| |
| The title of this post only barely merits the plural. Bayou Arcana: Songs of Loss and Redemption, various authors and artists. A graphic novel, collecting stories by a slew of (male) authors and (female) artists, all centered around a Louisiana bayou, "one of the seven sacred hearts" of the world. (According to the afterword, some of the other hearts are in the Outback, the Amazon, and Tibet, and there will be volumes for them, too.) I felt a few of the stories in here were a bit too brief and/or elliptical for their punch to really hit me, and I'm kind of meh on some of the art -- but then, that is frequently my feeling on graphic novels as a medium. I liked this one enough to want to read the next volume, now that the core characters have been set up, to see where they go from here. Deeds of Men, Marie Brennan. Yeah, my own novella. A quick re-read for the purposes of refreshing my memory on a few things. . . . and we're done. So where did this month go? A lot of it went to illness. Not to delve into the gory details, but I had a minor procedure done early this month that will hopefully address a chronic issue that is possibly at the root of my sleep problems (and therefore my generalized fatigue); it is, unfortunately, the sort of procedure that makes things worse before it makes them better. If it does the latter at all. I should know one way or the other by the end of June. And then copy-edits landed on my doorstep, and there was KublaCon (at which ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) kniedzw and I ran our LARP), and then con crud. I started a number of books this month, some of which I abandoned, some of which I hope to finish soon. But the only ones I actually finished were a graphic novel and my own novella. Which is pretty pathetic. Next month I start seriously noveling again, and I also have Fourth Street -- but as far as leisure reading is concerned, my count pretty much has nowhere to go but up. | |
|
| OH MAN did Fedex guy look sad when I answered the door with a smile on my face as he rang the bell. He's like "are you ready for this delivery.." and I was like "sure! :) :)" and he sighs. I told him I was sorry it was so heavy (it's like 70 pound or something) and the guy huffs and puffs but gets it inside.
The box is SO big. I think I could fit in it.
Going to mess with it to see if it turns on. I should go back to work but COMPUTER!!! AHHH WHAT TO DO. | |
|
| I spent a wonderful 5 days in Dallas seeing my mom and friends. it was great. I even went to the ren faire which was awesome since I was out of soap. Mr. Cat stayed home with a cat sitter which was expensive but he did get well taken care of. He vomited and peed all over the place since he was lonely and he has been glued to me purring but he was fed, watered, and his litter box was cleaned. The sitter even played with him with a laser pointer.
Mr. kitty has something weird going on with his nose. Just above his little pink nose the fur which is super short nose fur, is crusty and hard. I scraped it off gently since it didn't seem to be hurting him but I don't know why he had crusty hard fur there. Seems like a weird place to shed. It's possible he got food stuck on his nose and didn't wash it off and it crustified and when I went to scrape it off it took fur with it. I don't know.
At this time, I weigh under 180 (177 last Sunday). It was very exciting to hit 179 and no longer be obese, I'm just overweight now. I still need to lose about 30 pounds more to be "normal" but with a total loss of 40 pounds so far I am pretty happy. I still don't see it- but my ren faire corset that I bought a year ago is WAY too big. It's laced up to the tightest before I even put it on. that's not right! I'm sad since that thing was $200 but on the other hand it is irrefutable proof that I've lost a few inches. Also my coworker today eyed my new spiffy white pinstripe suit and asked if it was new. It is, in fact, new and spiffy looking. She said "sweetie that suit is too big.. what size is it, I think it's my size" and I told her it was a 14 (usually I buy 16s for suits because of the jackets) and she was like yea, you need a 12 and by the way you can pass that suit on to me since it does not fit.
Size 12 is like an exciting prospect for me since 12 is a normal size and not a plus size. I haven't actually tried a 12 on because I bought a 14 when the 16 pants started falling off. Who really knows what size I am. That corset was a 14 and it is too big now.
It's kind of scary. What do I do with myself when I can't wear clothing from Torrid any more (all the stuff I own is size 0 from them already)? And if I don't need to go to Lane Bryant for bras? Well that's actually not what I want, I could keep my cup size on a smaller band and be okay with that.
