Wednesday Check In

Writing:

This week was a battle to get my 1750 words, despite being ahead of the game last week. Lots of stress this week, as things went from bad to worse with my mom. Last Wednesday, she was moved from the assisted living facility (which does not accept Title 19) to her new nursing home. She immediately began to have fits of violence, putting both herself and her new roommate in danger. The nursing home had no choice but to send her to the E.R. and she was then brought to a specialized geriatric hospital where they are giving her counseling and adjusting her medications, as they think the balance was off.

Now her meds have been adjusted and she is doing better, much more like her old self. I made the decision, along with my dad’s friends and caregivers, that we would keep this information from my dad for the moment. He is visiting his BIL, who is dying of liver cancer, and does not need the stress of this information, particularly when there is nothing he can do to help (but he will stress over being helpless, too). It is likely that we will tell him soon, mainly because he will keep asking after my mom and he’ll ask specifics, like “how is she adjusting to the new place” and such. I am also worried that he’ll call the new place to check on her and find out she’s not there. So, since she’s doing better now, we’ll probably tell him what happened. He’ll still worry about things he can’t control, as that’s his way, but there’s nothing I can do about that.

At any rate, between the extra stress of Mom’s situation, once more having to lie to a parent, making sure Dad got his tickets and got to the airport okay (making arrangements, as I live 1200 miles away from my folks), being on the phone nearly constantly with the new hospital since I wanted to be put as the contact person to keep Dad in the dark for now, and all of my usual life’s craziness, writing has been forced to the back seat. I have to keep my phone on and by my side constantly, even overnight, lest the hospital needs to get hold of me in an emergency, so there is no “turn off the phone and disappear from the world while I bang out a thousand words” for me right now. Soon.

I am writing this part (and finished the last 100 words I needed for this week’s count) at 6:30 in the morning, on a morning when my teen is home sick with a cough he’s been fighting for a week, so we’ll be off to the clinic later, too. I have to be by my phone and computer until noon, as it’s order day in my sales business and I will have last minute orders from customers, as well as from new reps that are in my group.

It’s no wonder I can’t seem to get even the 250/day done when my pockets of time are under constant threat of being invaded by phone calls. And I have always subscribed to the theory that people are both psychic and mean—I’ll have no phone calls for hours on end while I run errands that need to be run or do chores around the house. The moment I sit down to write, that’s when the phone rings. So I will be very glad when Mom is settled and I am able to resume a bit of normalcy—not just for me, but for her and my dad, too. They need to find their new normal, without living with each other. We have two more hurdles to go—one when Mom returns to the nursing home and the second when she finds out that is her new permanent home.

Long story short (too late!), I did manage to make the 1750 for the week, but just barely. This week, I have to really buckle down and work on the contest entries. I have just a little over a week to finish and return them. Today’s agenda includes transcribing the notes for the two I’ve already judged and getting them back to the judges so they don’t get them all en masse, from me, at least. I also want to finish the third one and get that transcribed and returned and get started on the fourth. Oh, they’re 25 pages each, by the way, not 20. Whoops! Yes, this is on top of the other stuff and trying to get in 250 words of writing to count toward next week’s goal.

At any rate, your prompt and vocab word.

Vocab: execrable: extremely bad or unpleasant.

Prompt: You live in paradise. What could be so bad?

Weight:

This week has been a struggle with weight, too. Staying on track amidst all that stress when I’m dying to stress eat and binge on pasta and bread has been difficult. Exercising when all I want to do is curl up in a ball and pretend the world doesn’t exist has also been a struggle. On the up side, my monthly has traipsed out the door for the time being.

This week did see me hit two new lows and that is a first since all of this drama with my parents kicked into high gear at the end of February. This despite skipping exercise one day and loading up on bread one evening.

