I think I need to get rid of all the tables in my house. You’ll recall a few weeks ago, while minding my own business and picking up a pen or something, the coffee table jumped out and viciously bit my forehead. That still sounds so much better than my depth perception failed me and I banged my head on the corner.
At 5AM this morning (is there any other kind of AM?) I woke up from a totally weird dream where I was being laid off, rolled over and smashed my eye into the corner of the nightstand. Regan Black will kindly stop laughing as I managed to do basically the same thing at her house last year.
I’m not sure which is a worse omen for a job interview, a dream that you’re being laid off — they gave notice by giving you and 8×12 HOT PINK envelope, because that would be subtle — or giving yourself a black eye four hours before said interview.
What I do know is that instead of a final read-through of the job description, I was matching my eye makeup to the quickly growing bruise on my eyelid. It should be stated at this point, that I’m not a makeup girl. I barely know how to use it, and until a year or two ago, I had one set of eye shadows. That I even had cream, green and brown eyeshadows, let alone knew how to use them together, is a miracle.
I’m not really a klutz. Really. But I am beginning to think I need to have an eye exam because the tables are getting seriously pissed about something. And they’re taking it out on me.
No, I don’t crave bread. I’m not a big sandwich person. But I would gladly kill for some crackers.
According to the book, people who don’t eat wheat will eat 300-400 fewer calories than people who eat wheat. I’m not sure how this is possible since all I want to do is eat everything that is not wheat in the hopes it will taste like…wheat.
See, this is the problem with binging on wheat last week. Now I’m going through withdrawal. Yes, there is wheat withdrawal.
But it will be worth it. And with all the time I’m saving by not stuffing my face with crackers, I am writing. And since I’m cranky, you know I’m torturing my characters.
They don’t want wheat. They want… well, we all know what they want. But they’re not getting any either. Hopefully by the time they do get some, I’ll be through my withdrawal and a happy camper again.
Without wheat.
Have I mentioned the 9 cases of Girl Scout Cookies that are still in my living room? I ordered 8 boxes of cookies before I got this great idea. Snarky Daughter bought 2 boxes, and Scout Son bought 1. That’s 11 boxes of cookies We. Can’t. Eat.
Just sitting there. Taunting us. Well, me. Because I am letting the kids have a cookie a day. At this rate, we’ll be out of cookies by Christmas.
All you folks who give stuff up for Lent? I have a whole new respect for you. Because that binge thing last week? I am paying for it now. The interesting thing is I know I’m not hungry as I’m lusting after crackers. I feel full. So I tell The Voice in my head to shut the hell up. I am not hungry. Because I’m not.
Channel your inner Gloria Gaynor here:
At first I was afraid, I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side…
I want to be healthier than my mom was. Yesterday I told you about how much pain I was in last week when I was eating all the wheat. But today’s Day Two and the pain is almost completely gone again. So is the swelling. I still have a headache, but I blame the coffee table.
Now, I just have to make it through Day Three. For those of you who haven’t ever tried cutting carbs out of your diet, Day Three is the day from hell. It’s the day the cravings are typically the worst.
Channel Gloria again. I will survive. I will survive! I will survive!!
When I started telling friends and family that my family was going wheat-free beginning this week, the resounding response was, “Why?”
It’s a complicated answer, but here’s the basic deal. Studies are now showing that wheat isn’t good for us. In fact, it’s really bad. It’s been connected with increased symptoms of diabetes, asthma, allergies, migraines, Autism/Asperger’s, depression and a whole host of other things. The list is really long. And it contains pretty much every problem my mom was having when she died one month after she turned 65.
When I started listening to The Wheat Belly Diet book in the car two weeks ago, I got worried really quickly. Not only were my mom’s health issues on the laundry list, but so were my biggest issues (pain, inflammation and migraines) and Scout Son’s.
So I came home from a job interview and said, “Hey, guess what? We’re giving up wheat.”
But when I started sharing everything I learned, everybody was on board, even Sarcastic Roommate.
