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

2012 Reflections and 2013 Goals

Thanks everyone for the well wishes for my family. My grandmother is hanging on a bit better, though her doctor suspects a fractured bone in her leg that is the reason why it remains swollen. She's been on bed rest for almost a month and it shouldn't look that bad with as much fluid as they pull off of her.

Uncle Scott coaxed some more life out of the washing machine, so I've taken that appliance off the shopping list for now. Mom got hit with a nasty virus at Christmas, then Uncle Scott, and Friday I thought I was getting it. Turned out all I got was mucus-production overdrive in the sinuses. Just enough to make you feel like drilling a hole in your head will help, but no fever or actual impairment. At the same time, it sucks all desire to actually do anything.

So instead of going through my 2012 Goals and pointing out how I failed the big fat failure for another year while I'm hydrating my body, I'm letting Least I Could Do sum up the year for me:

(Apparently, sinus pressure and going slightly dehydrated makes me crankier on myself.)

There, done, clean slate time and be realistic about what you can accomplish.

Rewards for the daily chores I loathe utterly does work, but I need to schedule in time to spend the rewards. Yearly goals fall apart at some point in the summer. And I don't track or put off tracking.

I declare 2013 the year I give myself LESS to do. But the less are doozies, so who knows if this will make me less crazy. The yearly goals:

• Lose weight
• Remodel house
• Self-publish an e-book

And that's it. Thank goodness I have all year, right?

I thought about breaking it down to quarterly goals, but I think monthly will be easier to concentrate on. Then all I have to do is to remember to set those up every month.

January Boulders

• Exercise 30 days in a row
• Cut out grains as much as possible
• CCFairy's homework is due Jan. 18th
• Finish all alien languages for Stellar Gift of Death
• Write 20 days on Forget the Sun

Yeah, I'm building in some slack time, because I will take it and then get on the guilt train for doing it. Enough of that crap. This year I will not be taking that train, at least not as long as I have before.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Family situation

I haven't talked much about it because there really isn't anything anyone can do with a waiting game. My maternal grandmother was in the hospital for two and half weeks with an intestinal blockage and having some mental reactions to her medication withdrawal. She remembered I was me (instead of becoming someone else) but I was told to get the horse back down the street where it goes. She was in the ICU but thought she was in the nursing home. Mosquitoes are constantly eating her up. Fun stuff like that.

She got better when they started her meds again, and the hospital sent her back to the nursing home Thursday. Friday, while being transported to her dialysis treatment, she was thrown out of her wheelchair in the van. Her legs were scraped up bad enough to be mistaken for puncture wounds. She's on Plavix, which makes it so easy for her to hemorrhage. Luckily, it wasn't punctures and luckily it wasn't an artery that was damaged. She's back in the hospital again, looking so much worse now.

I didn't go today; Mom went alone. And Mama tells her that a man stayed with her all night, her best friend because he finally got rid of all the mosquitoes and roaches, but she never saw his face. Mom got the conversation off the mosquitoes because she's been going on about them for a month at least, and Mama was sharp enough to follow the Saints game. But then she pointed to another chair in the hospital room. "Oh he's back."

Nobody Mom could see was in the chair.

My cousin Savannah was visited by deceased family members that she could only see before she died. Mom saw her Uncle Dot the day he died. All my paranormal research points to more visitations than not.

Mama's body is shot to hell. A pacemaker and dialysis is what life support she has now. She's not listed in critical care by the hospital as far as we know. But she's eighty-years-old, you touch her and it hurts her, and now this. I don't know when her end is, but it is looking pretty damn close.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

If Christmas is code for everything breaking, then yes

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

First up, I bought the Dark Knight Rises two-disc DVD and watched the movie again, put the special features disk into the DVD player, and forgot about it for a week. When I got the inclination to watch them, the player couldn't read the disk. The computer did, so that ruled out a bad disk. The player refused to play any DVDs. Time for a new player.

