Wednesday Check In

Last Wednesday, by the time I went to bed, I had the flu, good and solid. For the next three days, I had no energy outside of that required to do the most basic things—running the few errands that could not be put off, washing dishes, that sort of thing. My brain could not even begin to build any fantasy worlds or scenes; in fact, I spent the whole time watching Battlestar Galactica and playing cards on the laptop when I wasn’t sleeping. Most foods tasted awful to me, so I wound up snacking and eating a lot of bread and pasta (the only things that didn’t make me want to hurl) rather than really eating properly. With that in mind, here are my reports for the week:

Words:

My muse has been coming to me in the middle of the night lately, bearing a notebook, a pen, and a flashlight.  Despite that, between Sunday and Monday nights and a bit of this morning, I was able to get in a total of 1088 for the week, which is just 662 shy of the weekly 1750 that is my 250/day fiction writing goal. All of those words were in Quantum Kiss, which is now up to a total of 15,489 words. I was able to add to the notes for that world, as well as getting started on character profiles; those numbers are not included in my word count.

I have discovered that I will need to have some sort of organization if I’m to write a novel, as opposed to my seat-of-the-pants writing with fan fiction, where everyone knows what most of the characters look like and how they act, and all I have is one or two original characters to put in. The character worksheets provided to members on Savvy Authors (see “My Hang-outs”) are a great way to do that. I can keep an online copy, saved to my Sky Drive, as well as a hard copy. The nice thing about the worksheets is that I am forced to think beyond the physical attributes to their quirks and what makes them tick.

As I mentioned last week, I’m going to stop putting in a weather section unless something totally newsworthy, like a hurricane or snow (which would be totally newsworthy in Orlando!) happens. Instead, I know some of you really liked having a writing prompt, so I’m going to include one writing prompt and one new word (new to me) each week. Sometimes, I may just put in a word or words that I am familiar with but that are not used anymore like they were in the olden days when I was growing up and dinosaurs still roamed the earth.  

Writing prompt: A woman wakes up in Heaven’s waiting room, but St. Peter is not who she thought he would be.

Now, what word should I start off with? So many to choose from! Back in the days when bookstores were aplenty and books were made of paper and not binary code, I used to enjoy vocabulary books. I know, I know—GEEK! Yup, and proud of it. The University of Chicago used to come out with these little pamphlets where you could test your knowledge of vocabulary, much as the Reader’s Digest does (did?).

Since I am a random person (which drives the orderly Virgo in me absolutely bonkers), I am going to choose one of my favorite words—gloaming. I love that word; it just sounds so mysterious. Gloaming. Know what it means? Go to the head of the class, you get ten extra minutes of recess. The gloaming is the time between full day and darkness, also known as twilight or dusk. Gloaming can be used to describe that time between dark and full light in the morning, but is more commonly used for the evening hours. The gloaming has often been associated with magic, as it is a transitional time of day, a time that is neither day nor night, a time when the veil between the worlds is at its weakest.

Challenge: Use the word “gloaming” in the writer’s prompt. Write at least 500 words.

Weight:

Well, boys and girls, as I mentioned above, I was down with the flu for three full days, not counting last Wednesday, when I was just “feeling blah”. I was also unable to exercise for five days in a row (didn’t want to push it on Sunday morning & on Monday, the air conditioning man had to stop by—yes, again, and yes, to fix something on our six month old air conditioning unit). Despite those challenges, and despite eating all those carbs this week, I managed to lose another full pound! I am now a nearly-svelte (shoulda used that word!) 204.8. The “skinny shorts” that were painful to even try to put on a month ago (couldn’t even get them over my hips) are currently residing comfortably on my body. I can move and I can breathe, and I don’t feel like I’m cheating on my husband by wearing them (think about it for a minute—oh, you got it! TMI? ). My goal, assuming there are no new bouts of the flu, is to be back into the 100s, even if it’s 199.8, by Valentine’s Day at the latest.

My calorie count was rather high yesterday and I did snack late last night (I was having late night chocolate cravings), so I spent an extra 20 minutes (on low speed—2.6) on the treadmill this morning; I was only able to do that because my older boy had to be to school early for inspection for his military class, but it was nice to be able to do. I have decided also to incorporate at least one “high calorie” day each week, where I am eating closer to the number of calories I need to for very slow weight loss. Hubby figured that out to be around 1573 calories, which is 70% of what I need to maintain my weight. Most days, I try to keep the calories to 1200-1299. See you all next week (come on, 203.anything)!

Mysterious Monday: Standing Stones

Who here hasn’t heard of Stonehenge? If you’re past the age of 18 and haven’t heard of it, raise your hand so I can slap the back of your head (not an NCIS reference—I was doing this to dissuade moronic behavior long before Mark Harmon did it on the screen). Most adults have heard of Stonehenge, unless they’ve been living under a rock somewhere NOT on the Salisbury Plain. But did you know that Stonehenge is only the most famous of a group whose members number into the thousands?