I know what you’re thinking. She’s crazy. Wheat’s been around for centuries. How can it be bad?
Well, here’s the deal. The wheat our grandparents and all the generations before them ate, had 14 chromosomes. But it was a bitch to grow. It’s tall. It’s prone to bugs and disease. So in the ’50s, scientists got the great idea to genetically alter it. And then did it. Today’s wheat is dwarf wheat, easier to grow, drought and bug resistant. And with 42 chromosomes, it’s barely related to the wheat we used to eat.
Now if we’d done some, I dunno, animal or human testing before releasing our miracle wheat on the population, we might have figured out that what we’d made was a health issue monster. But there were starving people to feed worldwide, and money to be made. And realistically, I’m not sure we had the testing know how back then to realize there was a problem.
Today, we know better. So, today, no wheat.
Want some more joyous data about today’s wheat? It triggers the same responses in the human body as heroin. Enjoy that bagel! And when you get off of wheat, you go through the withdrawal symptoms equivalent to quitting smoking. Headaches. Crankiness. Lethargy.
Now, I questioned some of what I read. I mean, seriously. Inflammation? Headaches? Pain? But last week, wanting to look and feel my best (and because we had all these wheat products in the house), I ate wheat. Hell, if I could have rolled around in it, I would have. I ate more wheat than I have eaten in months.
And I felt like shit. By day 3 of Eat the Wheat, I was ready for Vicodin for every injury I’ve had over the past ten years, and a bunch of those places were swollen again. I had headaches, stomach aches, and was always desperate for my next meal. It was insane.
So I was really happy when Day One came around. But I won’t lie. There’s some withdrawal going on here. And I have a humdinger of a headache, although that may be because the coffee table jumped up and beat me in the forehead. That’s the only possible explanation, because the other option is that I didn’t see the corner there, where it’s been for the past five years.
Anyway, it’s the end of Day One, I’m cranky and I have a Jumping Coffee Table induced headache. But I didn’t have wheat, which is saying a lot considering my family bought a total of 11 boxes of Girl Scout cookies from Snarky Daughter. The kids are tapering off wheat and can have a cookie a day. I’m trying to stay clean.
I live in the country. Living in the country means mice. I keep my stuff in air tight canisters to make sure there’s no food available, but they’re mice. They think newspaper is food. To be fair, some of the cereal in here tastes like newspaper, so…
You trying living mouse free when this is your front yard. I dare ya!
Anyway, I keep the house clean, keep the food locked up, but I live in the woods, so mice. I pay a nice quarterly sum for there to not be mice. Every three months the guys come in with their bait, which I long ago decided was a fine way of dealing with the issue. You see, I used to trust the cat.
Years ago, the cat worked fine. No mice. Then the cat had the audacity to die. OK, yes, she was old. Well, older. Now the Ex was sort of in an anti-indoor-animal phase, as he has been for the past lifetime or two. Not his fault. He grew up in the country, with the mice, where pets stay outside. And he’s not really a cat person. He’s not a writer; it didn’t come with the job description. I get it.
So, I was trying to be thoughtful and not get another blasted indoor pet. We were going cat-free. After all, we had toddlers. That was more than enough fun for any household. Right. No cat.
One night, I’m home from covering some school board meeting for the local paper. I’m on deadline, so it’s 11ish and the story’s due at midnight, and I can’t get it done. The words aren’t coming. There are only so many ways you can talk about how we need another high school and nobody’s going to pay for it, and I’d used those ways up over the past four years.
I glance up from my laptop, and there next to the bookcase, looking as editorial as ever, is a mouse. He looks at me, I look at him. I outweigh him by an elephant, so you’d think he’d bail. But he just keeps staring at me and washing his whiskers. So, writing being a lot like the Superbowl and other sports events, I yell at him. At least HE is in the room and can hear me.
Look, Mouse. I’ve got an editor ten miles away waiting for this story. I don’t need you supervising too.