My parents gave me money for Christmas and early to boot, and blu-ray players were on sale at Best Buy. Upgrade time instead of spending the money on a bill like I've been doing for how many years in a row? But first I had to go sink another $220 into the car on top of the over $300 I put into it at the first of the month for new tires. Bought the player, decided against buying any blu-ray movies since the inner accountant was still pitching a fit about the money spent on the car. (Yes, we did the math before leaving home but that didn't change the reaction.) I also bought the upgrade to BookCAT so I could finish the update to my book inventory and a video game for the rest of my Christmas.

Sunday became laundry day by default since I spent so long in town on Saturday. Started the load, worked on editing, turned CNN on for the Conn. shooting coverage, and it was about an hour before I went to swap the load. Mustard streaked into the house a little freaked out.

Now the washing machine has been on a slow death spiral for ages now. It leaks between loads if you leave the water on to it, so I developed the habit of always turning the water off. This time it decided to never move off of the fill-up-the-tub portion of the cycle, and half the yard was watered by the time I checked. Then I discovered it was watered with hot water because Uncle Scott changed the settings the last time he used it.

"Why do you get jealous every time I have to spend money on the frakkin' CAR!"

Side benefit to semi-rural living, nobody hears you when you yell at inanimate objects. I borrowed Mom's washer to finish, and sorta priced new washers. And by that, I went to one website and twitched so hard at the prices listed, I didn't look anywhere else.

I stayed up too late last night finishing the book list in BookCAT with CNN on. Luckily, my book diet meant that I didn't have that many to add in. Now I have to make corrections to the list from the last backup. Mostly authors' names and title goof-ups and a few duplicates.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Hiatus Over

Thanksgiving is over. And the break between it and Christmas is probably the worst time to reestablish my groove, but I need to find balance again so my brain stops feeling like it must bounce around like a kangaroo on speed.

I'm prickly and grumpy and attempting not to take it out on anyone, which only fuels the itch to go find a punching bag and hit it. Violence, my default setting. That I'm pushing forward with changes is the true culprit and what the inner Beast wants to shred. Maybe I gave it too many changes today.

• Monday yoga routine
• New bra that I thought fit but it pokes me in the arm just like all the rest
• New purse that is a Christmas present but is fraying my last nerve because I can't keep it on my shoulder
• And I'm still annoyed that I left $20 worth of books I bought for me at my sister's in Texas!

*Inhale* Okay, admitting that has eased off the desire to claw at something. But it sucks that my first post in so long is bitchy and whiny.

• Despite not exercising, eating too much, and not measuring, I only gained three pounds since the last time I weight back in August.
• I finally found a website that explains why underwire bras stab me in the arm: I have a petite torso.
• I spent quality time with my family, especially my nephew.
• My coworkers told me how to fix my purse issue, so I can continue to use it without aggravation.
• My shoulder pain is finally clearing up enough to work out again.
• I worked out!

So why the hiatus? When I last posted I was attempting therapy with the Inner Committee on the whole fear of success issue. The therapy fell apart followed by the daily scheduled. Enough chores were avoided to cause a cascade effect on my life, which led to kangaroo brain on speed. Basically while I scrambled to keep up, I didn't want to blog about what a worthless failure I am. And the Inner Committee got off the hook and successfully avoided therapy for over a month.

I need to start it again because I had to be closing in on something uncomfortable for such an extreme reaction. Some time soon.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Funniest thing I've seen all week

Click here to see the whole thing.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Tuesdays Are Slow

I'm glad/relieved somebody sees progress. From my POV, it feels like I've been stuck in the same place forever. Last night, I wrote a letter to that terrified kid inside me--a therapy tip I ran across somewhere. I wrote another one this morning. It's a work in progress to see if it'll pay off later.

Tuesdays are slow at the paying job, so I got an hour and 45 minutes of writing done there before adding 30 more minutes when I got home. I tried to make it a full hour, but after staying up late watching TV Monday night, I'm about to fall asleep at my standing desk now. I also finally decided on an Excel workbook to collate my alien language work since I can't update the TiddlyWiki. Still growly over that, mainly because it makes no sense and I was just getting used to the program.

