kingdom (Jackie Chan love)
• May 2 - Iron Man (Black Sabbath better be in the soundtrack and the trailers don't count)
• May 9 - Speed Racer (trailer surprised the hell out of me)
• May 16 - Prince Caspian (agnostic Pagan that I am I could totally worship Aslan, he hangs out with Harry Potter and Bacchus (it's in the book))
• May 22 - INDIANA JONES!
• June 13 - Incredible Hulk
• July 4 - Hancock
• July 11 - Hellboy II (otherwise known as Hellboy vs. the Drow)
• July 18 - BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT (o hell yeah)
• July 25 - X-Files: I Want to Believe (that this will be a good movie. But I can be won over by Mulder and Scully damnit, I love those characters even if the show went downhill for me)
• Nov. 21 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009

• Watchman
• May 8 - Star Trek
• August 7 - G.I. Joe (I can be won over by Chris Eccleston and Ray Parks)

Don't Know yet

• In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead (don't care what they shorten the movie title too, this is the book title and damnit! I want to see it!)

Like I mentioned earlier, I have been rather obsessive about working on TinMan: Dragons and Ninjas, the the point I really don't understand it. But I did learn something. I cannot earn a living by writing erotica.

I had one scene that qualifies as smut, just one scene. And it was the hardest 2,922 words I have ever written. I hemmed, I hawed, I played lots of Cube Crash. I finally ended the scene and hopefully the readers will like the smut they did get. No matter how well the market pays, I wouldn't be able to meet my deadlines if I tried.

And No more Battlestar Galactica until next year, *sob.* But they are giving me two Doctor Who's, reapeating the "Unicorn and the Wasp." Yeah, I can count titles again!

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Iron Experiment Redux 26

Week 52 = 183.5
Week 51 = 185.4
Week 50 = 185.5
Week 49 = 191.6
Week 36 = 179.3
Week 24 = 188
Week 12 = 187.6
Week 1 = 205

I need to buy another pair of 2.5 lbs. plates. I hate having to change them during a workout. I did change the light bulb to one of the yellow light bug lights and there was much less swarming.

I also decided I don't like my body weight being in the 180s. It's too damn hard to get out of.

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Frickin' hell, How did I do that?

I just watched "the Wasp and the Unicorn" aka the Agatha Christie episode of Doctor Who. And what I immediately went "I should be writing for this show!" alarming my Dad to stare at me instead of his solitaire game (he's still denying that he likes the new Doctor Who).

Here's my quote from "Rose on the Other Side" post on Nov. 30, 2007

And make the Agatha Christie episode! I love the Dickens one and the Shakespeare one. Maybe her two week disappearance for a story start? And put Torchwood on DVD. I can't work it into my schedule when it shows on BBC America. And I want more Capt. Jack sexyness.

I so need to see the episode again to do the title hunt again. I caught 12 titles mentioned, that sounds like a great round number for the episode, but I want to make sure.

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Iron Experiment Redux 25

I realized that I have made it to week 4 of the workout routine. I haven't needed to up the weights yet, that comes in week 5. Twenty leg raises, but I still wondering if I need more lower ab crunches.

Problem: I need a bug light on the front porch. I got swarmed during this workout.

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The BookWorm

This is the way writing used to be

I'm over 19,000 words into the project I started on June 4th. I can't stop not working on it, I can't get it out of my head, the words are coming so easily.

So why is it TinMan fanfiction instead of my original project?

I have no idea. I thought it was going to be like my Hellsing love, where I love madly but no participating. *Sigh* At this point, I've decided to finish it and then get back to my vampires.

Also, I ended up with three theme songs. *Scratching head* I'm not exactly sure how that happened either. I think my muse backed over me with a dump truck.

The first theme song is "Home" by Breaking Benjamin, which serves as a great theme for the TinMan universe.


The second theme song is "Suffer" by the Echoing Green for the angsty-portions.


The third theme song is "I Turn to You" by Melanie C and it's for the action-packed climax. Yes, I can see that portion of my story set to this song as a video. Scary, who would I get to play Zack?


Yeah, it's technically a crossover. Zack got sent on one of solo-adventures, and Allie and Mike are probably going to make an appearance at the end. I don't know why he keeps getting caught up in these crazy adventures, and I'm blaming everything on the muse's dump truck.

Here's the whole playlist of what I really like so far.


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Iron Experiment Redux 24

Two workouts a week is what I seem to be able to do. I don't know why that is. But I have reached forty crunches, woot!