The computer tried to get delivered yesterday but I was at this asinine training thing. I got a sticker on the door notifying me that they will try again today. So I am home awaiting my computer. I have all these fun ren faire pictures to share but no way to import them with my laptop. | |
|
| I've been meaning to post this one for a while: another friend of mine is also doing a tarot-oriented Kickstarter Project, for a "sequel" of sorts to the traditional deck. I have to say, I find the approach of this one rather shiny: The Major Arcana of the Tarot proper are often understood as the way-stations of a "Fool's Journey" towards self-knowledge and self-mastery. The Major Arcana of the New Tarot are meant to encapsulate a second and more outward-focused leg of that journey, in which the newly enlightened Fool steps out into the world to explore and to make his dreams a reality. I especially like the new suits and their meaning. It's a fascinating act of symbol-creation, that really makes the ears of my inner folklorist perk up. The project is over halfway to its goal, but still has some distance to go, with eleven days left. Head on over and take a look. As with the Urban Tarot, you can lend your visage to a card, or pick from a variety of other rewards. Help get this one over the line! | |
|
| So my sister has an assignment she needs to do for photography class, and she decided to do Cosplay. I only know ... 2 people who cosplay here in Columbus [myself and the wife] but my sister needs more. Even though I had a couple costumes, she wants more than just the same two people for some reason. Silly girl.
Anyone who is willing to help her out, unfortunately, she can't really pay you for your time, but she will send you copies [okay, in email as far as I know] of the pictures she takes of you, so you're getting semi-professional pictures done, for free.
She just made a post in the FB group for Ohayocon, to give you a general idea of who I'm talking about lol. She's already coming up to my apartment on Saturday, June 2nd, so I'm sure if you're in the Columbus area, Saturday would be best.
She's given me permission to post her cell number so folks can text her if interested, but I'm going to be interesting and type it out with letters instead of numbers: five one three-eight two four-zero nine seven four you can also email her at pickel.sr@gmail.com with the subject being "photoshoot june 2nd" so she knows what's going on.
Sorry, but it's kinda cross posted everywhere. | |
|
|  Details about this year's Toronto Cosplay Picnic are now up on our website! :D We also have a Facebook event page up here! We hope you can make it! | |
|
| I've been very absent from here lately due to busy-ness and illness; KublaCon was last weekend, and kniedzw and I ran our one-shot LARP, which went very well I think, but now I have Con Crud and that isn't much fun. Especially since I have work I need to do. But! I am breaking radio silence to say that I've gotten the page proofs for the mass-market edition of A Star Shall Fall. This is my chance to correct any errors that made it through me, my editor, me again, my copy-editor, me again, my proofreader, and me yet again in the trade paperback edition -- and believe me, there are some. I know of two instances of a duplicated word ("an an" in both cases), and one place where the line "Galen's mouth gone dry" is missing the word "had," and the arithmetic error on page 171. If you've spotted any others, please let me know! | |
|
| This week is a bit of an esoteric pairing... the connection between the two films dwells upon their treatment of the return of the deceased. The pervasive effect of dead individuals on the living, but involves no ghosts, zombies, or vampires. Instead of the reach from beyond the grave by rotting corpses, the thrills come from more metaphorically realistic sources: the impact that death has through the absence it leaves among our loved ones, or the way in which the stories of those long dead seem ever to presage our own mistakes, failings, errors, and eventual residence beneath the sod. Indeed, this week we'll be calling upon the greatest directors and actors to contemplate how the dead haunt the living.
The Dizzying Heights: Vertigo (1958, 128 minutes) Hitchcock may have casually invented the slasher genre with Psycho, and added his own profoundly weird turn on the environmental disaster piece in The Birds, but his masterpiece is generally considered to be this thriller. Given far more top film accolades than can easily be listed (including #9 greatest film of all time by AFI in 2007), Vertigo is, remarkably, also a distillation of Hitchcock in that it's his most profoundly perverse film. (In a filmograpy also obsessed with voyeurism (Rear Window) and Oedipal crisis (Psycho), that's really saying something.) In his final film with the director, Jimmy Stewart plays a retired police detective afflicted by the titular disorder (simulated through a famed "zoom out, track in" shot invented for the film). During a case he becomes obsessed with the strangely delusional woman he is following (Kim Novak, obsessed with past lives), only to witness her tragic and accidental death. Some time later he encounters the woman's apparent doppleganger and creepily transfers his obsession to her, trying to re-create the woman whose death he witnessed. (Add numerous odd and initially unexplained plot twists.) If the plot sounds somewhat convoluted, it is, and is acknowledged as such with repeated "mirror" visual effects and cues throughout the film as Hitchcock follows the increasingly deranged Stewart in his pursuit of a dead woman; a desire Hitchcock explicitly labeled as "necrophilia" in his own analysis of the film.
