Yesterday, I finished Ghost Targets: Expectation! Let there be fanfare and a parade in the streets. Or whatever.
And then, to be perfectly honest, I finished it again today. There were a couple scenes earlier in the book that became necessary by the end of the book, so I still have to go back and fill those in. But yesterday I finished chapter fifteen and got to write "The End." So that's what matters.
T-- picked up some Mazzio's for dinner, after going grocery shopping, and D-- came over to watch Heroes and Chuck with us. Honestly, that's the whole night. I finished a Hard difficulty Tournament in Demigod using an Assassin character for the first time, so that was fun.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Poker Night
Except for D--, we are all now married dudes and fathers -- those of us that are dudes at all, anyway -- and as a result we live kinda boring lives with little flexibility. Our wives, of course, have the same problem (with considerably more of their time tied up by the children, nonetheless), but they're smart enough to schedule events from time to get them out of the house. T--, for instance, organizes a monthly scrapbooking party at the church that runs from six to midnight.
A couple weeks ago D-- floated the idea that we should do something similar, for the dudes, since our old method was no longer really practicable (that is to say, one of us spontaneously deciding on a random Friday night to go to some bar and drink way too much, and then using coercion and peer pressure to get everyone else together). He proposed we do a poker night, of the cliche sort seen so often on TV and film. With fear and trembling we approached the various wives about the idea, and they all responded with enthusiastic support. Who knew?
So we did our first one Saturday night. My sister, easily the most enthusiastic of the wives, willingly offered up her house as a meeting place, and then she and her husband spent the afternoon at Wal-Mart (racking up quite a bill in the process) getting stuff together for our little party. Among other things, they bought a nice new poker table (felt top, raised border with inset cupholders). It's got room for ten, but could probably comfortably seat about six.
Then they spent a while setting up. When D-- and I showed up a little after six, my sister had all manner of snacks ready in the kitchen, including little smokies, some veggies and dip, chips and salsa, and brownies. I also brought over some Chex Mix, and some liquor to complement the soda they had chilling in the fridge.
My sister packed up her kids and took them over to my house for the evening, and K-- showed up at 6:30. We chatted for a bit and watched some of the NFL draft while K-- read up on the rules for Texas Hold'em that came with the poker set I'd brought over. My set only has 100 chips, which makes for a relatively small piles when it's divided four ways, and K-- predicted (quite accurately) that it would make for a pretty short game. We played through according to those rules, and it took about an hour and a half. Maybe a little less. I won, but that's neither here nor there.
After that we ate some pizza and my brother-in-law went in search of more chips, which essentially tripled the number we had and let us play a more nuanced game. We started another round, but K-- had to cash out at 10:00 because he had early-morning commitments on Sunday.
That left D-- and my brother-in-law, and the three of us played for nearly two hours before D-- lost out. Then Jeff and I spent another hour battling back and forth before the game finally ended. I won, but that's neither here nor there.
I think we'd all seen some Texas Hold'em on TV -- I know T-- and I watched all the Celebrity Poker Showdowns back when that show was on -- but none of us had really played and there were aspects of the game that didn't make sense to me until we started working through it. By the end of the night, we all four had a pretty good grasp on it. K-- and I were the only ones who really fully got the betting rules, but we were also the ones trying to figure it out. The other two just went with it and focused more on their hands.
We all agreed it was a great time. B-- and Toby both expressed interest in future Poker Nights, but neither was able to make it to this one. To be fair, they only got one day's warning, so that's more my fault than theirs.
Given that we are all of us gamers, it's unlikely we'll ultimately limit ourselves to just poker, but Poker Night sounds a lot more impressive than Tabletop Gaming Night, so we're going to stick with the little white lie. We've discussed playing Magic (D-- and my brother-in-law both have as much experience with that as I do, and the other three are all interested in it), Risk, and a...umm...strategic terrain-based combat simulation D-- owns called HeroScape. But we're calling it Poker Night.
I'm already really looking forward to the next one.
A couple weeks ago D-- floated the idea that we should do something similar, for the dudes, since our old method was no longer really practicable (that is to say, one of us spontaneously deciding on a random Friday night to go to some bar and drink way too much, and then using coercion and peer pressure to get everyone else together). He proposed we do a poker night, of the cliche sort seen so often on TV and film. With fear and trembling we approached the various wives about the idea, and they all responded with enthusiastic support. Who knew?