Other accomplishments for today: I now have the Wins File in a readable format. I will soon have music on my new mp3 player so I'll test how it does in the car tomorrow. Now I am off to bed.

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

Okay, it's a good weird

I've been fighting to reset my natural rhythms for how long now. Not exercising, playing catch up on the chores, basically skating by with the bare minimum I needed to survive. That all ended on Monday. I got up and exercised, my day ran on time, got stuff done once I got home, checked off more on the daily to do list than I can remember when. And the streak has lasted a week, though I ended up skipping exercising this morning to roll a rolling pin over my right leg instead. The right thigh has tightened up something fierce and I figured it is probably some deep tissue knots.

The left shoulder, I may have to see a doctor. It hurts in various movements and I worry that it shifted out of place again.

My conclusion: it took me all of August to recover from the mess that was July.

Plans for the weekend: Go get blood work done since I didn't remember to do it back in August, and then finish getting the cavities filled. I think Mom was hinting that I should goes clothes shopping with her since Penny's has a great sale on, but I must be firm and tell her there is no money for clothes this month. I don't know if it's her standard Kindra keeps wearing the same stuff (by design with Project 333 and desire to actually wear clothes out and lose weight before getting more) or if she's feeling anxious I haven't gotten my wedding outfit together yet. I want to lose weight and buy something I've always had my eye on and that takes time. At least the weight part. :p I just noticed that I beeline to Calvin Kline dresses, especially the classic sleeveless numbers. But I ain't paying for one until the gut sticks out less than my boobs, even if it's for a killer price at TJMaxx.

My mp3 took one last fall and broke the battery portion of the case, so now it's a flash drive with volume control buttons on the side. At some point, I need to go look at Best Buy and see what is available now. I tried researching online, but the features I like and now consider vital aren't the ones that are listed in the feature blurbs. I'll probably ended up buying it from Best Buy so I don't feel bad about the showcasing a month or two early.

Writing: The Dark Knight Rises hasn't let go yet. *Shrugs* I ain't fighting it, but this weekend I want to see where I have left off the original writing projects. I still don't have a fix for the can't use TiddlyWiki at the paying job problem. The other goal for the weekend is to clean out the story projects crate, where a lot of stories have sat in various stages of completion, and to get them completed. I've been chipping away at that pile this week too.

That's all I've got for this post. I may spend the rest of the day wondering what my home office would look like with empty inboxes.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

The Isaac Experience

The following are notes I kept in a notebook while power was unreliable.

Isaac Day 1
Date: 8/28/2012

3:52pm: We haven't had any rain; just clouds and gusts. Now the electricity just popped off. I had hopped to clean off all the open Firefox tabs before that happened. Oh well, it's not too hot yet.

4:35pm: Raining finally.

5:20pm: Electricity back!

5:40pm: Electricity off again.

5:41pm: Electric back on again. Going to turn on the computer so I can turn it off normally.

7:00pm: Watching the news while I have power. Isaac may not push through until Thursday and the track is projected through Baton Rouge. I may not get back to work until next Tuesday (unless they take Labor Day holiday from us).

Isaac's landfall is official. Hammond is reporting 33mph winds, but I'm still seeing gusts. Still not much rain. It will probably pick up tonight through tomorrow morning. If the storm heads to Baton Rouge, Hammond will end up in northeast quadrant. I think Tangipahoa is under tornado watch too.

8:30pm: The electricity keeps flicking on and off, so I've gotten ready for bed and turned on the radio. I'd like to stay awake for the 10pm advisory update, but that depends on the electric and if I can stay awake.

Isaac Day 2
Date: 8/29/2012

6:44am: Power went out and stayed out around 1am. Isaac shifted back onto water and made a second landfall over Port Fouchon at 2:15am. The eye is still south of Houma and the storm has slowed down.