Photo by mottie33, found at the Stock Exchange

There are mysteries aplenty surrounding these stone circles—who built them? When were they built? How were they built and to what purpose?

Research suggests that from the early Neolithic Age on into the Bronze Age, man was erecting these circles all over Europe and the British Isles. Since the Bronze Age predates the Roman Empire by thousands of years, whoever built these was not only at least as advanced as the people that most of us consider to be one of the most “modern” of the early peoples, but they may have even had more “technology” than the Romans. So who was it? Was it aliens? Was it giants? Nephalim or their daddies, the angels? Ancient gods perhaps? Or was it just a group of ingenious ancestors? Or a neat-freak glacier, arranging the large bits of stone it left behind as it receded back to the Arctic Circle?

The burning question of why remains floating in the air, too. At most archaeological sites, one can expect to find pottery, jewelry, bones—signs of occupation. Any of these signs found at the stone circles is from later peoples, not from the builders. So what was the purpose of these circles? Were they landing beacons for ancient aliens? Places of worship for our ancestors? Super-computer calendars that kept track of the weather for an agrarian society? Or were our great-great-great-(keep going) grandparents messing with their descendents? “Watch this. We’ll put up a big circle of stones. It’ll drive ‘em nuts trying to figure out why. Hehehe. ‘Borrow’ my ox, will you, and bring it back exhausted?”

That’s one heck of a prank, though. How could humans who used stone and relatively soft metals have cut and transported and shaped these enormous stones into circles? The stones of Stonehenge weigh between a light 4 tons all the way up to 40 tons. Think of this as some guy in an animal pelt with a stone ax trying to move an average sized pick-up truck that’s been compacted--and that's the smallest one. Sure, the fella’s not going to move it on his own—he’s going to drag his pals in with promises of pizza and beer—but still… When you consider the average male was anywhere from an average of 5’3” to 5’6”, that’s quite a feat.

It amazes me how every time I read an article about any of these circles, I am left with more questions than answers. Why are they found predominantly in Europe and the British Isles? And did the same people who built these European and British circles build the scattered ones found in other parts of the world? Was it the ancient Celts or perhaps the survivors of Atlantis?

What do you think? Have you ever seen one of these circles up close and in person? Is it on your “must travel to” list? Personally, I have never seen Stonehenge, although I visited England for a short time (literally was there for like three days visiting my then-fiancé, who refused to drive me there as it was “too far away” from his flat outside London).    

Do you know what today is?

For the next few posts, Fridays will be unthemed. I was going to continue Photo Friday, but with last week’s post, you can likely understand if that goes by the wayside. I thought about advertising contests and conventions—and might still—but on thinking about other ideas, I began wondering if today was a holiday somewhere. As it turns out, it is a holiday, and that holiday made me a bit nostalgic, for today is Milk Day.

What, you may ask, is milk day, and how have we sunk so low in reaching for a celebration that we celebrate milk? As it turns out, today is the 135^th anniversary of the first day that milk was delivered to homes in those lovely glass bottles. By the way, if you want this one, you can "Buy it now" on Ebay for only $64.95--I shoulda kept Mom and Dad's old bottles. 

I remember having the milkman come a few times a week to our home in New Hampshire when I was a child. We had one of those tin crates with a lid outside on our lean-to porch. Mom would leave the quart bottles out for exchanging, with a note if she needed more than our “usual” amount. Once a week, if I’m not mistaken, she would leave the money out for our payment. When we took trips, she would call them or leave them a note in the box to ask them to suspend delivery, and on our way home, we would stop at the dairy farm to get enough to hold us over until the next delivery. He might have brought us eggs, too, but I honestly can’t remember.

I miss those days—the trust we had in our fellow man (leaving money and/or products on our front porch). I definitely miss how simple life was. There was no internet, no million channels of TV to choose from, no cell phones or texting. Things took longer, but I think we appreciated them more. Maybe I’m just seeing the past through rose-colored glasses or am growing nostalgic in my old age. Maybe it’s Gramma’s voice whispering in my ear, one of her colorful little colloquialisms—“The hurrier I go, the behinder I get”. In this day and age, we scurry like rats fleeing a sinking ship as we bustle from one important thing to another. Maybe it’s post-Christmas burnout or pre-tax anxiety, but I just want to slow down, to take things easy. The walk down the milky memory lane added fuel to my fire, I guess.

How about you? Do you remember the milk man? Do you ever miss those days when life seemed simpler?