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What happened to the end of May?

I don't really remember. My schedule really flew out the window and I went on a reading orgy. I could only stop if my brain went "can't buy it, sorry" but I'd have ten more intriguing stories to try out. I think I'm over it now. One good realization: I need a new copy of the Wizard of Oz, mine is in miserable shape. And I will take a fanfiction reading orgy over an inhaling-everything-with-sugar-in-the-house-and-going-out-to-buy-more orgy. My brain recovers faster than my waistline.

So it's a new month, and I used white-out on the calender plans to regive myself a fresh start. If I don't, I get an uncontrollable urge to catch-up, which will lead to me giving up on the catching-up and finding a new orgy. Nipped in the bud, hopefully.

A list of projects to plan the month around:

1. Health - watching diet and working out. Track with FitDay entries and Iron Experiment Redux posts.
2. Finances - track with Number Crunching posts.
3. Strix - finish planning and get to actual writing. I'm not a just-wing-it writer; planning is essential. Track with Metrics posts at DUF.
4. FanFiction Garret - time to get this project unveiled.
5. "For Worse" - also time to get this project unveiled. Track with Metrics posts at DUF.
6. BookWorm's Library - time to update.
7. Alt. BM Site - time to update
8. Reading Diary - enjoying weeding out my library by rereading, not enjoying the review portion. I should kill the blog and just use Amazon links in Blank.
9. Final final paper - stop procrastination on this already!
10. Housework - have to fit it in somewhere and it makes the list even.

Actually, that's not bad for me. I'd say four on the list are ongoing, five have definite ending points, and one has a definite future ending point way ahead of me. Not a bad place to start organizing the summer.

I'm going to start breaking down my weeks by Big Rocks, Upcoming, and Daily MITs. Daily MITs are the most important tasks for the day. Big rocks are deadline I have on projects in the current week or said plainer, what I want to finish this week. Upcoming is what maybe due next week or the week after, to be worked on if time and space allow. I had been blocking out deadlines for them reasonably before getting thrown off track, but I would list them with the big rocks for the week. Let's try easing back on the expectations.

Damn! Last daily MITs list I have was for May 24th and 25th. Twenty-five items to do. I finished five. Today I have 9 items to do. NINE! With the option of doing something that furthers an Upcoming project if I need to (example, I can't work on website at work). I can do that, even if it wasn't fair to compare a weekend schedule to a non-weekend one.

*Content sigh* I'm feeling better about June already.

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Iron Experiment Redux 23

The melatonin must have worked or my body had finally had enough time to adjust to the medication. Either way, I was up on time and got a Monday workout in. And frell, did I deteriorate in those two weeks. I'm hurting where I didn't use to hurt before.

I'm also semi-fretting over the state of the abs, as in do I need to add another version of an ab exercise to make sure I'm working them out. I'm blaming the Cosmo I was sent to review. One of the articles was a tummy workout.

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Iron Experiment Redux 22

Week 50 = 185.5
Week 49 = 190.9
Week 48 = 191.6
Week 36 = 179.3
Week 24 = 188
Week 12 = 187.6
Week 1 = 205

Weight goes down, yeah! Workout amount goes up, no I'm lying.

:p I don't know why I have only managed to get in a workout on the weekend for the past two weeks. I'm going to take some melatonin to see if that counteracts whatever has been keeping me awake.

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Movies Seen!

Had some interesting dealings with my inner teenager that I need to continue and work out some more before sharing. I also got distracted by TinMan fandom. I was just innocently cruising though YouTube, found a couple of really sweet fan-vids that mentioned particular inspiring fanfics and found myself sucked into FF.net. I had enjoyed the mini-series up until the let down of the ending, but I didn’t bother to analyze why I was dissatisfied. I should know better than that by now. We were given the wrong payoff. DG’s final screen time should have been with her traveling companions not the family she didn’t even know she had. Fanfic writers to the rescue.

So this led to my first torrent download, so I would be able to rewatch TinMan and see if my memory wasn’t deceiving me. I spent three days on it, and I think I must be doing something wrong. I was finally able to watch it on Monday. The ending still felt blah, but knowing that I wasn’t the only one out there who loved the world and felt the writers really needed a kick to the head for that last scene, rescued the whole thing.

Fed up with the downloading progress (how many times did I have to reboot the DSL modem?), having finished housework, and damnit, it’s a holiday weekend, and I never do anything fun, I decided to start shrinking my movies-to-see list.