The Un-plumbed Depths: Dead Again (1991, 107 minutes) I first saw this film as part of a freshman "getting to know you" event at Emory. (There are some benefits to having a skeleton as an unofficial school mascot.) Difficult to categorize under the best of circumstances, it's a film that wanders idly between genres apparently unable to commit to any of them. Drama, mystery, period piece, psychological thriller, slasher, supernatural spook hunt, tragic romance... is there any genre it isn't? Kenneth Branagh takes Stewart's role as a smarmy private detective hired to help Emma Thompson with the latter's severe amnesia, foreboding fear of bloody murder, and nighmarish dreams of her past life. While the film isn't a maze of twists and turns, there are several reveals that I won't mention for fear of decreasing your enjoyment... and the simple difficulty of explaining them. Keep an eye out for a uncredited cameo by Robin Williams as a disgruntled psychoanalyst.
WARNING: Long night... want to start on time. | |
|
| 25 lbs lost in a little less than 2 months! Yay! I was shooting for a healthy 1-2 lbs a week, but with a NORMAL calorie intake, it's been going a little faster than that XD It will probably drop off in another month or two.. but hey!
I'm 1/4 of the way there ahead of schedule! | |
|
|
Glass Moon Progress
26225 / 75000 34.97% Done!
Oh Glass Moon…, I have so many feelings about you now. Just skirting 35% done? Hell yeah! I’m two days ahead of schedule!
Oh man, so many things have happened this last week I had no idea how to go about talking about it all.
Camp NaNoWriMo is in two days and I’m super pumped for it. I’m in a ‘virtual cabin’ this time around and I love my cabinmates. We’re all writing different things and so encouraging to one another. Only one of them I know away from the keys and encouraged her to take this crazy quest with me.
 I always say for every bit of good things happening in the world there’s always a counterbalance of unfortunate things. Or the saying of ‘There’s only so many tears in the world.’ The good things in the world that happened closely to me was my Uncle Billy who was very ill with an extremely rare form of tuberculosis actually survived his ordeal and is expected to recover. So, that was insane amounts of good. The other good thing is at a baseball game for our local Minor League team the Pensacola Blue Wahoos and I caught a foul ball, then proceeded to get it signed by half the team.
And you say “Wow! That’s all pretty great Lex! What’s the downside?”
Well, the price of catching the foul ball was breaking my Dad’s camera– The camera kind of broke its fall, you see. Then the day of the game and two days after the game, Chasing Sunrise got rejected by both people I pitched to at Silken Sands. Irony? When I learned my Uncle Billy would be fine, I knew I’d get at least one rejection. I knew the moment I caught the ball, I didn’t sell the book at all. That’s how much of a believer in the counterbalance of Good and Bad I am because I’m always right about it!
I had my Day of Mope on Saturday, and once again, comforted myself with food. Not terribly proud of myself in hindsight, but at the time, it was delicious. After a good night sleep, and a few prods from friends, I sent the book out again the very next day. Tomorrow, I’m devoting a good bit of my morning to ship the book out to nine agencies that accept simultaneous submissions. Might as well hit ‘em all the same time! Then it’s pounding the internet pavement for other ePubs.
Finally, I’ve picked up some new spiffy tools to help me in my writing endeavors and I felt I should pass them along.
First, is the Pomodoro Technique. I had heard of it before, but couldn’t figure out how to fit into my life at that time. Someone had tweeted about using it two days ago and I thought I’d give it a shot. Between yesterday and today, I’ve written 6k on Glass Moon. Considering my quota is 1,100 words a day. I’m blowing the absolute doors off my goals. It’s also made my writing schedule pretty lickity split once I shut off all distractions. Take two to three hours, and bam I’m done for the day. I’ve discovered there’s countless Pomodoro apps for smartphones and other devices. I’m using the free version of Pomodroido for my phone and I love it to bits. Simple, easy to use, and I might upgrade to the pay one.
