Saturday, June 23, 2012

A Bit of A Better Week

I think some things went a little better this week.  We'll see.

The Good Stuff:

- I tracked on WW and still had a few activity points left after the week was through, so a good start.
- No more of my soft drinks remain in the house (may be a couple left down in SA).  I've been drinking tea and water this week.  Made sun tea twice (and hubby even had a glass -- I told him he's welcome to it anytime; without mentioning I was using green tea bags for half of it -- he just thinks it's a little weak).
- I skipped the fries or onion rings the last two times we went out for burgers -- one time in SA last week, and this week at The Ranch.  Burger and dinner salad is quite a good combo.
- I'm going to try to use the tips Stephen posted last week for my anti-inflammatory plans.  I've consumed a lot more fruits this week -- strawberries, blueberries, and bananas.  Grapes are still in the fridge for probably today.
- I got a little work done on PBOTL, but I don't think I'm capturing Inuit's voice.  I think I need to read back a little ways to try to catch her voice.  I suspect the work I did will be like knitting -- I think I'll be ripping out a few rows to get it back on track.
- I sat down and put together a blog schedule for both blogs.  It's exhausting to look at it, so it may be a touch too ambitious.
-- Monday: Randomly generated topic (1st & 3rd); Something Positive (2nd &4th); Photo
-- Tuesday: Current Focus; Cats (1st); Book Review (2nd); House Update (3rd); Tech Stuff (4th)
-- Wednesday: Gratitude; Word of the Week
-- Thursday: Twit Topic
-- Friday: Something Positive (1st and 3rd); Focus on Health (2nd and 4th);
-- Saturday: Imagination Prompt
-- The 14th: World History Update from Durant Reading
-- The 19th: Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour for FM
- That's probably too much, isn't it?  When I blog regularly, traffic is up at the blog. 6 people instead of zero, so it's still really only for me.  I'm going to see how this goes in July.  Some adjustment may be in order.
- Got a lot of sanding done on the house.
- Ms Peach has been planted in the ground, and she looks very happy there.  Mr Fig is still growing happily as well.
- Kitchen is looking better
- Meal planning and grocery shopping carried out
- Neighbor says he'll stop by with his shiny new shredder and chew up my stick pile.  I hope I'm here when he does. I want to see the beast in action (it has a six cylinder Cat diesel engine on it -- wow).  Sadly, he sold his old one -- for more than twice what he offered it to us for, so I can't blame him.  Just wasn't a good time for us.  Darn.

The Not So Good Stuff:

- I've tracked points well, but Oreos have not been safe.  I'm not sure what benefit I get from dropping soft drinks if I compensate with the sugar in Oreos (not purposefully, but that's my guess as to why Oreos have become irresistible).  On the other hand, if I consume two six packs of Oreos, I'm not ALSO comsuming a bag of chips.  There might be something to that.
- I did not get to the recumbent bike this week, because I didn't go to the shop.  I need to go to the shop to clean windows and sweep the sidewalk.  Maybe I'll get there.
- I'm very unhappy with my knee and thumb flexibility.  I'm not sure what to do about it.  I made a point not to whine to my doctor about it at the beginning of the month, but I think I'll ask the VA when I go next week just to see what resources they might have that could help.  I don't want medication.  Yes, losing weight will help, but it won't do it all.


The Week Ahead:

- Continue tracking for WW
- Work on PBOTL
- Schedule as many blog posts as possible.  Now that I've committed to it, I need find the most efficient way to produce the posts. (Yes, it's an exercise in regular, disciplined writing.)
- Continue looking for ways to make what I consume less inflammatory and lower in carbohydrates.
- Do more sanding on the back of the garage -- my goal is to complete this task (about half done).
- Get to the shop and squeegee the windows, sweep the sidewalk, and ride the bike.

6 comments:

Wendy said...

It does sound like you had a better week! If nothing else, the tone is more optimistic. I'm sorry about the flexibility issue. Perhaps the anti-inflammatory foods will help with that? Maybe?

The blogging schedule does seem very ambitious, but you're right, it's an exercise in regular writing.

Jean said...

I have two posts prepped and scheduled. I'm struggling with the random prompt -- The Wright Brothers. I think I'm going to use it as an opportunity to do some short fiction instead of actually talking about the real Wright Brothers (anybody can look that up on Wikipedia if they want--they don't need me to be the middleman).

I think the current events and the Twit post will need to be written a little closer to the posting date, but most of the other stuff can be written well in advance and scheduled.

Tammy Jones said...

Mostly that sounds pretty good! How'd you decide on your blog topics? Do you want a 'blogging buddy'?

Jean said...

I'd be happy to have a blogging buddy if there's anything in that list that looks interesting to you, feel free to take it and join in.

Here's the creativity prompt link: http://www.creativity-portal.com/prompts/imagination.prompt.html

Here's the random word link: watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx

Here's the Blog Topic Generator link: http://www.blogtap.net/blogtopicgenerator/

As for how I decided, I thought about what I'd tended to post on in the past. I thought about my interests. Then I thought about some things I wanted to focus on -- like gratitude and positive postings. It's easy to go negative, but I want to put forth a more positive outlook and take on life.

Once I had some general ideas, I considered how often I wanted to post for each topic. I think I have too ambitious of a schedule right now, so I anticipate I'll make some adjustments over the next month. Those adjustments will result in a less ambitious schedule, but I want something more regular than the couple times a month posting I've been doing lately.

I'm thinking I may have too much on current events (but my intent is to let this range from personal to local, to national, to international events, so the topic is intentionally broad). Maybe word of the month would be better than a weekly word. I'm not sure. That kind of stuff. What do you think?

Clearly, our personal interests are divergent -- you, I'm sure, might want a quilting post or two. Maybe something on active seven-month olds. The idea is to present the full range of me but not so much ME that it's boring. I'd like to generate some thought and discussion, but I don't really want to be controversial (I'd rather not attract trolls). My mom reads, so I want to keep her in the loop for generic things we're doing.

I'm rambling.

Tammy Jones said...

We starting on the 1st?

Jean said...

I'm kicking off Monday, the 2nd. I put it in an iCal calendar. I wonder if I can export that and email it to you. Let me try.

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