I did try to eat a little better most days, spacing my meals out and eating things (and being filled up by them) that I did not think I would normally. For example, one morning, I had granola and fruit for breakfast. Another day, I had peanut butter on a toasted wheat thin roll with cantaloupe for breakfast. Lunch was just a tuna sandwich on one of the thin wheat rolls (not so unusual, just unusual that it would fill me up), another day, it was just a baked sweet potato with homemade cinnamon butter—the unusual thing were the smaller amount of butter that I used and the fact that I ate the skin, too. Last night’s dinner was steamed fish and broccoli, along with brown rice; I don’t usually eat that much broccoli (at least a good cup, cup and a half) and I don’t usually eat it without it dripping in cheese sauce.

I had no snack last night, as I was so exhausted that I took a nap at 7:00 and didn’t wake up until nearly 9:00. Naturally, there were four important messages on my phone and I had to return phone calls until after 9:30. See? Psychic and mean. I watched a little TV to bring my brain back to calm (comatose, whatever—why mince words?), then tried to write a bit, but my brain was too far gone by that point and my body was crying out to go back to sleep. I think I’m fighting a bit of this same cold that’s been plaguing the teen.

Well, to finish, here is my check-in for the day. A new low--third one this week! See you all soon!

Mysterious Monday: the Goddess

Religion is a central or at least very important part of many people’s lives. Nowadays, most religions are patriarchal, or centered on a male deity, but such was not always the case. In ancient times, most people worshiped some sort of female deity, often referred to as a sort of “Mother Goddess”.

Image by Itwasn'tme101 on DeviantArt

Sometimes, this goddess was the head of the religion and was accorded all the respect that is now given to male deities. At other times, the female deity was given equal billing to her “kingly” husband—rarely was she ever considered to have second seat to him, unless, like many wives of today, she just let him think he was in charge. She was the female to his male, the white to his black, the yin to his yang, the peace to his violence.

Mother goddesses permeate many religions, even today. The Mother Goddess, who is sometimes referred to as the Great Goddess, is the central deity of Wicca, a nature religion with deep roots in the past. In this religion, she is often seen as a three-part deity—Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Virgin Mary, while not a goddess, is often worshipped and prayed to just as a goddess would be, as the mother of the Christ, who could technically be classified as a demi-god.

Triple Goddess by benu-h on DeviantArt

Why this fascination with female deities, though? I personally believe that it has a lot to do with reproduction. Until the last couple of centuries, reproduction was a mystery. I’m sure that the ancients knew that it took a male’s “essence” to impregnate a woman, but for that load of cum to merge with the female and become a living, breathing human being—that was the mystery. Women not only grew the child within their bodies, they brought them into the world in pain and blood (which also have mysteries and religions associated with them—pain transcending a person out of their bodies and blood being such a huge component of life itself). Once the child emerged from the female’s body, she then was the one to keep it alive, using the milk of her breasts.

Men, beyond the first “donation” were not welcome to participate in these events, nor were they likely interested in them. Even today, many men are squeamish about watching their mate give birth—oddly, it’s often the same men who will go hunting and gut an animal with hardly a thought. And so the whole process was given a mystic pedestal to stand upon.

For a time, patriarchal religions ruled the world. Even these days, they are the norm rather than the exception. But the Mother is nothing if not patient (and occasionally short-tempered, but mostly patient). Like water weathering a shoreline to create a new delta, she carries on, eroding as she builds, perhaps not noticed but never able to be completely ignored. More and more people are turning back to some of the old religions, to the old ways, and opening their hearts to the Mother once more, particularly when they find out she is not the evil that she has been portrayed as.

Blessed be.

Winning the Powerball, Part II

Last week, I did a little dreaming, wondering what I would spend the money on if I won the $32.5 million Powerball. But five things was not nearly enough for what I would like to do with that sort of money, and so, as I thought I would last week, I am writing Powerball, Part II this week. With last week’s “spending”, I should have about $12 million or so left.

1.  I’ve been reading a lot about investing for the future lately. With all that my parents have had to go through with “spending down” to qualify for Title 19, you might find this surprising. My parents had a modest little nest egg of under $150,000 socked away for a rainy day. Unfortunately, it poured on them. Even if it hadn’t, $150,000 is not nearly enough to last through a retirement should things go south.