Second, is in this game of submissions, I’ve discovered maybe sixty years too late it’s a really good idea to keep a submission tracker spreadsheet. There’s several methods of doing it yourself or downloading a template. But I wanted something easy since I’m not terribly Excel-savvy. Duotrope has the easiest method. You can record your submissions and not only do they use your data for the statistics on the site, which is helpful for everyone you can download your tracker in a handy dandy Excel spreadsheet. Only catch is Duotrope doesn’t track agencies, so I had to fill that in on my own copy of the spreadsheet.
If you derive anything useful from the submission tracker or doing pomodoros drop a word in the box. I am such a pomodoro geek now you have no idea!
Originally published at Nomad Chronicle. You can comment here or there. | |
|
| There WILL BE a movie night this week. Don't have the time for full summaries right now, but the films will be a dip into the classic thriller genre:
Vertigo (1958, 128 minutes) and Dead Again (1991, 107 minutes) | |
|
| Last week went pretty poorly. I'll just get that out of the way. I only lost a pound or so. Two pounds a week is healthy. I've been beating that every week until last week. Last week, I spent two days on the road, to & from Dallas, and one day at a renfaire, which essentially meant I did not get the bike in on Thurs/Sat, I overate Thurs, and I made poor food choices Sat/Sun while trying to get back in the swing of things.
That being said, I'm glad I didn't GAIN anything last week, but this is the longest I've stalled yet. I'm hoping this week will be better.
I'm still plugging away, though... and even on the days where I made poor food choices or overate, it wasn't by more than 200-300 cal, which isn't THAT bad in the long run. This week, however, I need to show some discipline and "reset" my food. I was getting too far away from lean protein& lots of veggies.. and while I've told myself a LITTLE bit of junk food is ok, as long as it's within my calorie parameters, the last two days I've spent too little time cooking. I will totally admit that I ate a lot of junk food yesterday, and very little healthy stuff.
Another part of that is groceries, though. Since we've been gone and busy, there hasn't been a lot to cook with in the fridge. Matt has today off, so I'll go get some food at the store and things will be great. I'll get a ton more cans of green beans, some more ground turkey and veggies to make the turkey quinoa meatballs, and I'll have at least a week's worth of lunches set to go without too much effort. Easy lunch= 4 turkey quinoa meatballs, 2 tbs of pasta sauce to coat them, and like.. and asston of steamed broccoli, or a can of green beans, etc. I can do well with that!
I love my variety, but if I wait too long to eat and I just feel starving, I'll grab whatever is handy. One solution would be to cut all the junk out and then be forced to make something healthy. I want to work towards that goal, but I know the way I work. If I flat out deprive myself of chocolate or crackers, I'll just end up binging on an entire box some day and hating myself for it :P So I buy healthier cracker (like popchips or those special K cracker chips, or those pepperidge farm baked cheese crisps) and count/measure them out on the food scale. That way, I can have a tuna salad sandwich (on one of those 100 cal sandwich rounds) and chips and everything is still ok.
Last week, I really felt like I could use a little extra encouragement. I hoped I'd just wake up today and feel totally refreshed and invigorated and motivated and shit, but that didn't happen. I still feel like I'm doing ok, and I can work to do better. Matt says all I need to do is stick with it. I'm trying! I'm going to go feed the cats, get some breakfast, and hit the bike. After that.. I'll grab a shower, dry my hair, and hit the grocery store. I also need to go to the vet and get a refill on Senpu's medication >..< All of that should put me at lunch or later. Keeping busy should help keep me from snacking badly. Maybe a day at home with normal activities will help me get back into my groove.
That being said...