I swear he shrugged his shoulders. Then he meandered back behind the bookcase. I calmly explained to the Ex that people in the country have cats for a reason, and three weeks later, we had Replacement Cat. Who understood the cat job description. Within a week, no mouse sounds or sightings.
We also kept a steady supply of outdoor cats. No, I do not want letters on this. I live in the middle of nowhere. People dump cats out here. They’re basically feral. I feed them, get them fixed, make sure they get annual shots, and let them live outside. We have a shed where they get protection from the weather. And they kept the rodent population down.
Unfortunately, over the years the coyotes have kept the cats down. Or the hawks have. Not sure which, but over the years, the cats have disappeared and I haven’t had new drop-offs.
So now I have mice, and three cats, living in harmony. Apparently they all signed the Magna Carta or something because the mice eat the mouse bait and go die somewhere. I know this because the pest control guy and I are really confused. The bait disappears completely 2-3 weeks before he’s due to come out. I know this because the cats start hanging out at the pocket door where we put the bait. All. The. Time.
But I never see a mouse. I don’t hear a mouse. I can’t smell dead mouse. No sign of mouse except the bait disappears. And we can’t figure out where they go to die. But it doesn’t appear to be in my house.
But I had to get the pest guy involved because since Replacement Replacement Cat came onto the scene, she didn’t read the cat job description. On the rare occasion that she catches a mouse (that would be ONCE), she kept dropping it and toying with it. But he was fast, and she dropped it next to a spot where the baseboard didn’t quite match up and goodbye mouse. She wasn’t bothered by this. I was furious since she’d dumped it in my bathroom.
But apparently Sophie believes anything other than guarding the door is beneath her. She weighs about nine pounds. Stumpasaurus Rex, so named by the vet because an accident as a stray kitten left him one leg short of a four-pack, weighs in at 11 pounds. If he could catch a mouse, he’d just flop down on it and suffocate it. But, as I said, they seemed to have reached a parlay with the mice: we don’t see you, you’re good.
Athena, aka Pretty Princess Kitty. You can see why we call her that. All that’s missing is the crown.
Then, there’s Pretty Princess Kitty. Snarky Daughter named her Athena Aphrodite. Her name is bigger than she is. The runt of her litter, she weighs five pounds. She cleans her whiskers just so. She washes the Doberman’s ears because clearly the dog can’t do anything right.
And yesterday afternoon, she killed a mouse. I’m so proud.
The other two cats may have signed the no-kill agreement, but they didn’t sign the no-eat agreement. The reason I found out about Athena’s act of bravery was because she was growling and running away from the other two, who were quite interested in her prize.
She was not happy when I took it away from her and tossed it where all dead things go: into the woods on the other side of the electric fence so the dog can’t bring them back.
Being a good owner, I gave her a prize: part of a Pill Pocket. And then I did the happy dance because there is a killer amongst us. It reminds me a lot of the Killer Rabbit in Monty Python.
With Sarcastic Roommate here, I was finally allowed to watch a sporting event in peace. You see, up until now Snarky Daughter and Scout Son were pretty sure I was the only person in the history of the world who yells at the TV during sporting events and the State of the Union.
Enter Sarcastic Roommate. This is her first year here so she has only heard about Snarky Daughter asking me during the Hail Mary pass of last year’s game, “Do I need to turn the TV off?”
Yes, I failed as a parent on this point. My kids don’t get sports. Football and basketball are too violent. So sayeth Snarky Daughter. Excuse me? I get football, but basketball?!!? This from the girl who will watch a 234 car pile up without batting an eye because someone couldn’t quite turn left enough at 189 miles per hour.
And yes, I yell during NASCAR races too. Really, if there’s a sporting event on, I’ll pick a side and for the next few hours, I’m a devout fan of that team. Being a Bay Area native, you’d think my choice was set in stone. And it was, although my family probably wishes I’d picked the Ravens instead because then San Francisco would have won. I’m really a Bears fan, and we saw how their season went.