Sunday night Iron Man.

”Let’s face it. This is not the worst thing you’ve caught me doing.”

“Are those bullet holes?”

First I have to add the Incredible Hulk to the list because the trailer looked heaps of good. The new trailer for the Dark Knight also kicks ass and finally tells people who have ignored the Internet stuff that yes, Harvey Dent is in this movie.

The actual movie was wow. I mean WOW. I didn’t know S.H.I.E.L.D. actually stood for something, though I figured it out the second time the agent went through the list of words. Stan’s cameo was hysterical to just me. I think the rest of the audience thought he really was Hugh Heifner.

Seriously, *raspberry* to everybody who questioned the casting. I knew Robert Downey Jr. was perfect for Tony Stark. But the movie needed more Black Sabbath and the lovely Easter egg at the end of the credits could have been moved up a few. That’s a whole lot of credits to go through.

Monday matinees: Indiana Jones

”Because we never had an argument that I won!”

I know there’s been a lot of ho-hum reaction. I enjoyed it. It’s not the best in the series, and I didn’t notice the huge amount of CGI that others have bitched about. But it was a comfort movie, like curling up with a series book. You know the characters and other touches referring back to the alien and monster movies and the rest of the series, made me feel good. I especially liked the tie-in with Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. And the dialogue did not make me cringe like the Star Wars prequels.

Speed Racer

”Was that a ninja?”

“Ninja, nanja. It’s a shame what passes for a ninja these days.”

It is a kid’s movie. If Atticus was a little older, I would have enjoyed taking him to it. David Willis called it a “live action Super Mario Kart movie” and I can’t really disagree with it. But the character stuff in between the races was pretty decent. And I think Sprittle and ChimChim annoyed me in the cartoons too, so I ignored them. And the Speed Racer motif fully orchestrated and hidden in the score, sweet.

One annoyance had actually nothing to do with the movie. Racer X shows up for the first time. Kid’s voice behind me: “Who’s that?” Dad’s voice: “Speed Racer’s brother.” My unvoiced thought: “Way to ruin the revel at the end of the movie, dick! They hired two different actors for a reason.”

I won’t promise to never talk to my nephew during a movie, but I do promise he’s not getting any plot revels from me.

2008

• April 4 - Nim's Island (sounded cute)
• April 18 - The Forbidden Kingdom (Jackie Chan love)
• May 2 - Iron Man (Black Sabbath better be in the soundtrack and the trailers don't count)
• May 9 - Speed Racer (trailer surprised the hell out of me)
• May 16 - Prince Caspian (agnostic Pagan that I am I could totally worship Aslan, he hangs out with Harry Potter and Bacchus (it's in the book))
• May 22 - INDIANA JONES!
• June 13 - Incredible Hulk
• July 11 - Hellboy II (otherwise known as Hellboy vs. the Drow)
• July 18 - BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT (o hell yeah)
• July 25 - X-Files: I Want to Believe (that this will be a good movie. But I can be won over by Mulder and Scully damnit, I love those characters even if the show went downhill for me)
• Nov. 21 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009

• Watchman
• May 8 - Star Trek
• August 7 - G.I. Joe (I can be won over by Chris Eccleston and Ray Parks)

Don't Know yet

• In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead (don't care what they shorten the movie title too, this is the book title and damnit! I want to see it!)

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The BookWorm

Iron Experiment Redux 21

Week 49 = 190.9
Week 48 = 191.6
Week 36 = 179.3
Week 24 = 188
Week 12 = 187.6
Week 1 = 205

This has been a bad week to try to squeeze in exercise, and I don’t really know why. I’m blaming the new medicine, well, retaking old medicine. Yeah, I’m coherent after a workout, sure.

Let’s try that again. Wednesday, May 21st, I restarted phentermine 18.75mg and started spironolact 25mg. And before anyone freaks out, that is a half tablet dose of the phentermine. I didn’t want a repeat of what happened the last time I had a whole tablet. That didn’t happen; instead, I got something new—awake until nearly midnight.

So far it’s been four days in a row like that, which has been havoc on my wake-up time. My body would prefer to wait until after sunrise, regardless of the schedule, and since the sun is getting up earlier, I have daylight about 6am. Is it equal part drug reaction and a craving to sleep in the dark because it’s not dark when I should go to bed?

The first workout of the next twelve weeks went easy. I had more trouble with changing the plates than with the weight I had to use. And bumping into columns and equipment trying to get situated. What gives, I’ve lost weight and gained klutz? One of these days, I’m going to have to rearrange the set up out there.