Mustard decided he was hungry at 5am, which is late for when I normally feed him. But that killed my sleep until the sun was up plan when he knocked my Maglite flashlight onto the metal pan of the portable AC unit. I thought something had punched through the roof!

I've opened the doors to get some air flow and a gust blew out my hurricane lamp. The rain is steady drizzling. We haven't lost any trees yet.

7:00am: The national media thinks New Orleans is under water again. Not true. And I can't answer any emails from worried friends. The levee that broke was a community one (not built by the Army Corps of Engineers) in Braithwaite, which is rural community along the Mississippi River.

7:23am: Isaac has stalled out again. Damn. Somebody go give it a push.

10:00am: The rain shifts from a drizzle to a steady harder one, but never as hard as thunderstorms usually get. I miss looking at radar screens to see how big this squall is.

1:33pm: Wind gust really slammed through. Wish I knew better where the storm is. The press conference said the eye won't reach Baton Rouge until tonight or tomorrow.

6:00pm: Went to my parents' and caught up on TV news coverage since they have a generator. Isaac still isn't moving and then we'll have to worry about rising rivers. LaPlace is flooding, Plaquemines is flooding, Lafourche Parish is flooding, Slidell is flooding, and New Orleans is fine.

As of 4pm, DOI hasn't updated COOP. My excuse is Jindal said to stay put, which he did in the last news conference I saw. Isaac's broken eye has reached Baton Rouge. But we are still getting pounded by bands.

My roof keeps rattling. I think it's loose on the edge, but I can't see it blowing. I wait on the porch to see it move and nothing happens.

6:43pm: Uncle Scott found the loose tin. We've tied it down and maybe I can get a new roof now. The problem is my hurricane deductible in $1102.00 that I don't have, and should I put a new roof when I want to tear off half the house and rebuild it?

8:00pm: Heading to bed for some reading. The awful streetlight that shines in my bedroom windows went out!

Isaac Day 3
Date: 8/30/2012

Midnight: Woke up, rain is hitting the south side of the house. That means the wind has shifted.

3:00am: Woke up again, still raining. Hwy 42 flooded? That's another route I take into Baton Rouge if the main roads are congested beyond travel. I think that's what I heard on the radio.

7:00am: Got more sleep in between walk-ups. North-driven rain hitting the south side of my house came through the leaks in the back bedroom and kitchen. The rain here has slacked off to the steady drizzle. The Northshore rivers are flooding and Slidell now has a flash flood evacuation situation. I have no phone service—apparently Verizon is the only one working—and I have no idea what has happened to Baton Rouge.

The Commissioner was on the radio last night. "Call the department with your insurance problems tomorrow!" If Baton Rouge is getting what we got yesterday, nobody will go in! :p

The radio says that New Orleans is looking at 90-something temps with a heat index of 103 degrees. If the steady drizzle keeps that away, I'll take the rain.

I-55 is closed, flooded at Ponchatoula. I-10 got closed because it was flooded at LaPlace yesterday. The state trooper says "stay home and stay put."

Power went out about 1am on the 29th, so now it's been out 31 hours going on 32.

Heading out to take pictures.

Here's the satellite image so you can see the lay of my land. And here's a better map so you can see the waterways I'm most concerned about.

Now here are the pictures I have taken.

There's Mustard sneaking into the shot at the bottom. Every inch of my porches got wet.

My parents' house also came through okay. We didn't lose any trees, just branches.

My dad's tarp boat shed didn't fare so well and it dented his car when came apart. :p

This was the biggest limb we had down in all the yards. Dad had to saw it apart in order to move it to our burn piles.

It's hard to see through the foliage, but the brown in between the leaves is the creek that runs through my property. It feeds into the Natalbany River, which isn't one the flooding Northshore rivers WWL is reporting on, but it's flooding too. This picture was taken at the family dump. My family has been on this land for five generations, and they decided that dumping the garbage off the bluff and then cover it up with dirt was a good policy. *Shrug* The creek is in the dump, and that means it's coming up the bluff.