So we did our first one Saturday night. My sister, easily the most enthusiastic of the wives, willingly offered up her house as a meeting place, and then she and her husband spent the afternoon at Wal-Mart (racking up quite a bill in the process) getting stuff together for our little party. Among other things, they bought a nice new poker table (felt top, raised border with inset cupholders). It's got room for ten, but could probably comfortably seat about six.
Then they spent a while setting up. When D-- and I showed up a little after six, my sister had all manner of snacks ready in the kitchen, including little smokies, some veggies and dip, chips and salsa, and brownies. I also brought over some Chex Mix, and some liquor to complement the soda they had chilling in the fridge.
My sister packed up her kids and took them over to my house for the evening, and K-- showed up at 6:30. We chatted for a bit and watched some of the NFL draft while K-- read up on the rules for Texas Hold'em that came with the poker set I'd brought over. My set only has 100 chips, which makes for a relatively small piles when it's divided four ways, and K-- predicted (quite accurately) that it would make for a pretty short game. We played through according to those rules, and it took about an hour and a half. Maybe a little less. I won, but that's neither here nor there.
After that we ate some pizza and my brother-in-law went in search of more chips, which essentially tripled the number we had and let us play a more nuanced game. We started another round, but K-- had to cash out at 10:00 because he had early-morning commitments on Sunday.
That left D-- and my brother-in-law, and the three of us played for nearly two hours before D-- lost out. Then Jeff and I spent another hour battling back and forth before the game finally ended. I won, but that's neither here nor there.
I think we'd all seen some Texas Hold'em on TV -- I know T-- and I watched all the Celebrity Poker Showdowns back when that show was on -- but none of us had really played and there were aspects of the game that didn't make sense to me until we started working through it. By the end of the night, we all four had a pretty good grasp on it. K-- and I were the only ones who really fully got the betting rules, but we were also the ones trying to figure it out. The other two just went with it and focused more on their hands.
We all agreed it was a great time. B-- and Toby both expressed interest in future Poker Nights, but neither was able to make it to this one. To be fair, they only got one day's warning, so that's more my fault than theirs.
Given that we are all of us gamers, it's unlikely we'll ultimately limit ourselves to just poker, but Poker Night sounds a lot more impressive than Tabletop Gaming Night, so we're going to stick with the little white lie. We've discussed playing Magic (D-- and my brother-in-law both have as much experience with that as I do, and the other three are all interested in it), Risk, and a...umm...strategic terrain-based combat simulation D-- owns called HeroScape. But we're calling it Poker Night.
I'm already really looking forward to the next one.
Journal Entry: April 27, 2009
Last Thursday I got chapter thirteen finished over lunch, then went home and typed it up. I skipped my workout (haven't done anything since last Tuesday) because I'm having trouble with my knee. I took those four days off to rest it, and I'm going to start back with leisurely walks for a week before I get back to my high-intensity workout. Hopefully that'll be enough.
Anyway, I came back out of the office around six and T-- ran up to McDonalds to grab us some dinner. We spent the evening watching TV, and went to bed relatively early. Nothing really noteworthy.
Friday was my RDO, but I woke up early anyway. I've been working on that, trying to establish a real six o'clock habit. This time my goal was to get up before the rest of the family, lock myself in the office, and finish up my novel before I came out.
Unfortunately AB heard me getting ready, so I ended up on babysitting duty before I ever made it to the office. We played a little bit, and then I took her to the living room and started an episode of Word World for her. She sat on the couch next to me, in rapt attention, and I did half of chapter fourteen in my scribblebook.
T-- got up a bit before nine and we all had some breakfast, then she started getting AB ready for a trip to Guthrie and I finally headed to the office. At that point I was able to type up what I had and finish off chapter fourteen in about an hour and a half. It's the climax of the book, which is always the easiest chapter to write. After that comes the denouement, which is almost always the hardest, because by that point, as a writer, you've really already moved on.
Anyway, I finished my writing for the morning, emailed K-- to ask if he wanted to meet for lunch, and then I changed into some work clothes and went out to do some work in the yard. I put down some Turf Builder (weed killer plus grass seed) front and back, and then mowed the back yard before I heard back from K-- saying he was available but we'd have to make it quick.