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Iron Experiment Redux 20

Not much of a workout. I found my max rep for my core exercises. I’m not going to change up what I’m doing with weights yet. I want to eventually start doing push ups and pull ups, but I don’t have a way to do pull-ups yet.

Well, crappola, I have been mis-figuring my dumbbell weights all this time. I finally found a box online that told me what was included in my set. Throwing the boxes away and combining all the weight plates not a good idea when it comes to doing the math while working out. I used the oh-so-clever method of I-bet-it-weighs-this-much while holing the bare dumbbells in my hands. I guessed 5 pounds together. They’re actually 10 pounds together.

It changes my max reps and it changes my fitness goals for the next twelve weeks, that’s why I care.

Squat = 50
Bench press = 50
Biceps curl = 50
Dumbbell rows = 50
Shoulder press = 40

Using reader Lisa’s Excel calculator found here, I have 12 weeks of workout weights.

Shoulder press

1. 20
2. 28
3. 28
4. 28
5. 30
6. 28
7. 30
8. 34
9. 28
10. 30
11. 34
12. 38

Everything else

1. 25
2. 35
3. 35
4. 35
5. 38
6. 35
7. 38
8. 43
9. 35
10. 38
11. 43
12. 48

So Wednesday, I need to get my butt out of bed on time and hustle with the workout. Since I had been working out in the thirties, I shouldn’t have any issues with the first week.

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And last week was supposed to be a good week

May 14th: I finished edits to the ethnography on the 13th and emailed it. The deposit was supposed to clear at midnight.

So I’m not surprised it didn’t when I got up this morning. I’m pissed off. Capital One tells me the hold will be lifted May 23rd. And then I scared the teller. I deposit the transfer check into the credit union and they also put a hold on that but made $200 available. Parents loaning me some more so I won’t get overdrawn before the deposits finally post.

I sold the aluminum cans—only had that on my to do list for a month—and bought stuff at the campus bookstore and market to cover the gaps in housekeeping.

So home again, looking at the daily MITs list, and realize my brain has no thoughts about the other projects. It has been rung out. I hope I kept good notes.

May 19th: The bedroom ceiling fan light died over the weekend. Now the fan works wonderfully, but the light kit on it is jury-rigged, so I’d rather replace the whole thing to be on the safe side. Especially since I pull in the cord the light comes on, but let go and darkness. As long as I keep pulling on the cord the light stays on, but there’s a zapping noise. Totally uncomfortable with zapping noise, but haven’t found a new fan I like yet.

What I have found that I’m absolutely in love with is the Return to the Labyrinth manga I picked up on a whim during the campus bookstore shopping spree. The only Hellsing they had was the volume I already have, and I picked up the Trigun because I loved the anime version. I think I had heard vague rumors about a Labyrinth manga, but never put it on a shopping list. The campus bookstore had volumes 1 and 2, I liked the cover copy and had the money to spend, so I picked it up.

The Goblin King has kept a watchful eye on Toby: His minions secretly guiding and protecting the child... Legions of goblins work behind the scenes to ensure that Toby has whatever his heart desires... Preparing him for the day when he will return to the Labyrinth and take his rightful place beside Jareth as the heir to the Goblin Kingdom... That day has come......but no one has told Toby.

And now, ARGH! Because volume 3 isn’t due out until November. And I have NOBODY to talk about the cliffhanger ending of volume 2. ARGH! This is why Kindra does better getting a complete set of something.

A lot of the Amazon reviews bitch about the art. I guess I’ve been to well trained by bad comic book art, I don’t notice. But the writing, the mystery, the homages to the movie worked in so seamlessly—the “you remind me of the babe” is just full of win, *sigh.* I NEED MORE NOW!

So it was probably a good thing I was able to go with a friend and see Prince Caspian Saturday May 17th. I enjoyed it, even though I think they dropped Bacchus to cater to the religious right, which makes me wonder how well the plot line of the Last Battle is going to go over. There should have been more crisis of faith and a bigger temptation for Caspian, but Edmund stabbing the White Witch was gold. Trumpkin and Reepicheep was delightful. They did an excellent job getting the muddle of the book into a coherent movie (serious C.S. Lewis, what were you think making half of it a flashback?). I wish they had put a little Easter egg at the end or in the credits, a picture of the “Dawn Treader.”