So much for Isaac blowing away the mosquitoes, I got bit twice.

1:30pm: Boy, I haven't updated. Around 11am, St. Tammany Parish president's news conference gave the news that failure of the dam at Percy Quinn State Park on the Tangipahoa River looked eminent. Tangipahoa Parish President pulled a mandatory evacuation for a half-mile on each bank. Mississippi officials are going to bleed off the reservoir but the evacuation order hasn't been lifted.

The Northshore region, also known as the Florida Parishes, stretches from my house near the Tangipahoa/Livingston parish border to the state line between Louisiana and Mississippi north of Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain. This map is from NOAA and has all their gauges marked. I'm not in any danger, but many of the towns and cities in the Northshore are on the rivers.

Started cleaning the front yard before it started raining again. The gusts haven't been too bad today, but have no idea when power is coming back.

1:50pm: Jindal and Burgess (Tangipahoa Parish president) flew over the damn and want Kentwood to get right now. Holy crap!

7:00pm: They actually updated COOP and DOI is open Friday. I'm going to call in because I still don't have power. I just took a tepid shower so I can sleep tonight (and not be so sticky) but I'll wake up tomorrow sticky. As of this hour today, Hammond received 11.93 inches of rain. MaComb/Lewis Field, Mississippi (just north of us) got 10.93 inches. And it hasn't stopped raining.

My plan tonight is to write on everything for at least 15 minutes. I've been concentrating the daylight hours on fanfic that doesn't stress me out. It hasn't been the best use of my time, and I'd like to change that starting now, before Perfect Girl hits the guilt button.

9:15pm: The rain stopped long enough for the full moon to come out. Wow.

Isaac Day 4
Date: 8/31/2012

7:00am: Called into the paying job and took today off. Power has been off 55 hours now. Uncle Scott said I should go in; they probably have lights and AC. Yeah, I got screwed with Gustav and they didn't. Plus I'm hot and sticky and put a shitload of overtime in during July. Don't give me any grief about taking today.

Looks like the clouds are finally gone, so the heat index will probably go into effect today. The dam is still holding, but the Mississippi Governor is arguing over what the impact could be if it does fail. 190 is closed in Robert since the Tangipahoa River is now over it.

I'm off the rake the yard before the sun gets much higher.

8:00am: They closed the new bridge over the creek just down the road from me and you can see in my neighbor's yard how much water we're dealing with. The ditch at the bottom of the ravine is usually just run off from the road and their slope.

Here's where my neighbors' ditch starts and to my surprise, a large hawk was on the bank of the water!

I was worried that it had been hurt in the weather, but while I was trying to get a better image it flew up into a tree and proved my worry groundless.

Here's the bridge out from my driveway. Dad walked down and reported that the water is over the guardrails. I didn't bother to walk it because of all the idiots who insisted on driving down beyond our driveway and then pealing back up like Moses was supposed to part the waters just for them and they're pissed he didn't. Speed limit is 45!

9:30am: I've raked all I can rake. The yard looks loads better. Off to check on my parents.

2:00pm: It's been raining off and on. I'm going to start writing work now.

8:00pm Just finished hearing the Jefferson Parish press conference in which they reamed Entergy for not making significant progress (whatever that means) when the lights flicked on! And just after I had called the parents and rest all my AC units, it went back out again. :O Dad went down to the truck and I didn't catch up with him, and then decided since I was ready for bed (no bra and short shorts), I shouldn't go down there and distract them.

Turns out the reason it kept blinking like crazy on Tuesday night was a limb on the line, which then caught on fire when they turned it on. They cut it off and turned us back on. 67 hours off, I don't think that's bad at all considering how much it rained.

Isaac Day 5
Date: 9/01/2012

8:45am: Woke up an hour ago from the best sleep in four nights and headed outside to take new pictures. The water around me has dropped down, good. I'm sorry for the foggy look. It actually isn't foggy, that the condensation on the camera lenses after it got used to the AC again.