Anyway, 6:00, I kick the kids off their Doctor Who marathon — hey, they discovered him last month, I discovered football 35 years ago — and headed over for pre-game commercials. Which meant I could now eat the chips and dip I’d picked up. Yeah, me!
Sarcastic Roommate came downstairs and joined in on the chips and dip ’cause we know how to throw a party. The game started and within three minutes I was yelling at the TV. I considered for a nanosecond trying to behave with decorum, but I was raised by FANS. Also, SR was having her own conniption fits on her couch.
Snarky Daughter: You two know they can’t hear you, right?
SR & Me: That just means we need to yell louder!
You can tell she fits right in. Deep into the nightmare that was the first quarter, so maybe five minutes of play or 20 minutes of air time, SR spied Scout Son’s computer. He too, was ignoring the game, because yes, I totally failed. He was playing his new Monopoly app.
Clearly Snarky Daughter was desperate to get us to quiet down with the yelling at the football game, because she quickly agreed to a rousing game of Star Wars Monopoly. It’s not like the Niners were playing anything worth watching during the first half. We did slow down play long enough to watch all the commercials. The Joe Montana BBQ sauce stain Tide commercial is my favorite. Yes, I loved the farmers and the horse, but they made me cry, and only the outcome of the game should do that.
Well that and being beaten in Monopoly by SD. Honest to God, every other time she went around the board she landed on Free Parking. And yes, we play by putting $500 in Free Parking as well as every stupid charge you get that doesn’t go to someone specific. I’m pretty sure all the money she was raking in came from me. We all gave up play when we realized we were all waving rents.
I went back to yelling at the TV. SD decided she had to take a shower to drown out my yelling. Having watched sporting events with my neighbors, I know I’m not the only one who yells at the TV.
Ice. 1/10th of in inch of ice really doesn’t sound like much. Because. It. Isn’t. Unless you live in the South. Then, it’s a crisis. Here’s how yesterday went for me.
5:50am – Phone rings. Blindly reaching for phone to beat it from ringing a second time on Sarcastic Roommate’s day off, I accidentally hit some button that was not “talk.” And there went whatever the school system wanted to tell me regarding school. Sigh. Now I must leave bed and stumble into the living room to find a laptop and see that was so important. Right. School’s out at 11:00. THAT was information I needed at 5:50.
6:00 – Let dog outside. It’s 20something out there. Balmy. She’s a Doberman. No undercoat, so no doggy insulation. She should be an honorary member of the Polar Bear Club.
6:05 – Awake now, so hey, let’s do a killer yoga workout. Have I mentioned DDPYoga to y’all yet? It’s a really low impact aerobic yoga workout. And if the kids are coming home early, I want to find my inner peace early.
6:12 – Princess Cassie returns from her frolic outside. She must now curl up under multiple blankets and supervise my workout. Because yes, a Doberman adds inner peace to any workout. Have I mentioned three cats are whining at the baby gate at my door, reminding me, just in case I forgot, that yes, they do need Prozac in the morning.
7:20 – Borrow Sarcastic Roommate’s car to drive Snarky Daughter to her carpool. Discuss what to do if college class is not cancelled (which takes place after high school closes).
7:45 – Hello, shower. I love you. You are warm water. You are peace. There is no dog. There are no cats. Can I stay here forever? Well no, because then you couldn’t…
8:00 – Make Orange Cranberry Scones. Yum!
8:30 – Look out window while eating scones and reading morning blogs – oh hey, it’s snowing! Three hours before forecasted. Wonder how long before school cancellation gets -RING! Right. Kids out at 9:30. How nice for them. I think this was the moment I decided work was not happening today.
8:45 – Text from Snarky Daughter. College class still on. What do I do? Response from me (apparently sent via email to her father): Come home.
9:29 – Panicked call from Snarky Daughter. Do I get on the bus? YES!!!
9:32 – Call from Scout Son: School’s getting out early. Me: Get ON the bus. Really, children, my car is in the shop. Unless you plan on walking home, you better be on these buses.