So I ran up to Jersey Mike's and had a turkey club, spent some time chatting with K-- about Demigod, mostly, and then ran back home and mowed the front yard. Then I grabbed a shower, and by the time I was done T-- was back from Guthrie with AB.
I went ahead and played Demigod for a couple hours while AB slept, then came out spent some time with the family. At 6:00 T-- headed up to church for a Game Night with our small group, but I wasn't up to that. I watched AB instead. I'd planned to go to IHOP for dinner, but at the last minute I decided to just stay home. We had chili and crackers and watched VeggieTales, which AB really seemed to enjoy.
Saturday morning I woke up early again and watched AB again, this time while T-- went shopping garage sales with my little sister. She got home around 9:30 bearing breakfast, and after we'd eaten she took AB out to play in the back yard, so I went back to my office for some more Demigod. Around noon we headed to Taco Bell for lunch, then went to Homeland for some grocery shopping, then went home and put AB down for a nap.
While she was sleeping, T-- and I curled up on the couch and watched Twilight, which was precisely what I expected it to be.
Then I divided much of the rest of the afternoon between playing Demigod and coordinating plans for the evening by phone. Then around 5:30 D-- showed up and entertained AB for a bit before we headed over to my sister's place for Poker Night.
At which point we had Poker Night. I didn't get home until nearly 2:00 in the morning, and I promptly crashed.
Sunday morning I got up late and joined T-- at church about five minutes into the service. I got a couple pages written on chapter fifteen, and then we went to Carl's Jr. with K-- and N-- for lunch. That was fun, but AB is a real handful when we go out to eat. Still, we don't get to see enough of those guys these days, so it was well worth it.
Afterward AB went down for a nap and T-- went to the mall to do some shopping with N--. I played my game some, then emerged again when AB woke up and we played some games until T-- got home.
D-- came over around 5:30 and we drove up to Freddy's to grab some dinner for us all, then brought it back to the house to eat. After that we watched some TV while I played my game and D-- read some novel, and then somehow the day was done.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Anyway, I came back out of the office around six and T-- ran up to McDonalds to grab us some dinner. We spent the evening watching TV, and went to bed relatively early. Nothing really noteworthy.
Friday was my RDO, but I woke up early anyway. I've been working on that, trying to establish a real six o'clock habit. This time my goal was to get up before the rest of the family, lock myself in the office, and finish up my novel before I came out.
Unfortunately AB heard me getting ready, so I ended up on babysitting duty before I ever made it to the office. We played a little bit, and then I took her to the living room and started an episode of Word World for her. She sat on the couch next to me, in rapt attention, and I did half of chapter fourteen in my scribblebook.
T-- got up a bit before nine and we all had some breakfast, then she started getting AB ready for a trip to Guthrie and I finally headed to the office. At that point I was able to type up what I had and finish off chapter fourteen in about an hour and a half. It's the climax of the book, which is always the easiest chapter to write. After that comes the denouement, which is almost always the hardest, because by that point, as a writer, you've really already moved on.
Anyway, I finished my writing for the morning, emailed K-- to ask if he wanted to meet for lunch, and then I changed into some work clothes and went out to do some work in the yard. I put down some Turf Builder (weed killer plus grass seed) front and back, and then mowed the back yard before I heard back from K-- saying he was available but we'd have to make it quick.
So I ran up to Jersey Mike's and had a turkey club, spent some time chatting with K-- about Demigod, mostly, and then ran back home and mowed the front yard. Then I grabbed a shower, and by the time I was done T-- was back from Guthrie with AB.
I went ahead and played Demigod for a couple hours while AB slept, then came out spent some time with the family. At 6:00 T-- headed up to church for a Game Night with our small group, but I wasn't up to that. I watched AB instead. I'd planned to go to IHOP for dinner, but at the last minute I decided to just stay home. We had chili and crackers and watched VeggieTales, which AB really seemed to enjoy.
Saturday morning I woke up early again and watched AB again, this time while T-- went shopping garage sales with my little sister. She got home around 9:30 bearing breakfast, and after we'd eaten she took AB out to play in the back yard, so I went back to my office for some more Demigod. Around noon we headed to Taco Bell for lunch, then went to Homeland for some grocery shopping, then went home and put AB down for a nap.
While she was sleeping, T-- and I curled up on the couch and watched Twilight, which was precisely what I expected it to be.
