Saturday, July 28, 2012

Wendy's Week

Are you cooler today? We are, for right now, at least. By afternoon it will be scorching and the internet will be down again.

Good Stuff:
- Happy birthday to Alex (yesterday) and Eric (tomorrow).
- I'm giving contact lenses another try. I got them yesterday, and so far they feel pretty good. Focusing on small print is an issue, but that's because of my funky prescription. We're giving my brain a week to adjust, and the doc wants a follow up next week to tweak it if necessary.
- I broke 10,000 words this week. I'm thiiiiiiiiiis close to done. I think. The epilogue and the last part of the last scene are done and just need to be tied to the rest. The goal is to get that done this weekend.
- Eric finished is semester from hell. Last week, he was a stressed out mess. Today he's much happier. He's got two weeks off before the next semester starts.
- Did some research on low carb and primitive/paleo diets. The more I read, the more it makes sense to at least give it a try on a short term basis. Completely giving up grains for the rest of my life is too much for me to think about right now.
- Swam 5 days this week.
- Tomorrow my friend is doing my author photos, and then we're going to dinner to celebrate Eric's birthday. We picked the restaurant based on the Scotch list. :-)
- Divided my aloe so Vicky can take one to her new house.

Not So Good Stuff:
- I leave for Oregon two weeks from tomorrow. I'm SO not ready. Yes, I'm working diligently to become ready. The only thing that's kept me from cancelling (besides the airline tickets I already bought) is faith. The bottom line is I'm afraid of not being able to deliver a good finished product and blowing my big chance.
- It's been hot. And dusty. And the rain either dries up before it gets to us, or it goes south. I swear it's like being in south Texas again.
- The internet has been going down every afternoon. It's been hard to do research, and we've had techs out twice in two weeks. I think they've replaced every line between our house and the nearest office, but it still goes down when the temperature breaks 100*, which has been almost every afternoon for the last two weeks. It's getting really old, and I'm burning through the data plan on my phone. I wonder what Charter would do if I billed them for my AT&T overage?
- I think I've made a connection between carbs and sugar. (Besides the obvious.) When I eat a meal with a lot of carbs, particularly pasta or bread, I want a sweet dessert. If I limit the carbs, I don't crave sugar. While I'm glad to have made the connection, doing something about it will be tricky because carbs are a big part of my diet. I'm not sure if it would be better to make small changes over a long period of time, or just go cold turkey and gut it out. I'm leaning toward the small changes because they'll stick better, and I'm not in a health crisis. It's as much about vanity as health at this point. Well, that and avoiding a future health crisis.

This Week:
- Finish King Or Country.
- Start spit polishing the first three chapters.
- Do the pitch sheet.
- Swim at least 3 times. 5 would be better.
- Be aware of carbs. I'm not cutting back drastically until I get back from Oregon. I need to be on top of my game until then. Right now, I'll concentrate on making better choices.
- Figure out what to pack.
- Do something around the house that isn't writing related. Dishes, maybe, or laundry.

Have a good week, y'all!

4 comments:

Jean said...

Have you considered daily lenses? I switched to those after several years and was very happy to have done so. The beauty is, each day you put in a fresh set of lenses and throw them away when you go to bed at night. And, not cleaning hassles.

That internet going down every afternoon really stinks.

Stephen may have better advice, but I think gradual changes may work well for you as you shift away from carbs and sugar.

Best of luck as you prepare for the Oregon trip.

SBB said...

I went cold turkey on the carbs (that's actually a bit of wordplay there) but I tell you, it was tough. The first week I was exhausted and depressed so much so that I called my doctor about getting some "happy" meds. It was better the second week and so on, but it was tough. I think being able to taper off might be better, although carbs make your body crave carbs. Hence the dessert craving after a carb-heavy meal.

It's so weird that your Net goes down due to heat. I've been looking into that, but can't find a reason for that to be so.

Jean said...

I think there is a benefit of cold turkeying (hehehe) the carbs, because after a week or so, you really don't crave them any more, so they become much easier to stay away from (which also works with chocolate, she reminds herself). A gradual shift away might make that more difficult.

As a compromise, analyze your "problem" carbs -- the ones you don't really need that much but you either tend to eat too much of or contribute to wanting to eat things you've decided don't help you achieve your goals.

For instance, I've known for years the only reason I drink a soft drink is to facilitate snacking on chips and other salty snacks. This, of course, contributed to me eating too much of those things. Once I eliminated soft drinks, I'm not really interested in most of the salty snacks I used to eat way too much of. IF there is anything in the carb arena like this for you, you'll likely achieve big dividends by targeting them first.

Wendy said...

Ooh, good idea, Jean. I like that.

When I wore contacts years ago, I had the extended wear ones you could sleep in, but I never did. So far, the cleaning bit isn't a big deal. The ones I have last two weeks. The issue I'm having this time around isn't the lenses themselves, it's my prescription. My distance vision has gotten worse, and my near vision is shorter, so we're correcting each eye to be stronger in its weak area. I don't fully understand it. I just know that first thing in the morning I can't read small print, which is actually pretty hilarious. It's getting better each day.

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