10:00 – Start making Butternut Squash Soup. I told you, at the point kids were coming home early, I gave up on any real work getting done. The snow has now turned to sleet and I want the house to be warm and inviting when the kids come home. Yeah, I’m that mom.
10:30 – Scout Son gets home and goes up to bedroom to pack for going to Dad’s. It’s the coldest day of the year and he doesn’t want cocoa. Go figure.
11:00 – Requested text from Snarky Daughter saying she is one stop from her bus stop. Stop making soup so I again steal Sarcastic Roommate’s car so Snarky Daughter does not have to walk 1/3 of a mile in the sleet. Have I mentioned how friggin’ cold it is outside? I’m being a really good mom today. My characters are totally jealous.
11:15 – Back to making soup.
11:18 – Text from mechanic. Car is ready!!! Praise God. And there’s not enough ice on the roads to keep me from picking it up. Let’s be real. There could have been 8 inches of snow on the roads and I would have gotten to that car. Stop making soup. Again.
12:03 – Back with car. I am now really poor, but the damn thing works, which is good because I am now driving 2 hours for a job interview on Monday. Finish making soup. Ply kids and ex with soup, pot roast and dessert.
1:30 – Everybody leaves. Now it’s time to sit down and work. Except… Scout Son left his DS on the couch. Long story short, thanks to the ice, Friday became a Saturday. And today I work while I wait for the ice to melt today and refreeze tonight. But I have soup, and a Doberman curled up next to me, so it’s all good.
No doubt, my bulbs are wondering what the heck happened. It’s 20 degrees outside this morning. With a high of 34, and a wind chill that will make it feel like 11. I shall be thankful that I am supposed to stay inside and rest my foot.
Which is what I had to do all weekend. Those of you who know me can guess how well that went. I tried. Really. But then the car went all wonky on Saturday ($800 worth of wonky), so Sunday was spent trying to figure out what went wrong. Turns out, lots of things.
Anyway, there were some things I was able to do while actually remaining mostly motionless on the couch. For instance, I started a new Lynda.com class on Photoshop, which I’m really enjoying. And I was able to cruise the Internet for some new photos for a book cover I’m working on.
But neither of those is really photo-worthy. I mean, who wants to see a picture of me in sweats and no make-up on the couch with a laptop? That photo would break the new camera I got for Christmas. Which. I. Love. LOVE!
So, here are some shots I took from the couch of stuff I did this weekend when I was actually resting my foot. Plantar fasciitis is a bitch, let me tell you. I had surgery for it years ago and haven’t had a flare up since then. Until last weekend, when I painted barefoot on a ladder for several days.
Here, by the way, is the finished project that started the pain. Gone is the 15 year-old wallpaper that once had flowers and pale yellow stripes on it, but had faded to white. Except where the “Beer: not just a breakfast drink” sign hung. But in order to get rid of the sign, I had to get rid of the wallpaper. So now my breakfast nook is free or wallpaper and beer signs.
The “new” anti-beer breakfast nook
If you saw me over Christmas, you probably saw this with me. I finally finished the blanket Snarky Daughter started to knit and got two rows into before she decided she didn’t like knitting. Really, I wouldn’t like knitting either if I was always using this yarn, but you knit with two strands so it works up quickly.
Snarky Daughter didn’t want to tackle this project, so Knitting Mom came to the rescue
Jenny Crusie put up a post of ten neat things you could do with binder clips, so I made a cell phone holder for my car. It clips onto the air vents. When I get the car back, I’ll give it a try.
Here’s hoping the clip is strong enough to hold the phone. I think I need a better rubberband.
The cat tree needed some repair. Since making the improvements the cats refuse to claw at it. You know, being cats.
At least the tree looks like this and my couch doesn’t.Has a claw touched it since the fix? No. But it looks so much better!
And I started my own blanket.
Right now it’s the size of a scarf, but it will grow
So I was pretty busy when I was sitting down. Imagine what I could have accomplished if I’d remained sitting all day. You know, the way I was supposed to.