Wednesday Check In: Gaining and Losing and Staying the Same

Words:

Woo hoo! Whadya know? This writer actually can write. I didn’t get a whole lot done this week, but I did write. I left the RWA meeting early, with a headache that cleared later that evening. On Sunday, I sponsored a writing sprint with some of my Gateworld pals, during which I re-read what I had written so far in Quantum Kiss, which had been untouched since June. Monday, I was in another sprint on Gateworld, during which, now that I remembered what was going on, I was able to write just over 780 words. Last night, I was nauseous and so I only managed a little over 300 words. All said and done, between QK and the blogs, I have written right around 2800 words this week. Today, I am still fighting this stupid flu, but the plan is to continue writing a bit more this evening. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to the usual sprint time of 9 pm that I keep with my Gateworld pals. I am definitely glad to see some progress being made on Quantum Kiss. Mind, that story was supposed to be complete already, but best laid plans and all…

I’ve also suggested to my RWA group to continue a tradition they had of 250/day. Whether they decide to join me or not, that is my personal goal for this year.

Weight:

More woo hoo! I am now down to the stunning weight of 205.8, which is down 2 pounds from last week and around 13 pounds overall (the counter from MyFitnessPal is off because I started that when I was already down by a few pounds. I’ve been keeping my calorie count to around 1200 per day. I’m going to let that count go up to 1450 or so—I should still be able to lose weight, but I don’t want my body going into starvation mode or anything and leveling out. I’m already exercising as much as I want to. I doubt I will get that many calories today, as the flu is making me not hungry at all.

Weather:

Two days ago, it was nice enough to have the A/C off; now it’s back to being just on the edge of uncomfortable without it. Next week we’re supposed to get some rain at the end of the week. We need it so badly. I hope it rains every day—I know, I know, some different from last week lamenting the possibility of rain for the outdoor graduation. It is just so hot and so dry lately. Come summer (ie: now), I may be removing the weather portion of this check-in, since it stays pretty much the same from here on out—hot and (hopefully) rainy. I’ll only put this section in when something weird happens, like the all-night thunderstorm or the hurricane watch or whatever.

Mysterious Monday: Elusive Time

“If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do…”

Well, Jim Croce is a bit more romantic than I am. I’d spend some time sleeping, some time having fun with my family, some time writing, some time promoting, etc. With the New Year, many of us have made resolutions; some refuse to make resolutions, calling them too nebulous, and instead make goals. I’ve made both, but without finding time to put the work to action, neither resolutions nor goals will come to fruition. 

The key to this is “finding” time. We cannot “make” time, nor can we capture it in a bottle. I decided to take a good hard look at my schedule and figure out what was happening to my time. (Gonna do that with the finances with hubby—SHHH! Don’t tell him!)

First of all, I have to stop letting the time thieves rob me.

Criminal #1: My eldest son. For some reason, E can get up at oh-dark-thirty while at a training and be where he needs to be when he needs to be there. When I tell him we need to leave by 6:30 so that I can get back in time to exercise before getting his brother up, this becomes a problem. I shall have to contact his commanding officers and find out what it is that they do to get him in gear. Some days, when I go to pick him up at the school, I have waited in excess of 30 minutes for him as he gets caught up in a meeting or some such thing. Add to that, for some reason, I have to ask him to do things numerous times to get them done.

Criminal #2: My youngest son. Waking him up has been a problem since he was born. For a child who never napped, he can sure sleep. Waking him begins with “J, time to get up!” His response is a pitiful, “Can I have 5 minutes?” Five minutes later, I’m back and for the next five to ten minutes I am pushing, pulling and prodding him (verbally—he’s too heavy for me to lift nowadays) out of bed. He also needs to be told more than once to complete tasks.

Criminal #3: Disorganization. Disorganization leads me to making 4 or more trips to the store every week. It leads to looking for things that should be to hand, which wastes up to 30 minutes each occurrence.

Criminal #4: Computer games/internet. For this, I need to simply turn off the internet when I write or hang out with my family or sleep. I have thought that it might be a good idea to limit my internet time and use a timer. Using a timer has helped in other areas. I’ll set the timer for 30 minutes and during that time, I’ll do only housework or only work-related work or only writing or whatever.

Long and short of it is that we all have only 24 hours in a day. I will never be one of those super-organized, Aviance women who can do it all. If you are one of those “I juggle work, college, kids, hubby (or single mothering), volunteerism, homemade dinners, bake sale fundraisers, AND still have time to write 5K a day, all with a cheerful smile and a spotless home” sort of women, please go away now. You are too perfect to read my imperfect blog. 

My major resolution is to find more time from what I waste; my main goal is to write the 250 words per day that I’ve spoken of. But if I find a bottle filled with time, I won’t let you know. It’ll be mine, all MINE! Mwa ha ha! (Can you tell I don’t get much sleep?)