The water got up to the base of the dead tree yesterday, you can see that it's dropped down.

And this picture explains why I'm not stacking my belongs up on cinderblocks. My house has been here since before 1920 and it hasn't flooded yet. But with Louisiana's loss of wetlands, I'm seriously considering getting flood insurance if I can afford it.

You can see the water drop at my neighbors'. This is a good thing, because there is more water north of us that must flow south.

Today I walked down to see the level at the bridge.

Now you can see the guardrails, yesterday the water was over them. You can also see the tree that is keeping my hated night-light from coming back on. I do feel bad for my neighbors on Entergy, it is humid and hot today. And they still say we have a rain chance for the rest of the weekend.

So far the death rate for Isaac is 5 people, but they are expecting to find more in Braithwaite when the water recedes and they can search.

The flooding rivers won't be over until next week. Officials are asking to be vigilant and ready to evacuate.

Entergy is getting reamed by WWL for not getting the power on fast enough. Jefferson Parish wants an investigation because they didn't get slammed with water, but they can't get the parish up and running without electricity. Today if people call in and say an area has power, they're announcing it and playing a clip from "I Got the Power."

And I'm going to cook some lunch now.

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The BookWorm

I survived Isaac

Just got electricity back. We love Demco. :D Still have high water and the brand new bridge just down the road is closed, but our houses are fine. More details later when I have time to type.

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The BookWorm

Home today and tomorrow

Politics in Louisiana; most times, it's best to do as you're told and not ask too many questions. Yesterday, Gov. Jindal says they'll close state offices Tuesday and Wednesday for sure and figure out where to go after the tropical storm/hurricane hits in one of his press conferences. However, we still were coming to work as if it was a normal day until our state agency head (Commissioner of Insurance for me) says who is essential personnel and who could stay home. Which was finally announced at 3:00pm yesterday. Why do they want to make our safety a pissing contest? I have no idea; I'm still waiting for COOP phone call to not tell me a damn thing.

T.S. Isaac is about 100 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.

My house (and current location) is the purple pin, and it is on some of the highest ground in Pumpkin Center. Our houses were fine in the Tangipahoa Flood of 1983, which set the flood stages that haven't been broken yet. The closest body of water that the officials are worried about flooding surge from is Lake Maurepas (the smaller lake to the west of Lake Ponchatrain) and I'm 8 to 9 miles north of it. Right now, it's overcast with a slight breeze.

I'm ready as I can be to ride it out. Now I'm going to bounce between writing and daily chores and listen to my boss on the radio.

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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.

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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

Is It Really August?

Out of twenty-two working days, I had one day off (4th of July), 11 days of normal working times, and ten days of overtime. And I want to double check those dates because I really don't believe that's accurate. Meh, the paystub generator wouldn't show me the first paystub for the month and I have no time to fight with it now.

The home paystubs: I didn't earn any K-time before July 8. That matches the notes I kept on the work calendar. I earned 20.5 hours between July 9 and July 22. I signed my over time today covering July 23 to Aug. 3 and that matched my calendar notes. So now I know the overtime days are right. The bad thing about overtime is it is paid in K-time, which I can get paid for if I keep it long enough, or spend it instead of annual leave. Cash right on the paycheck would be more welcome.

It hasn't been all work and no play (though close to it). I made time to go see the Dark Knight Rises two weeks ago on the 20th. And right after I finished writing down my movie thoughts, I started a fanfic expansion of the ending--my first Batman fanfic ever--and have been working at it when I can for the past two weeks. I'm glad I finished the narrative draft of Stellar Gift of Death before this insanity started because I can't remember enough of it to work on it now. That'll come in handy once I get to edits.

Exercise time was spent sleeping and I haven't been watching my food intake as closely as I should have. August will be a regrouping month on the Hot Bod 2012 project as well as on housework. Don't ask about the state of my house. Yesterday I mustered enough energy by staying home and sleeping plenty to actually cook.