I was on my way to Barnes and Noble this morning in a desperate attempt to focus on my To Do List when I realized I was singing along to some teeny-bopper ear worm. How old do I sound right now?
Anyway, it was some totally bouncy thing that I KNOW we don’t own because all of the music in the house is stored on my laptop. I mean, really, you never know when I’m going to want to break out into something from High School Musical 3. OK, really, I just wasn’t paying for the crap more than once, so we have one iTunes account, and everything is on my iPod, iPhone and iEverything else I can buy.
Just remember that if you ever pick up my iWhatever and start looking at the play lists. It’s not a reflection on me. I’m the one who always has her iPod in the car, so everything is there.
Anyway…
How do I know the words to this song? And even though it turned out that this was not One Direction (I know ’cause it’s STILL in my head so I just typed in the lyrics – God Bless free Wi-Fi), earlier this summer when we visited Scout Son at Boy Scout Camp (I went three weeks without my parents each summer, why can’t Scouts go more than 3 days), the older Scouts did this skit with a One Direction song.
My ex about fell off of his log bench when he saw me singing and bopping along. And once again, I stared at him and sang, I have no idea how I know the words to this song. But. I. Do.
I blame One Direction Gremlins. I firmly believe they’re the reason I can’t sleep at night these days. They’re also the reason I can’t have any rational conversation. My brain cells that once held the Pythagorean theorem are slowing being reprogrammed with “Baby you light up my world like nobody else.”
Really?!!? Grumble. I was that young once.
So now I’m sitting at B&N with my computer getting some work done because Kelly and Michael, and Hoda and Kathy Lee have all invaded my Living Room (aka the Office) and who the hell invited them anyway? What? There’s an OFF button on the remote? But then who would I talk to.
I turned them on because I feed off of noise and after I left the day job I needed to find out what the heck everybody else cared about when they didn’t spend 12 hours at work/commuting. Well, I’ve officially hit my capacity for pop culture. It happened when I wanted a weather report this morning and got the damn Oscar nominations. Because this is somehow news, but how cold it isn’t going to be today, isn’t. At least at B&N I can eavesdrop, which for a fiction writer, is the equivalent of research. And doesn’t that sound much nicer?
Anyway, if I stayed home, I was going to pick up a paintbrush instead of designing a website, so here I am. At B&N wondering if the not so hot guy at the other table is really the pretty hot guy from match.com that said he’s always here. If so, he touched up that photo. Not that THAT ever happens online. But he took the time to finish his profile and all I do is see if there’s anyone that interests me enough to start my profile, so kudos to him.
Sadly, the conversation next to me is an elderly woman and her caretaker talking about cat behavior. Really, if I’d wanted that I would have stayed home and watched my three taunt the dog. I may have to move to a different table. Because the characters I’m working on right now don’t have a cat.
So I fell out of bed this morning and did DDP Yoga before heading off for allergy shots. Yes, it’s an exciting day here. The good news of the morning is… I’m not painting anything today.
This is big news.
For those of you who haven’t had the joy of living with me, here’s how my body works. Once a month, I want to fall asleep for about four days. I get up anyway, but it’s a battle, and my whole goal is getting back to bed. Ah, hormones. Yes, I’m still productive, but my happy thought is, only X hours before I can go back to bed.
That’s followed up by two or three days where I think I am invincible and try to get everything done on the never-ending To Do list. While being very grumpy. It’s insane, but it’s me, and my family handles it pretty well.
So I woke up on Sunday. Did I tackle the small pile of junk to go to Goodwill? No. Did I wash the dog? No. I made eggs and pancakes for everybody, then headed into the breakfast nook and started spackling holes in the walls and sanding the drywall. After that, it was a slippery slope I slid down, priming the walls, and then thought, wow, the ceiling looks like crap.