Photo Friday: How NOT to take photos

1. If using a now old-fashioned film camera, film MUST BE INSERTED into the camera in order for it to work. I had to learn this lesson twice—I’m smart, not necessarily bright sometimes, though. I thought that digital would be my savior when it came to keeping me from mistakes of this magnitude. I was wrong.
2. When using a high-end camera with a lens, one must remove the lens cap for proper photo taking.
3. When taking photos with a digital camera, one must be sure that the little card thingy (yes, that’s what I call it—don’t judge) is NOT FULL.

Lesson 1, A: Learned on a cross-country road trip when I was 22 or so. Took lots of great photos of the Mississippi River and that area. Too bad they did not get saved to film.

Lesson 1, B: Learned at Lake Tahoe, on the trip where my now-hubby proposed to me. What a beautiful lake and such a pretty park where he proposed. It's a shame they’re only in my memories now.

Lesson 2: Our last month living in New Jersey, before moving back to Florida, there was a huge snow storm (the President’s Day Blizzard). The kids, knowing that this was their last chance to play in snow, took advantage. I got a really cute shot of my 2 year old in his snow suit, hiding in a little snow cave he and his brother had made. Unfortunately, we didn’t discover that I’d forgotten to remove the lens cover until later on.

Lesson 3: We left out of here yesterday morning, bright and early. I was all proud of myself for having not one, but two, cameras ready to go—batteries fully charged, card thingy in the big one. We arrived at the graduation just over an hour before graduation and get great seats right up front. Hubby decided that it was too early and we trotted off to get some McBreakfast. By the time we got back, it was standing room only (outside). **sigh**

I managed to finagle my way up front and started taking video with my Flip camera, but it was just not powerful enough to get details. My younger boy had the big camera and he told me that it wasn’t showing the pics he had taken. I took it and it seemed to work fine, except for not displaying the pics, so I shrugged and decided I’d figure it out later; for now, I had pics to take. I video taped four speeches and the teen’s friend (my 3^rd child for the rest of the week while his mom is out of town) receiving the award for Honor Cadet for his company. I shot photos of the boys with their C.O. and the C.O. of E’s SERE training.

I got home and downloaded the pics, and—nothing. Turned out the card was full. Luckily, hubby had taken a couple of pics of the boys with the SERE commander with his smart phone, or we’d have nothing usable. I told him that next time, he’s in charge of the photography.

Here’s what I got on my phone (faces of the kids have all been whited out for their privacy):

Seabag Inspection

Seabag Inspection

Here’s photos taken by one of the staff on a field trip to the SEAL museum in Ft. Pierce:

LOL!

He likes him some weaponry!

Here’s what hubby got (again, face whited out for privacy):

So, not a total loss, but I do wish I was more photo-savvy.

Triple W Check In: Not a good start to the year

This entry is going to be short and sweet. Well, short anyway. It’s been a long, exhausting week; with the holidays over, work is demanding more and more of my attention until we all get back on track and back into the groove.

Words:

Zip, zero, zilch, nada, and however many other ways you can say, “none”. No editing even, nor fan fiction. Nothing outside of the blogs, but then I’ve been fighting a cold and allergies combined, which has left me exhausted, with sore eyes, to the point where having my eyes open has been a trial some days. This Saturday, I will be at my RWA meeting, and we usually keep the room for a few hours after the meeting, so, barring extreme migraine or eye soreness, I should be staying to write. The girl who made me an avi, sig, wall-paper, and book cover for “Quantum Kiss” has inspired me to pick that story up again, and it’s really calling to me. With the Nephalim story on a (possibly temporary) block, QK is needing my love.

Weight:

No huge loss this week, but at least there was a loss. I went down to 207.8. I seem to have reached a small plateau, but then, I also haven’t been keeping track of my calories in the past couple of weeks. I started back yesterday with tracking the calories, and got “yelled at” by my program for only taking in 1115 calories. I also upped my exercise a hair, now doing 15 of all of the weight lifting exercises, as well as 15 windmills and 15 leg lifts. Treadmill time is 40 minutes on a 2.0 incline, varying speeds from 2.6 to 3.6. The kids go back to school next week and I only hope I can keep up the exercise in the morning.

Weather:

Rain: (noun). Water that falls from the sky, but only during outdoor graduations, weddings, and other celebrations, or when you’re leaving the grocery store with a cartload and you’re parked at the far end of the parking lot. Rarely falls when you’re asleep, unless accompanied by loud booms of thunder and bright cracks of lightning.

No rain, no bad heat in the past week. Nights have been down in the 50s or so, days up in the 70s. Tomorrow, my oldest son graduates from POLA (Petty Officer Leadership Academy); the graduation is outside. We are planning to do fireworks with him later in the evening, since he missed out on New Year’s Eve celebrations by being at the training. Naturally, they are forecasting rain tomorrow. Hence the definition.

I should have pictures this Friday of the graduation and my handsome young Seaman. Sorry there were no pictures last week—see the part about fighting a cold/allergies at once. I’m going now to put eyedrops in my eyes and hope that eases the pain.