Things are quiet now, let me take advantage and type up posts.

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The BookWorm

Hot Bod 2012 Post 9

This past week, I managed to get two days of heavy lifting exercises, two days of yoga, and one day of the new sprinting routine. I have avoided the yogiliates DVD and don't know if that will change if I have to stay late at the paying job this upcoming week.

My lower back and hips still feel owie, and it just occurred to me that I may have been looking at the wrong part of anatomy for why it hurts. My abs are flabby and that is probably the reason why my back hurts. The yogilities DVD concentrates on abs, so I need to get my life in gear to use it.

My sprint session only lasted for 5 minutes, so I will need to build up to the fifteen minutes recommended. I have given up on the wall squat and moved onto the assisted squat, which I can actually do. I have hit the goals on the Elevated< Jack Knife press and the Hand/Knee Side Plank over three weeks, even with the week off, so I have moved onto the Jack Knife Press and Forearm/Knee Side Plank.

The pattern that has developed over the last six weeks over my weight loss numbers is that I hold for a week, then drop again. This is my hold week, so next week hopefully new numbers. *crossing fingers*

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The BookWorm

I'm Not at the Paying Job!

Yes, I have successfully left the paying job and now am watching to commercials at the movie theater for the Dark Knight Rises. What happened in Aurora, Colorado this morning didn't change my plans, but I am watching the people entering the theater and really took notice of the exits. It's a different world again.

Next week, I'll probably be staying late again so I deserve this treat. And getting in for a 4:30 feature was the best plan; no fighting for a seat.

After the movie: Wow, just wow. Do not wait to see this movie! I don't see any way of continuing without spoilers, so SPOILERS!

My inner Cat/Bat shipper is purring like a kitten. Bruce does show his legendary trait of picking the wrong woman, but in his defense, I think he picked up on a resemblance between Bane and Ra's al Ghul. Tom Hardy in the mask looked like Liam Neason a few time for me. And let us rejoice that there is no Damian in the Nolan Bat-verse!

Sticking with Bruce for a bit, the whole hermit/recluse thing was the one wrong note in the whole shebang. Problem one, he gives up on life because Rachel is dead. Ugh, too much power to an OC. Problem two, didn't Bruce gain an appreciation for what Wayne Enterprises meant at the end of Batman Begins? That's what I took away from him retaking control of the company.

The fanon explanation I'm building in my head: Batman vanished 8 years ago, taking the blame for Two-Face's murders. Bruce channeled money and energy into building the fusion power McGuffin, and then up pops the scientific paper that turns it into a nuclear warhead. Damnit, Gotham doesn't need Batman with the Dent Act and all he managed to do was build another weapon instead of anything useful like his father had done (the elevated train system), and that is what triggers the full recluse state a few years after Batman retires.

Anne Hathaway was brilliant as Selina Kyle! ChrisDee's Cat Tales are my favorite portrayals of Selina Kyle, but Anne was a better blend of the Frank Miller goggle-whore with the classy feline grace fans prefer than we could have gotten. Her character arc growing from a taker from the Have-Too-Much to a hero who rescues her man is pitch-perfect. THIS is the Catwoman that travesty of a Halle Berry film didn't even try to be.

Detective work unfortunately took a back seat and then was dropped by the wayside as the plot built up from the first two movies with graceful shout-outs to Knightfall and No Man's Land. But it did manage to lurk in the backstory, namely John Blake figures Batman's secret out. Then he figures out a lot more but not in time to do anything about it.

Now to talk about John Blake, the character the Internet couldn't figure out (maybe someone did guess successfully, I was avoiding spoilers). Kudos to the writers and Joseph Gordon-Levitt for pulling off a combination of traits from all the Robins: Dick Grayson's work as a cop, moral compass, and wise-ass nature; Jason Todd's anger at his orphan state, and the detective skills from Tim Drake. This is a great example of an OC done right, sorry poor dead Rachel. What I kept waiting for them to do was to tie Blake back to the kid Batman and Rachel saved in the Narrows, but they didn't.