All I need to do is lose 1 more pound, and I've hit my first 25. That means I'm 1/4 of the way to where I wanted to be in 12 months.. in only 10! I know that pace will not continue, and I won't be able to magically lose 100 lbs in 4 months, but I do think that I could finish early, and maybe even lose another 10-15. I think I mentioned that I moved from Morbidly Obese to Obese Class 2. By the end of June, I plan to get out of Obese Class 2 and into Obese Class 1. I'll have to get under 175 to be classified "just" overweight, but I need to keep track of these small victories to keep going. (My original goal was to lose 100 lbs in a year. If I do that, I will still be classified "overweight." If I lose an additional 5 lbs, I'll be "normal" according to the BMI scale. I know BMI is a load of bunk, but when you're this far gone, it makes a good marker to shoot for)
I guess this update ended up being kind of long. I wonder if I should LJ cut it? >..< Oh well. - Mood:tired
| |
|
| If Chris Evans does not stop tweeting about stuff like how much he enjoys Bill Bryson books and interviews between Paul Krugman and Tim Russert, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. Lord Almighty. *siiiiiiiiigh* <3 Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone. | |
|
| Cosplay community, I need your help. I am on the hunt for yellow PVC/Vinyl elbow length gloves for Cutie Honey (pic below).  Don't get me wrong, I can find *some* sites that look like they carry similar items but I'm a) worried because the same picture is constantly used and b)It's from China. Not to mention the $30-40 price tag. There *has* to be some sort of costume shop in the US that has something similar, but I'm just not finding anything. If you guys have any ideas, please let me know. Otherwise, I may just have to deal with overspending or attempt to make my own (yeesh). Thanks in advance, guys. | |
|
| May 23, 2012 - The official LiveJournal Release 92 has been deployed. Here’s what you’ll find in this latest site update:
NEW
- Particularly long comment threads now collapse with the alert “...and [#] more comments.” Just click on that alert to see the rest of the comments. Here’s what this looks like:
- Notification emails now hide any content that was already placed inside an lj-cut instead of displaying the entire entry.
- Social Capital is now displayed for all communities on the profile page.
- You can now embed the Spotify player into your journal or community style.
- Personal userheads are now available for purchase. A personal userhead is of your own design and is unique to you, unavailable to anyone else. Purchase as many personal userheads as you like; each costs 5,000 LJ FunBux™, and is good for five years. Learn more.
BUGS, FIXED
- Scheduled entries should no longer return errors or double-post.
- Domain mapping should no longer force redirection to the LiveJournal login page.
- The format=light URL modifier works on entry pages again.
- Comment notification emails will send even if the entry has a poll.
- The "Music" section on the edit entries page will let you delete the entire text field.
- The help link next to “Do not add to friends pages and RSS” on the update page now links to the correct FAQ.
- The list of journals and communities added by default for new users has changed to
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif?v=92.2) news and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2) lj_releases for non-Cyrillic users.
- Missing navigation items in the Classic journal style have re-appeared.
- Notifications about expiring add-ons will now have correct subject lines.
- The bold/italic/strikethrough buttons in the site default commenting scheme should no longer cause cursor positioning problems in Chrome.
- The Calendar feature will now update properly when you edit an entry and change its date.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD: HELP WITH A VGIFT!
Join us in standing up for reproductive health and education. Through the end of the month, you can send a specially designed Planned Parenthood vgift to your LiveJournal friends to help support this cause. (And if you need someone to send it to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/user_ontd.gif?v=92.2) frank is always happy to receive gifts!). There are three variations for you to choose from ($1, $5 and $10), but they’d all look good on your profile. Thank you for your support! Learn more.
- The LiveJournal Team | |
|
| I need a Hebrew word/root for "trick" or "lie."
(Ultimate goal: to end up with some "Zedekiah"-style invented name that tells those in the know that the bearer is actually a liar.) | |
|
| Greetings everyone, I'm new here *curtsy* I hope this is the right place to ask:
For the first time I want to order a costume online (no wig, accessories etc, just the plain costume clothes).
I need recommendations for a good, trustworthy website! I googled a few, but they seem really shady (they don't accept paypal, don't accept returns, are based in PRC etc.).
I'm not really demanding, I just want something that seems legit (preferably a site you already have experience with). I don't need a custom-made costume, since my body size is pretty average I should fit in a ready-made costume (I have a TINY bit of sewing experience so I might be able to do minimum adjustments. Custom-made sites tend to be too expensive for me).
In case you need to know, I would like the girl's summer uniform from the anime/otome game "Starry Sky" (I found a lot of places that have the winter uniform, but not the summer one).
I am a bit desperate and really thankful for every bit of information!! | |
|
|
Glass Moon Progress
14950 / 75000 19.93% Done!
Just shy of 20% done with Glass Moon? I’ll take it and rock on with it. Glass Moon has been a lesson in ‘Hey Doofus, you made an outline for a reason and oh bee tee double-you, you made SIX OF THEM. Please see to it you stay the course.’
My problem I always have is a sudden attack of the Pantsing at a crucial moment and I say ‘My goodness! What a glorious idea!’ And I drop two days of work into said glorious idea that I can’t use in the end, and lose two days scrambling to fix it. All in all, four days of work going absolutely nowhere. What is Pantsing do you ask? I tend to think of it as Improv Writing or Make-Crap-Up-As-You-Go a la ‘Writing by the seat of your pants.’ I used to be a Pantser many years ago, but I learned my final product was an unusable pile of garbage. The only thing salvageable was the one sentence concept. Now I’m a Planner. I love being a Planner. But every now and again I have a Pantser episode. I should see someone about that.