 I would take $4 million and set it aside in investments of various kinds--$2 for hubby & I, $1 for each of the boys. By the time we retire in 30 years, that amount could reach amazing numbers. I used a Roth IRA calculator just to figure an approximate value. If we were to put just $2 million of the $32 million aside, we could have some very golden Golden Years. That investment alone (if you can invest that much in a Roth—I don’t know; I’m just learning about this stuff), would generate a balance of over $5 million and allow us to withdraw $329,000 annually to “live on” when we retire.

Giving that money to the teen would generate just over $9,900,000 by the time he “retires”, allowing him to withdraw over $613,000 annually. The 12 year-old would start his retirement with over $12,600,000 and be able to withdraw over $783,000 annually for living expenses. Makes me wish I had that kind of money right now.

2.  I have loved horses since before I could say the word. Some of my earliest memories are of horses—the Clydesdale that stepped on my foot when I was four and instead of freaking out, I pushed against his leg and he moved. “No big deal, Mommy,” I declared to my frantic mother. The Shetland that I won in a raffle and we couldn’t afford to keep when I was about six; the Arabian filly that I was given for free and we couldn’t afford to transport, let alone board when I was thirteen (Dad put the kibosh on my riding her from New Hampshire to Connecticut, and at the time, I had no idea why).

At any rate, I would get myself a small stable—mainly comprised of “rescue” horses and Arabians. The rescue horses because I could help them, the Arabians for showing and riding. The actual number of animals would fluctuate, but I would have a dozen stalls in the barn. I would have paddocks and trails for riding.

3.  Vehicles. My hubby is a vehicle nut. I would buy at least two or three “fun cars”—the ones you only use to race at the track (not professionally, of course) or to go off-roading in. For myself, I would probably buy an old Mustang (circa 1966) or a Monte Carlo SS (the ones with the straight back window, not the bubbled one), and possibly, just maybe, I might splurge and buy myself a Bughatti Veyron. I love speed and power.

Hubby could finally get his Jeep, and his Subaru BRZ (although with more cash flow, he may change his “dream cars”.

4.  Businesses. I would buy a couple of businesses. Our kids have always been X-sports types. BMX-ing, air-softing, parqour, whatever it is, you can be sure it’s not a mainstream sport with my kids. Well, not mainstream is frowned upon in our society.

One business I would have is to open parks around the country where kids could go and participate in these sports. The very basics would be free, but if they wanted more advanced stuff (mil-sims for the air-softing, for example), there would be a different area and a small fee. They could rent the equipment. There would be food and drink and a place for Mom & Dad for the littler kids.

I would also like to open a combo book store/internet café. I know books are going out of style, but by combining it with the café as a nostalgic place to meet, it could be a viable business. I know Barnes & Noble already does this, but I want my own place—someplace where authors, both famous and local, could come and meet the people, have book-signings, and where those who were illiterate could come to learn to read (offered as a service).

Finally, I would open up a line of non-snooty, just sensible, healthy food restaurants. That does not mean I would be serving the lawn up as a beverage or a main course. I’m not into all that fois gras stuff. Just sensible—fruits and steamed veggies, along with baked, boiled, broiled, and steamed poultry and fish. Rice in many varieties would be offered. Steak and potatoes would also be served in my restaurant, but would cost a bit more. Everything would be fresh. There would be no soda, but water and fruit drinks and teas. I might have Gordon Ramsey come in and prepare a signature dish or two for the place.

5.  I can’t think of any other material things that I could do with the money, and so I will put the final thing as volunteering. With my current schedule of work and kids and work and hubby and work and parents and work and writing and work, I am unable to give any more of myself without coming apart. I would love to volunteer somewhere—a nursing home, an animal shelter, somewhere like that, to give back to the community.  