Then I divided much of the rest of the afternoon between playing Demigod and coordinating plans for the evening by phone. Then around 5:30 D-- showed up and entertained AB for a bit before we headed over to my sister's place for Poker Night.
At which point we had Poker Night. I didn't get home until nearly 2:00 in the morning, and I promptly crashed.
Sunday morning I got up late and joined T-- at church about five minutes into the service. I got a couple pages written on chapter fifteen, and then we went to Carl's Jr. with K-- and N-- for lunch. That was fun, but AB is a real handful when we go out to eat. Still, we don't get to see enough of those guys these days, so it was well worth it.
Afterward AB went down for a nap and T-- went to the mall to do some shopping with N--. I played my game some, then emerged again when AB woke up and we played some games until T-- got home.
D-- came over around 5:30 and we drove up to Freddy's to grab some dinner for us all, then brought it back to the house to eat. After that we watched some TV while I played my game and D-- read some novel, and then somehow the day was done.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Journal Entry: April 23, 2009
Yesterday, at work, I officially got the sort-of-demotion that I mentioned last Tuesday. My supervisor took the other tech writer and me into a conference room, laid out the problem for me, and then we spent half an hour discussing exactly how it should be resolved. I'm basically stepping into the publication process to do a full review of every document she prepares, including all of the ones currently in process.
That's the ugly part. The next two months or so are going to be crushingly brutal while I try to get through the backlog of existing projects. Once that's done, reviewing her new projects will probably only add eight to ten hours a week to my schedule. Unfortunately, by that point I'll also be fully trained to do her job, which I see as a possible sleight of hand involved in this whole bit. I don't mind reviewing her projects, but at that point they could just as easily have me start working some of the projects through the system, and that becomes tens and hundreds of hours, not just eight. I don't want to mess with that.
But, y'know, it's their Administration. They can run it however they want.
I went to BWW for lunch, because I needed a break, and learned that my waitress has gotten another job, so she won't be there anymore. Lame! I mean, great for her, but lame.
My back has been hurting, too, almost as bad as last summer. My physical therapist said that when my back starts to hurt a little bit I walk differently to accommodate it, and that's what causes the real problems. So that explains why I'm having the same issues even though I haven't done anything resembling the sort of work that caused the original problem. That's really neither here nor there, but I figured, as long as I'm whining....
After work I got home to find my little sister with her two kids at the house. They were out in the back yard, playing with T-- and AB, so I slipped stealthily back to the bedroom without saying hi, and crashed on the bed. My brother-in-law showed up shortly, though, so I had to get up to let him in. I managed to avoid going outside, though. Small victories.
We had dinner at Qdoba, which is pretty much awesome. I've got a real appreciation for those chicken burrito bowls lately -- rice, beans, chicken, cheese, salsa, lettuce, and cilantro in a cheap plastic bowl. I get the same thing when I have lunch with D-- at Moe's. It's cheap, delicious, filling, and relatively healthy. Yay!
No, that was not a paid advertisement, but I did accidentally watch Biggest Loser last night, so you were well within your rights to wonder.
After dinner we went home, and I fetched the laptop out from the office so I could try out a new game, Demigod. It's fantastic. I recommend it highly. It consists of short matches (15-30 minutes) that feel like RTS battles, although you don't do anything like base management. Instead you're playing a hero tasked with killing the heroes on the enemy team, destroying their fortifications, or capturing and holding strategic locations ("flags," but the gameplay is what's usually called "king of the hill"). A given match will consist of getting a certain amount of points from one of those three things to win, but every match becomes a mixture of all three.
There are eight heroes to choose from. Half of them are assassins, capable of wading into the battle and murdering everything, and the other half are generals, who can summon 5-15 minions to do battle for them. Each of the heroes has its own skill tree, and you can level up and customize your hero's abilities through the course of the match.
I had fun. Ended up playing it from seven-thirty straight through to eleven. I really wanted to get some writing done last night, and didn't because of the game, but after the day I'd had, it was just the evening I needed.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
That's the ugly part. The next two months or so are going to be crushingly brutal while I try to get through the backlog of existing projects. Once that's done, reviewing her new projects will probably only add eight to ten hours a week to my schedule. Unfortunately, by that point I'll also be fully trained to do her job, which I see as a possible sleight of hand involved in this whole bit. I don't mind reviewing her projects, but at that point they could just as easily have me start working some of the projects through the system, and that becomes tens and hundreds of hours, not just eight. I don't want to mess with that.