I sent off the first 12k for my dear friend Ana Bosch to look at and scream at me over. Not So Hidden Message for Ana: Chapter 5? You can forget it happens like that.
I seem to be doing this thing of write a chapter, revise, write another, revise, rinse, lather, repeat and it’s not trend I’d like to continue. I’m one of those people that just spits the draft out and then figures out how it all goes together later. I’m okay with the fact my drafts are typically crap with shards of good bits. I think I’m focused on too much of being good right off the bat when oh no it doesn’t work like that in my world. At all. I’ve gotten used to rewriting large swaths of my books. It sucks when you think about it, but in the long run it works out.
Overall, I’m pleased where it’s going. Jack and Sevon are now in Brazil, and it’s an insane fact checking game as I go. Google Street View has been my BFF. Plotwise, let’s just say Jack and Sevon are expanding their horizons as a couple. It’s definitely gone into the territory of whatever Sevon wants the answer is always yes because Jack is a total man. There is no amount of Jack saying ‘In my culture this is totally acceptable!’ Jack. Just stop and admit it’s because you’re a dude and you benefit from Sevon’s kinky adventures. Savvy?
My ultimate goal for the month is to be at 27,500 by the 31st and when Camp NaNoWriMo starts, do the requisite 50k and pretty much be done with the draft by June 30th. My goal regardless is to be done with the draft first week of July for when I get on a plane and go for a family vacation to Maine. The side-goal to that is not to be a frothing spiny ball of writer-rage like I always am when I come down off just finishing a book. I want to be able to enjoy my family and not want to hide from the big burny daystar in the sky.
Solution! Coffee! Lots of it.
So anyone else going to Camp NaNo? I had an absolute blast doing it last year when I wrote Americana Fairytale. The whole camping themed site, the concept of cabins, and sending letters home is just freaking adorable. Also how everyone gets in the spirit by pitching tents in their backyards or dining rooms in my case. You heard me. I totally had a tent in my dining room last year. In fact: here are the pictures again!
Base Camp Drummer
 Base Camp Drummer!  A Peek Inside  The Setup!  Where Words Happen!  Camping Equipment  Hydration Is Important! (TM)  Problems With Wildlife!  More Issues With Wildlife   The Beast Caught On Camera! This time? It’s going to be even better!
Just don’t tell my Dad. Let’s keep this between you, me, Facebook, Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Google+ and….
Originally published at Nomad Chronicle. You can comment here or there. | |
|
| Today I had to leave work early since the homeowner wanted to come over to the house. "I can come when you're not there," she said. I replied, "No, I would rather be present anytime someone is in the house."
She came to change the air filter, which I told her I would do on her behalf from now moving forward. She also inspected for leaks under most sinks. I told her I would report any issues with the house including leaks, if they happened.
She said, "Well I'd still like to come by anyway." I told her, "NO. I value my privacy and would prefer not to have these meetings and especially not to miss work for them."
For those who may not know, I'm a very clean person. The house is tidy and stuff is put away except for a skillet in the sink. The cat litter is scooped and not smelly. There's nothing wrong with the house.
WHY THE FUCK DOES SHE KEEP WANTING TO COME AND INSPECT!?!?! I signed a lease making this house mine for now, so don't I have rights to be left the fuck alone until move out?? Geeez. | |
|
| May 21, 2012: Three weeks ago we officially announced the plan to overhaul Scrapbook, LiveJournal’s exclusive photo-hosting feature for Plus, Paid and Perm accounts. Today we’re letting you know that the new Scrapbook will release this week; in anticipation, we want to give you a bit more information on some additional changes that have been made. The newest additions to the FAQ are under the cut; the original FAQ about the new Scrapbook is in the previous news post. ( Read more... ) | |
|
| Things are still going well. To date, I've lost 23 lbs. That's pretty good, I think! Sadly, this just about gets me down to where I was normally 5 years ago or so. (I remember some trip to the doctor's office shortly after I decided to eat a salad for lunch every day a month and see what happened. I got to about this weight and was super happy that such small changes were helping. Then I got bored of salads after a few weeks and went back to being super unhealthy!)