Oh, and a caveat about the donating money section from last week—on thinking about it, I would very likely just put money aside into an investment account for each place that I wanted to donate to and give them the interest every year, perhaps setting it up as a trust or something. That way, instead of a one-time donation of, say, $500,000, I could give them maybe 5%-10% of that every year for the life of the investment. At 5%, that would only be $25,000 per year, but in the long run, they would receive more. Does that make sense?

At any rate, I think I’m out of money. Hope those businesses do well!

Wednesday Check-in

So this week’s check in has some positive news. First, in writing:

This week, I was able to get two of my six contest entries judged. If I can keep on that schedule, I’ll get them all done in time. Despite adding the judging to my already hectic RL, I was somehow able to knock out 2451 new words, including 148 words in a new erotic short. I was also able to keep up on my blog entries, as well as editing and adding some things to my WordPress blog. Last Wednesday evening, I participated in my first chat on Savvy Authors in months, and last Saturday was my RWA meeting. So lots of writing related stuff going on this week. Bear in mind that my word count does not reflect any of the blog writing. The blog writing adds another 2022, nearly doubling the word count; if you include this one, that count goes to 3095, making the total word count for the week (writing related, not including blog responses, ‘cause, let’s not get stupid, here) a whopping 5546.

Most of my writing was actually done in Word at the computer, but just the other day, my newly-employed teen, Mr. Big Bucks, went out and got the smart phone that we said he could get when he had a job. Since they were BOGO, I got mine finally, too, at long last entering the modern age. My phone is a Nokia, a Windows phone, and once I figure it out, I should be able to use Office right from the phone. That will come in handy for those days when I forget my notebook and wind up waiting for one of the kids. The cool thing is, worst case scenario, I can always text myself with a scene—the texting has voice recognition and I may see if there’s a way the Office app can have it, as well. Perhaps I can even find one of those roll-up wireless keyboards that might sync with it—that would be awesome!

At any rate, it’s good to be writing again, even if it’s not every day and even if some might consider those numbers minute. I know some people who are doing a 750 a day challenge, others who write thousands of words a day, either in a setting like Camp NaNo or just as a general rule. For me, with my current life craziness, I prefer the 250; if I go over, I can feel accomplished instead of constantly feeling depressed about not making the higher numbers.

Life may be settling down for a bit now (knock wood), as Mom was brought to her new home yesterday, and my father is nearly done spending down to meet the requirements of his Title 19. We’ll know more when he returns from visiting his dying BIL, an uncle who is dear to me despite my never having had the chance to meet him.

Prompt: You are torn from your own time into another (future or past). When and where are you? Tell us what happens.

Vocab: Temporal: Having to do with time.

Weight:

This has been a really bad week as far as keeping track has gone. I have gone for days at a time without logging in to MyFitnessPal or logging my exercise, but not my food. Hubby came home from his vacay Sunday night. With fudge. Luckily, most of it was nutty fudge and I prefer either plain or flavored (peanut butter, maple) fudge. Also, my Monthly Monster, who was absent for the past few months, returned first thing Monday morning (welcome home, honey!), bringing with her all the chocolate, sweets, pasta and bread cravings en masse. Rotten little bitch.

At any rate, I have kept up on the exercise, despite the exhaustion of too many late nights followed by too many early mornings; the only day I did not exercise that I should have was Saturday, when I decided to sleep in before my RWA meeting. I wanted to be awake for the meeting, plus I had to leave early to pick up one of my other “sons” at the train station and bring my own kid to work as well as picking him up after midnight. So I knew I was in for a long day—an extra hour of sleep didn’t seem like much to ask at that point.

So there is what greeted me on the scale this morning—not the lowest my weight has been; it’s been a super-struggle since I returned from Connecticut and all the stress of that situation. However, it is a two pound loss from last week. I think what I need to do is just hunker down for the next couple of weeks to break this high-190s barrier. So I will get my butt back to logging every morsel of food that passes into my mouth. I will begin adding to my calisthenics and upping the treadmill time. 