Fanon exercise: If the timeline supports that kid being Blake, he is Blake. After all, Gordon went from having an infant in Batman Begins to two kids 10 or slightly under by the Dark Knight. If the timeline doesn't, that kid is going to become Nightwing's Robin.

Alfred, oh my god, Alfred. If you don't get teary eyes and sniffles when he breaks down at Thomas and Matha's graves saying how he failed them, you have no heart.

Which leads me to what I overheard in the theater during the credits. A couple down the row from me brought up the possibility that the last scene was a fantasy constructed by Alfred. While eating supper after the movie, I came up with an outline of why I thought it was real. Then when I got home and poked around the movie's IMDB page, I found out that Nolan constructed the ending so that both meanings could be read into it. And that was okay, because my outline of support became the basis for a fanfic expanding on what we didn't see.

Have a taste of what I came up with for the opening:

The bastard. Selina's fingers manipulated the lock picks automatically and left her mind free to run on the same track it had been running on for the past few days. The man she had mocked as a parasite, the man who gave Gotham everything he had, the man she had betrayed, the man who forgave her and trusted her to follow his path, the man she saved, the man who got past her claws and walls, the man she kissed without any ulterior motive, the man who died so a city might live.

Calling him the bastard was the trick to keeping her tears at bay.

Trust me, I have a lot more than that already. Which relieves me terribly, for it proves that all this overtime hasn't killed off all creativity.

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The BookWorm

Question to Never Ask a BookWorm

Candi by Starline Hodges Read Free!
The BookWorm

Tales From the DOI

All in all, this week hasn't turned out as bad as I feared. Monday was the worst. In second place, Wednesday with the totally unnecessary and also not-admitted-by-the-culprit dash out to the parking lot because the smoke detectors went off. I'm guessing that Thursday is coming in at third worse since I'm still here at work trying to make paperwork get off my desk. So Tuesday was the best day and then I had to admit to the CCFairy that I had fallen off the finance wagon a bit.

Let's go in chrono order. Monday was buckets of mail. I was checking assessments and grouping them and didn't stop until 1pm, when I left for a post office run, lunch, and massage appointment. Post Office had line from hell, lunch was quick, and the massage was just what I needed. I hit the post office again after and managed to mail off my package. So feeling guilty natch, I called in. No one had done any batching on the assessments since I left. I processed 112 checks from 3:40 to 8.

Tuesday was catch up on what was left from Monday and I had no guilt about going home after my meeting.

Wednesday will not be forgotten because at 1:30pm the fire alarm goes off. Grab everything important and go down the stairs. When you hit the second floor landing, the smell of burnt popcorn hit you across your nose for daring to breath. There has already been a false alarm caused by someone burning up their popcorn once before, so to have to trudge across the hot parking lot to the safe zone for another episode of the same really ticked us off.

Turns out it wasn't popcorn, but rather someone's lunch that was left in the microwave until it caught on fire. That someone has also not come forward and admitted to walking away from the microwave, which pisses the rest of us off some more. Just apologize for your goof up so we can watch you like a hawk so the microwaves don't get taken away from the rest of us who brown bag. What's so hard about that?

Today, I'm staying late because tomorrow I will leave here on time and go straight to a movie theater and demand a ticket for The Dark Knight Rises. I'm hoping by getting a 4 or 5pm feature there will be seats available. But that also means getting the stupid paperwork done now. I'm actually on the stuff I batched today, WOOT! Maybe I'll get to sort out my inbox basket tomorrow.

Not letting the stress crack open can after can of diet soda caffeinated goodness has done the trick on returning my sleeping back to normal, even with the not leaving the DOI until 8pm. Time for me to finish things up so i can go bright and early tomorrow.

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The BookWorm