But, y'know, it's their Administration. They can run it however they want.
I went to BWW for lunch, because I needed a break, and learned that my waitress has gotten another job, so she won't be there anymore. Lame! I mean, great for her, but lame.
My back has been hurting, too, almost as bad as last summer. My physical therapist said that when my back starts to hurt a little bit I walk differently to accommodate it, and that's what causes the real problems. So that explains why I'm having the same issues even though I haven't done anything resembling the sort of work that caused the original problem. That's really neither here nor there, but I figured, as long as I'm whining....
After work I got home to find my little sister with her two kids at the house. They were out in the back yard, playing with T-- and AB, so I slipped stealthily back to the bedroom without saying hi, and crashed on the bed. My brother-in-law showed up shortly, though, so I had to get up to let him in. I managed to avoid going outside, though. Small victories.
We had dinner at Qdoba, which is pretty much awesome. I've got a real appreciation for those chicken burrito bowls lately -- rice, beans, chicken, cheese, salsa, lettuce, and cilantro in a cheap plastic bowl. I get the same thing when I have lunch with D-- at Moe's. It's cheap, delicious, filling, and relatively healthy. Yay!
No, that was not a paid advertisement, but I did accidentally watch Biggest Loser last night, so you were well within your rights to wonder.
After dinner we went home, and I fetched the laptop out from the office so I could try out a new game, Demigod. It's fantastic. I recommend it highly. It consists of short matches (15-30 minutes) that feel like RTS battles, although you don't do anything like base management. Instead you're playing a hero tasked with killing the heroes on the enemy team, destroying their fortifications, or capturing and holding strategic locations ("flags," but the gameplay is what's usually called "king of the hill"). A given match will consist of getting a certain amount of points from one of those three things to win, but every match becomes a mixture of all three.
There are eight heroes to choose from. Half of them are assassins, capable of wading into the battle and murdering everything, and the other half are generals, who can summon 5-15 minions to do battle for them. Each of the heroes has its own skill tree, and you can level up and customize your hero's abilities through the course of the match.
I had fun. Ended up playing it from seven-thirty straight through to eleven. I really wanted to get some writing done last night, and didn't because of the game, but after the day I'd had, it was just the evening I needed.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Journal Entry: April 22, 2009
About a month ago, our preacher did a sermon on fasting in which he discussed the physical, emotional, psychological, and (of course) spiritual benefits of fasting. It struck a chord with me, and as I had missed breakfast before church, and was already planning on skipping the Second Sunday Fellowship afterward, I decided on the drive home that I would just go ahead and fast for the rest of the day.
Then I got home, got bored, and called D-- to see if he wanted to do something, and that something ended up being lunch. Alas.
Before I got around to that, though, I came up with a grandiose plan to begin fasting regularly, and as 21 is my favorite number, I thought it might be a good idea to fast on the 21st of every month. Then, as I said, I went out to lunch and forgot all about it.
About a week ago, D-- was over for dinner, talking about his vegan diet project, and he said offhand that I couldn't survive for a day without meat. I pointed out that, about a decade ago, I'd gone a week without eating at all. I could go a day without food, let alone meat.
That was a long time ago, of course. I was deeply, deeply spiritual back then (unblunted by the woeful ravages of real life), and my goal was forty days and forty nights, and I don't think I told anybody I was doing it (because Jesus said not to). Anyway, that was probably a really stupid and dangerous endeavor, but it's something I've never forgotten.
But, yeah, last Thursday night we were talking about it, and decided we should do a 24-hour fast, and I said it would have to be after Sunday because I wanted to finish my 21 days on the elliptical, and being low on energy didn't seem conducive. We settled on Tuesday, because that seemed the most convenient. So that was yesterday.
So that was yesterday. I had my last food Monday evening (a handful of jelly beans, around eight o'clock), because I was working on the traditional sunset-to-sunset fast. Woke up yesterday morning hungry and drove into work, where I had a carton of fresh fruit in the fridge. I left it there. I brought one of my big OU cups to work, full of ice water, and refilled the frequently from the water fountain, just to have something in my stomach.