This morning, I spent a full hour on the treadmill, as well as logging extra calisthenics. I did all 40 of my sit-ups at once, without stopping. I got the butterfly kicks done in two sets of 20 instead of four sets of 10. I added five regular push-ups and fifteen easy push-ups. I added a set of butterfly leg stretches and bent knee forward bends to my single set of ten. I added an additional set of ten each of my weight lifting (two pound weights, no bench required). I added twenty jumping jacks that hubby would be most upset to have missed if he knew (he’s such a perve).

The cali routine as of today:

One set of 5 knee bent back stretches.

One set of 5 straight leg back stretches.

One set of 40 sit ups.

Two sets of 20 butterfly kicks.

Two sets of 10 side leg lifts.

Three sets each of 5 normal push-ups followed by 15 easy push-ups (so 5/15, 5/15, 5/15).

(Three diamond push-ups, just for shits and giggles & to see if I could.)

Two sets of 10 butterfly leg stretches.

Two sets of 10 bent leg forward stretches.

Three sets of 10 each: front curls, side raises, side to front curls (arm exercises, done with two pound weights).

One set of 20 windmills.

Two sets of 10 jumping jacks.

Five single sets of alternating child pose and cobra pose to stretch my back and cool down.

Mysterious Monday: My Muse

I often talk with my friends about my muse—the amount and quality of my writing is directly proportional to her presence. When she is around and in writing mode, I can get thousands of words written; just check out my NaNoWriMo wins (2 for 2). When she is not around, the words simply do not come. But who or what is a muse?

The muses were the ancient Greek goddesses of the arts & sciences. They were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. One odd thing I found , though, in researching these goddesses, was that there was not a muse of story-telling, per se. Calliope is the closest, as the muse of epic poetry and sometimes also of eloquence.

Clio was the muse of historical poetry, Eratos the muse of love poetry. Any one of these three could be said to be behind my own inspiration, along with maybe Urania, the muse of astronomy. I say this because I write historical as well as science fiction romance.

At the moment, my muse is being flighty. One day she’s here, giving me plenty of writing ammo, the next, she’s nowhere to be found. Yesterday, I had plenty of time to write, but my eyes were so sore and I spent most of the day in a state of physical and mental exhaustion, to the point that this blog entry was all that I was able to produce, with effort. Despite a nap and taking ibuprofen, I was unable to get over the heaviness of my eyelids and the sheer exhaustion. 

Saturday, I was only able to fit in about 150 words in an erotic short. The only thing I could think of that was different from the previous week was that I did not exercise this week-end. I’ve also been waiting up for my teen to get out of work, sometimes as late as midnight, and still getting up between 5:30 & 6:00 in the morning.

This week, my husband is back home and so I will not have to burn the candle at both ends as much. I am hoping that the increase in sleep hours to something resembling human normal will tempt Miss Muse back into the fold. If not, then I will try some exercises that I’ve read about, starting with re-reading and editing a bit of one of my finished stories.

All I need to get back on track and catch up with the Little Bites Challenge is an additional 656 words. I am going to include any side writing, so long as it’s fiction, so in actuality, I only have 508 to go since I am including the erotic short. Just over 500 words if Miss Muse is around is nothing, really. Despite the rest of my life that is whirling around me like the Tasmanian Devil in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Wish me luck—see you all Wednesday!

Five for Friday: If I won the Power Ball/Lottery

This week, the Power Ball is an estimated 31.4 million dollars. After taxes. Dear lord! Hubby and I played it last time, something we don’t normally do. Obviously, we lost. But it did get me to thinking of what I would do with all that money.

First, I’d pay off all of my debt. All of it—house, cars, credit cards, the whole kit and caboodle. Boring? Perhaps, but I’d love to know what it feels like to live debt free. That would leave me with approximately $31.2 million left.

I would then set my parents up in the swankiest nursing home/retirement village I could find. Nursing home for Mom, retirement village for Dad; the sad fact is that they will never be able to live together again, so they might as well each be extremely comfortable. This could leave me at only $30 million or so, depending on the yearly cost and how long they each live.