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Iron Experiment Redux 19 and End of 48 Weeks Measurements

I’m fairly proud of my workouts, nineteen of them in twelve weeks. There is noticeable muscle increase on my arms, legs, and butt. My massage therapist felt it on my abs, but it’s not a visible change yet.

Workout weights
Squat = 30 lbs.
Bench press = 30 lbs.
Biceps curl = 30 lbs.
Shoulder press = 25 lbs.
Dumbbell rows = 25 lbs.
Breaststroke level 1 = bodyweight x 50 reps
Crunches = bodyweight x 40 reps

The plan for the next twelve weeks is to measure my max reps for the lifts, and adjust my workout and warm-up weights for it. Some days, it feels I’m lifting as much as I can, other days, it’s too easy. If I plug those numbers into an interval training calculator, I have guaranteed pushing my body harder.

My goal is to reach Iron Experiment Redux 55 by August 10th, the end of the next twelve weeks.

However, stress eating plus muscle building negated the decreases of the last twelve weeks. I know I have overindulged the sweet tooth.

Week 48 = 191.6
Week 47 = 189.1
Week 46 = 188.9
Week 45 = 186.2
Week 44 = 185.7
Week 43 = 187.5
Week 42 = 186.1
Week 41 = 184.2
Week 40 = 181.7
Week 39 = 181.6
Week 38 = 181.2
Week 37 = 180.7
Week 36 = 179.3
Week 24 = 188
Week 12 = 187.6
Week 1 = 205

Starting BMI Measurements

Height is 62.25 inches/158.1 cm.
Weight is 194.5 pounds/88.4 kg.
Body Mass Index is 35.3 kg/m2.

According to Better Ideal Weight Body Calculators, I should be:
between 105 - 138 pounds/47 - 62 kg
with a BMI between 19 and 25.

I want to weigh 120 lb/54.4 kg with a BMI of 20 kg/m2.

End of 12 Weeks BMI Measurements
Height is 62.25 inches/158.1 cm.
Weight is 187.6 pounds/85.1 kg.
Body Mass Index is 34 kg/m2.

End of 24 Weeks BMI Measurements
Height is 62.25 inches/158.1 cm.
Weight is 188 lb/85.3 kg
Body Mass Index is 34.1 kg/m2.

End of 36 Weeks BMI Measurements
Height is 62.25 inches/158.1 cm.
Weight is 179.3 lb/81.3 kg
Body Mass Index is 32.5 kg/m2.

End of 48 Weeks BMI Measurements
Height is 62.25 inches/158.1 cm.
Weight is 191.6 lb/86.9 kg.
Body Mass Index is 34.8 kg/m2.

How far to go:
Weight: 191.6 - 120 = 71.6 lb/32.5 kg
BMI: 34.8 - 20 = 14.8 kg/m2.

7/30/2007 9/9/2007 12/2/2007 2/24/2008 5/18/2008
height (cm) 158.1 158.1 158.1 158.1 158.1
weight (kg) 88.2 85.1 85.3 81.3 86.64
neck (cm) 37.5 37.5 37.5 36.4 37
bust (cm) 119.2 115.1 115.4 111.6 115
waist (cm) 102.2 102.3 102.5 97.7 100.5
hips (cm) 118.3 118.5 117.2 116.2 116.5
thigh (cm) 55.1 63.2 63.6 61.2 64.8
calf (cm) 40.6 40.5 40.3 39.5 40
upper arm (cm) 30.3 32.1 30.5 29.2 30
lower arm (cm) 25 26 26.2 24.6 26

The only areas of increases I’m concerned about are the bust, waist, and hips. Since I don’t see muscle definition, it must be more fat.

Easy enough to remedy, I hope. For the next twelve week period, I’m back on the South Beach Diet meal plans. I’m out of school, so no more too carb-y and too processed meals at the student union. It’s cheaper on the budget to pack food to work and SBD meal plans have snacks built into them, so no I’m starving runs to the vending machines.

The only drawback currently possible is suppers at my mother’s. It’s a food budget stopgap measure for me, but sweets and breads are always readily available and my willpower is typically spent by the time I get home. Maybe if I show her my weight chart. Never underestimate the power of visual aids.

Also to hold myself accountable, I’ll be using the food tracking feature at FitDay. Portion control will be aided by going back on phentermine once I pick up the prescription from the pharmacy. Get my sleep schedule straight and I should start losing weight again.

Comparison pictures will be added once I get the lighting fixed in my bedroom.

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