And so, I started painting. An eight-sided cathedral ceiling. Is it a cathedral ceiling when it’s 14 feet in the center, and slopes down like the inside of a gazebo? Well, that’s what I painted. For 8.5 hours over Sunday and Monday. On a ladder (I’m supposed to avoid those because I’ve had…a history with them). With a paintbrush because it’s a popcorn ceiling.
Amazingly, I was able to move today, for which I give credit to DDP Yoga, which I have been doing for 11 weeks. I haven’t lost a pound (remember, I drank my weight in wine in CA), but I haven’t gained anything either, and given what I’ve eaten in December, that’s impressive.
After yoga, I could move without pain. Thank you, God.
Scout Son and I traipsed over to the Big City for our allergy shots. And I treated us to a Krispy Kreme donut since we suffered so greatly.
With that, I’m back to working on the next book. Later this week, I’ll go back in and tackle the window trim and the walls. Because I’d really like to cross that room off the list. It got put on hold when autumn came, and the leaves fell. And fell. And fell. For four months. Did I mention I live in the woods?
Before I get to the real post, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for making me an Amazon Best Seller! A Season For Romance topped the charts as the #4 Best Selling Short Story Collection. We hit #2 in Germany!
And now, on to our regularly scheduled blog…
Hi, my name is Kim and I’m a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie addict.
It’s normal to watch the same Hallmark movies over and over, right? I mean, you’re all doing it too, right? Looking at each one and saying things like, Oh, it’s The Shop Around the Corner meets Shall We Dance? Right?!!?
I never used to do this. But this weekend I’ve read two Regency romance novels (thanks Sabrina Jeffries, for the lack of sleep) and tonight alone I’ve watched two Hallmark specials.
I’d say I need to step away from the remote, but the fact is, I’m sitting down in the morning and figuring out my next characters and plotting their story. So I’m immersing myself in romance.
I’m also plotting my own life. For the past several months I’ve been putting my life on hold while I tried to figure out where I wanted to settle down. But the thing is, that’s nine months I could have been doing things. And didn’t.
So, although my life is still up in the air, I’m not waiting any more.
Seems like the perfect time to go back and look at the 2012 resolutions and see how I did. If this were the Hallmark Channel, there would be happy music and a guy would wander into my living room, looking lovingly at me. Alas… anyway, here’s the list:
Lose 15 pounds: I gained 10. On the other hand, I’ve lost 10.5 inches overall in the past eight weeks because I finally found a workout that my back can handle. Special thanks to Regan Black for leading me to DDP Yoga. I was losing weight in December, but then went to California for Christmas, and I’m pretty sure I drank my weight in wine while I was there. So, losing weight, or at least getting into better shape remains on the list, but I feel better than I have in forever with this workout, so I’m on the road to success.
Getting more active on social media. Build a following. Adding pages to the website. Writing a book or two: I wrote a holiday novella and published a new book. I go with fits and spurts on social media. I figure if I don’t have much to say, I should keep quiet and not clutter your Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/blog feeds.
Conquer Italian: Not so much. I go back and forth with it, working at it for a few days and then getting caught up in life. Can’t decide if this one is carrying over into this year or not. I just can’t decide how important it is to me right now, which I guess says a lot.
So, for 2013:
Write books. Yes, multiple books.
Continue getting in shape and lose some of the weight. I’m not putting a number up here because the reality is if I dropped a clothing size, I’d be really happy and a healthy size. And since I’m working on building muscle (which weighs more than fat), I’m not sure what the number on the scale should be right now.
Get out more. Last year I joined a trivia team, which has been fun. I look forward to getting out of the house on Tuesday nights. But I need more going on in my world, so I’m going to try to find different groups to try activities with, one a month. We’ll see how that goes since I live in really small town America.
Either land a day job I love or become a communications strategy consultant. One way of the other, I need some steady income, because in case you hadn’t heard, the income stream of an author is not steady. It’s a check every six month sort of thing, which is hard to budget on.
So, those are my thoughts for 2013. 2012 was tough on a lot of us, but I choose to believe 2013 is my year. And yours too! So, what are you resolving to do next year?