I would donate probably around $5 million to charities—Alzheimer’s research, diabetes, heart disease, Wounded Warriors, or whatever else I wanted to. Thereafter, I would likely volunteer and/or give some interest income each year to a charity or two or three.

With $25 million left, I would buy a mansion or two. I would have a beautiful old farm house in a small town in New England, and a cabin in the Rocky Mountains.

Lastly, I would take trips. For some, I’d bring the kids—and their new private tutors—along; for others, it’d be just hubby & I. I’d go to Ireland and England and Wales and Scotland; Italy and Greece and Germany and Switzerland; Australia and New Zealand and probably anywhere and everywhere else.

Mind, there’s a lot more I would do, too, living off the interest income, but this is “Five for Friday” not “Six” or “Seven” or “Name a number”. Have a lovely week-end, all! See you next week! Who knows? Maybe it'll be Powerball, Part II. 

Wednesday Check-in

Hi all!

I know I’ve been absent for the past couple weeks. It has been a struggle for me to get back into the swing of things. The good news is, Mom goes to a home this week, and Dad is nearly done with the spend-down, which will help him qualify for Medicaid. My dad is not a rich man, but the government decrees that he has to spend half of his carefully squirreled away savings & investments or they won’t pay for my mom’s care. Weird, eh? This does relieve a lot of the stress that was giving me fits of writer’s block. While my stress still remains (who among us doesn’t have stress and can we trade lives for a few days?), my mind is beginning to clear of the cobwebs of worry for my parents. I know people who have written through the deaths of their parents and, like those women who can work full-time, cook gourmet meals, keep a clean house, and pursue a doctorate degree while raising happy, healthy children and keeping their mates satisfied, I just don’t get it. I applaud them, but I will never be one of those people. As my teen says, “Mom, you’re a worrier.” Worry leads to stress which leads to a lack of sleep which leads to a foggy brain. And weight gain.

For some reason, the picture is not loading, so I'll just tell you the number and add the picture later if it allows me to. I am up to 199.0 again.

Yup. I gained this week. I haven’t seen that number in a couple of months now. I can only blame the stressful past month so much on this one. In all honesty, I gained because I was not careful in my eating. I went back to old, bad habits, and didn’t track my eating so I could ignore the elephant in the room, no fat jokes against myself intended. I ate pasta like the world was ending tomorrow. I ate candy—stupid peanut butter cup Easter eggs. I ate a third of a loaf of French bread on my own. I ate often. I ate late at night. I ate from boredom in the few spates of time I had where I should have been writing or relaxing. Wrong choices, and lots of them, all contributed to my weight gain. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that I kept exercising, through it all. The other good news is that I can come back from this. I feel no need to throw out the baby with the bath water and toss my diet into the trash can. What I do feel is the need to re-set, to start over again. And this is something we can all easily do when it comes to this sort of thing. The past is the past, the future is not yet written; what I do now is what counts. So, I am going to heave myself back onto the wagon of healthier eating and let’s see if I can’t bring some more weight loss back to this blog next week.

As to writing, I have written a grand total of 25 words this month! Go, me! All right, not so great by any standards. I have re-set myself for the writing, as well, and a brand new Little Bites Challenge is now open for April. Those who wish to participate, the goal for the month is 7500 words, which is the 30 days of April multiplied by the 250 words per day. For me to catch up, I will need to write 725 words today, which is doable if I set my mind to it.

I now have received my (six!) twenty page each entries to judge for my local RWA's writing contest which must be completed by the end of the month (the 27^th to be exact). This definitely adds to my overflowing plate, but I am glad to do it.

At the moment, I am exhausted (it’s quarter past 10 in the morning and I’ve already been awake for longer than I slept last night), so I’m going to leave you with your prompt and vocab word and meander off for a 15 minute or so nap.

Prompt: Cinderella in Space. Re-tell the classic fairy tale in a sci-fi setting.

Vocab: Vacuum: A lack of air. (While not a very unusual word, it is often misspelled and is appropriate to the prompt.)

See you all soon!