Week 48

Just skipping down the bunny trail.  Zippity do dah.  Zippity day.  My, oh my what a wonderful day.

Okay.  Enough of this damn levity.  Bah humbug!

The real answer is somewhere in the middle.  Not exactly the median or even the mean, but on a sliding scale.  Hello, everyone.  It's December, and Texas is having joyously chilly weather.  Anything below 90 degrees Fahrenheit has me happier.  I'm babbling.  Stop. It.


Writing.  Since I haven't done any  this week, I'll just use the generic term.  I know where my Polar Bear on the Loose stuff is -- in a bag here beside the desk.  I can probably get away with ignoring it and blaming that on the post-NaNo malaise for the rest of the year.  Come January, I'm going to have to buckle down and do something about it.  I signed up for the Loose Ends Marathon on FM with hopes I'll at least crack it open and know where to go from here before the end of the month.  I don't think that's too much to ask from myself.

Web Stuff.  I finished my Artisteer review for Vision, and Margaret has it now.  I should know fairly soon if she'll accept it -- most likely with some minor adjustments, or if she thinks it's hideous and it needs major flaying.  I generated a nice Blogger theme for my PBOTL blogger site, but I can't get it to work.  Pout.


Pets.  Millie has her coats.  They fit her fine, and she's worn them a few mornings.  She even took it off the other day.  I guess she was too warm.  I bought her a bed to keep her isolated from the chill of the porch floor when she's outside and for a place to call her own when we bring her inside.  She loves it.  She's chewed the corner already.  Sigh.  So much for that orthopedic foam.

The cats are their usual selves.  I don't think there's anything new to report for them.

Property.  This was the week hubby decided to work on rehabbing the skylights.  We have four at the shop.  They need to be wire brushed, prepped with rust inhibitor, and painted with two coats of aluminum paint.  Then, hubby has new copper strips and new sheet metal strips (custom made and bent on his sheet metal bender) to use to hold down the glass panels and shed water.  We've done most of that for one skylight.  The end panels and vents need to be rehabbed, and a flap system implemented to allow us to close the vent off or open for ventilation. 
These are industrial skylights, and the original glass panels are glass with chicken wire inside.  You can't get that anymore.  It's illegal (for safety reasons).  Some of our glass panels were bad -- two have sheet metal panels inserted.  We bought ten Lexan panels (there are ten panels per skylight), and they are in the far back skylight.  We have eight good original glass panels from this skylight, and we have at least six bad panels on the other skylights, so as we rehab those skylights, we'll replace the bad panels from the inventory of these eight panels.  I was originally thinking each skylight would take four days to rehab, but it's looking more like seven or eight now.  I love these skylights, though, so I'm looking forward to getting them all rehabbed.  Hubby does most of the work.  I'm the go-fer.  My knees are killing me from the ladder climbing.

Health.   I had my semi-annual doctor check up this week.  Other than him being disappointed that I hadn't lost any weight from my last visit, he was satisfied. 

My blood pressure is lower, and my tracking at home has shown it to be lower as well.  The improvement is enough that he mentioned when I can get the top number down to 110, he'll begin backing off on my blood pressure medication (it's hovering in the mid-one-teens now). 

Blood tests were generally better.  The only thing I don't like is blood glucose is has crept up to 100 from the 95 it had been for years.  On a bright note, in June, it was 102, so I'll take 100 over that.

As a side note, triglycerides are always a problem for me.  I started taking fish oil a year ago, and the results weren't significant in June.  However, my VA nurse practitioner mentioned there's no upper limit on fish oil.  Try doubling your dosage, so I did, and my trigs have dropped 20 points from June to now.  Maybe it's the fish oil. 

I saw the podiatrist on Monday.  There's still a small crack in the bone of my foot, so he recommended I continue the ultrasound treatments for two more months, but I don't need to come back unless there's a problem.

I'm maintaining weight and riding the bike 2-3 days per week in addition to the other stuff I'm doing.  I'm not mentally in the game, though, so maybe I need to re-read The Mouth Trap.

Other.  I've mentioned I'm looking for an off-line solution for 750words.com.  I found the program I'm going to use this week.  It's nothing like 750words but does some of the things I like.  Chonories.  It's a Mac-only program.  If the diary entry area had a toggle-able word count feature, I'd be mostly thrilled.  It's a combination between user generated and pulled data from the computer.  For instance, once I installed it and decided to get it, I cancelled my Rescue Time account.  It automatically logs the programs I use and the websites I visit.  It doesn't do the nifty analysis of rescue time, but I wasn't really looking at it either.  But at a glance, I can tell Facebook, Amazon, Fleetly, and FMWriters are my top four sites for today.  Do I need much more analysis than that?

To me, the program (I guess app is the new term, isn't it?), needs four things to be completely ideal:
1) A toggle-able word count feature in the title bar of the diary entry section
2) Configurable sections.  For instance, the ability to track weight and exercise would be nice.  It has a built in Places and Weather section, so that's covered.  Other users and I have both mentioned we'd like this.  Right now, I have to accept the default list of items.  Thankfully, I can customize the order in which they appear on my screen, so I can put the ones I don't care about or which have no use to me at the bottom.
3) The ability to share the database between computers.  They are supposed to be working on a cloud solution of sorts, but they say a Dropbox solution isn't technically feasible.  I believe I can export the database and import it into another computer.  That would be tedious, but it should work.  And, I believe other people are exporting the database to Dropbox (which makes it easy to get).  I'm getting ready to try it, but I haven't yet.
4) An iPad and iPhone implementation (to make entries while on the go easier).

I downloaded the trial (I tried several other programs as well, but I didn't like them).  Once I knew I wanted it, I purchased it from the App Store, and the App Store neatly installed over the trial version (it did ask before doing so).  This will make it easy to install on the Air.  For people who don't like that they can't do trials from the App Store, I recommend they click the link in the app listing and see if the independent developer website offers a trial version (most do).  I usually can tell within minutes of installing the trial if I really want it, so I look for a fully functional time-limited trial.  It's a good idea to compare prices, license terms, and other items when deciding whether to purchase from the website or from the App Store.  For instance, I'll be maintaining my Scrivener licensing separately from the App Store.  I chose to get CyberDuck and HyperEdit from the App Store.  Your mileage may vary.