I think 9 more pounds puts me about where I was when I stopped super awesome diet/exercise attempt 3 years ago.
So basically, by the end of next month, I'll have worked off about 6 years of half-hearted yoyo dieting, poor habits, and all that.
Also... someone PLEASE tell me why every time I decide to make a journal entry, Matt decides to start screaming angrily at his computer game? I seriously can't concentrate when he's busy raging like that, and he only seems to rage when I'm trying to concentrate on something. Like typing. Or listening to a video where someone is talking. Or listening to lore in computer games. WTF dude, calm down :(
ANYWAY
I was sick last week and it sucked. It took the greater part of last week to get back up to record burns during my workouts. I think it took at least 3 days after I "felt" better to get the workouts back up there. What I haven't been doing well are my weights, though. Since I've gotten better, I just haven't managed to hit the weights again. I need to do them at least three times a week, and I'll try to make a better effort this week.
I haven't missed a day on the bike, though! Well, when I was sick, I skipped two days due to fever. I was feeling ok on Sun, so I did the bike then.. which essentially made up for Friday. so I missed one day total, but it was due to being sick. I don't really count that day because "skipping" means I got lazy and didn't do it at all... and that hasn't happened yet!
My food is also still on track. Since I've been counting calories and watching what I eat, I've had:
Pizza hut, burgers (fast food, and home made bison), eaten at many different restaurants, ordered take-out, had chocolate, eaten ice cream, snacked on mystery items with hard-to-calculate caloric content, ordered junk food from Japan, eaten high-sodium ramen picked up from the asian market, and all sorts of other things! It's been great!
What I've been especially successful with, however, is not over-eating, making smarter choices on what I eat, eating at regular intervals so I'm not spending time hungry, planning healthy snacks, getting more lean protein& veggies, and many other fantastic things that I'm sure normal people do every day.
I've made it a point not to deny myself things I'm craving, because I know that's how I fail. I just make sure to track it all, and budget it out. In the last two months, I've had ONE real chocolate bar (Aero bar from World Market), and it gave me a horrible case of the craps :P I don't tolerate junk food like I used to! It's been a real deterrant.
I also had a bad experience with Jack-in-the-Box (again.. hate that place). I decided I really just had to have a fast food burger. I figured that I could have one burger, water, and no fries, and still be within calories for the day. I got the estimated 400cal Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger.... and it was a total dissappointment. The bun had heat lamp burns, the whole thing was dried out and smelled funny, and the burger patty was nearly non-existant. I wanted to cry and toss it in the trash. I ate it anyway, though. I felt that if I didn't, I'd just crave a burger again some time and make the same mistake. The burger made me sad. (Though, in the back of my mind, I still feel like I would have been happier with a big mac :P) I taught myself that if I have a choice, I'd rather actually have something healthier and that the burger just wasn't worth it.
I was also extremely proud of myself for passing up hard-to-resist opportunities to over-eat. One morning, I had breakfast, etc like usual, and talked to a freind about going out for lunch later in the day. She was up since like 6AM, so lunch for her felt good at 10AM. I was not ready to eat then, but I still wanted to hang out, so I agreed to go with her to a pancake house.
1) There is NO healthy option at a pancake house, yo!
2) Lunch was supposed to be at 12pm, not that early. If I ate at that restaurant, I'd be eating 2 hrs early, setting myself up for lots of hunger and danger for over-eating in the afternoon
3) If I ate there, I'd most certainly eat a minimum of like 600cal -..-
4) I don't think I've ever gone to a restaurant and NOT ordered something
5) I don't like being the only person eating. I feel like everyone is staring at me. I wasn't sure if my freind felt the same way or not.
It was a total success though! I went anyway, ordered a coffe, and didn't order any food! In fact, I sat there sipping BLACK coffee and was totally content. I hate black coffee! I'd much rather have dumped a ton of creamer in it, but I didn't do that either. It didn't bother my freind that I wasn't ordering, and we had a really nice time visiting before she had to go back to work.
I was extremely proud of how I handled myself at the pancake place, yo!
Only 2 more weeks until I think about making that appointment down in Austin for my magatama tattoo :) - Mood:happy
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
apod - Lantern Saturn
![[info]](http://www.livejournal.com/stc/img/userinfo-support.gif){kind=small}