Around nine in the morning I heard the secretary making the rounds, filling up the candy bowls, and I wept a little (not really). I thanked the Lord that no one had brought in donuts (yes, really). I spent my lunch break taking a nap in my car.
I dunno. I'm not going to paint it as some huge trial and tribulation, because it was just one day. It really wasn't bad. It was distracting -- I spent all day having to think about food, instead of mindlessly chowing down on it -- but it wasn't really difficult. I got home from work and there were homemade cookies on the countertop sitting next to the open gallon bag of jelly beans. Then T-- started making dinner for her and AB, quesadillas and cheese dip, and it smelled delicious. I'd anticipated that, though, and I took a walk to get away from the house. By the time I got back, around seven, they were done.
We watched TV, Castle and Heroes, and after sunset I ate a big bowl of chili leftover from last Friday. It was good, but not lifechanging. I kind of wish I'd kept going.
Anyway, it wasn't until halfway through the day that I remembered my decision, about a month ago, to start fasting on the 21sts. It was entirely coincidence that I followed through -- we picked Tuesday for much more practical reasons -- but I was glad of it. I think I'm going to try to follow through on that plan.
But, yeah, that was my day yesterday. Disjointed, vaguely meaningful, and characterized by a deep, deep suffering that really wasn't all that bad. I missed breakfast and lunch and had a late dinner. Somehow, I was able to take meaning from that, and I think that's the part that matters.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Then I got home, got bored, and called D-- to see if he wanted to do something, and that something ended up being lunch. Alas.
Before I got around to that, though, I came up with a grandiose plan to begin fasting regularly, and as 21 is my favorite number, I thought it might be a good idea to fast on the 21st of every month. Then, as I said, I went out to lunch and forgot all about it.
About a week ago, D-- was over for dinner, talking about his vegan diet project, and he said offhand that I couldn't survive for a day without meat. I pointed out that, about a decade ago, I'd gone a week without eating at all. I could go a day without food, let alone meat.
That was a long time ago, of course. I was deeply, deeply spiritual back then (unblunted by the woeful ravages of real life), and my goal was forty days and forty nights, and I don't think I told anybody I was doing it (because Jesus said not to). Anyway, that was probably a really stupid and dangerous endeavor, but it's something I've never forgotten.
But, yeah, last Thursday night we were talking about it, and decided we should do a 24-hour fast, and I said it would have to be after Sunday because I wanted to finish my 21 days on the elliptical, and being low on energy didn't seem conducive. We settled on Tuesday, because that seemed the most convenient. So that was yesterday.
So that was yesterday. I had my last food Monday evening (a handful of jelly beans, around eight o'clock), because I was working on the traditional sunset-to-sunset fast. Woke up yesterday morning hungry and drove into work, where I had a carton of fresh fruit in the fridge. I left it there. I brought one of my big OU cups to work, full of ice water, and refilled the frequently from the water fountain, just to have something in my stomach.
Around nine in the morning I heard the secretary making the rounds, filling up the candy bowls, and I wept a little (not really). I thanked the Lord that no one had brought in donuts (yes, really). I spent my lunch break taking a nap in my car.
I dunno. I'm not going to paint it as some huge trial and tribulation, because it was just one day. It really wasn't bad. It was distracting -- I spent all day having to think about food, instead of mindlessly chowing down on it -- but it wasn't really difficult. I got home from work and there were homemade cookies on the countertop sitting next to the open gallon bag of jelly beans. Then T-- started making dinner for her and AB, quesadillas and cheese dip, and it smelled delicious. I'd anticipated that, though, and I took a walk to get away from the house. By the time I got back, around seven, they were done.
We watched TV, Castle and Heroes, and after sunset I ate a big bowl of chili leftover from last Friday. It was good, but not lifechanging. I kind of wish I'd kept going.
Anyway, it wasn't until halfway through the day that I remembered my decision, about a month ago, to start fasting on the 21sts. It was entirely coincidence that I followed through -- we picked Tuesday for much more practical reasons -- but I was glad of it. I think I'm going to try to follow through on that plan.
But, yeah, that was my day yesterday. Disjointed, vaguely meaningful, and characterized by a deep, deep suffering that really wasn't all that bad. I missed breakfast and lunch and had a late dinner. Somehow, I was able to take meaning from that, and I think that's the part that matters.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Journal Entry: April 21, 2009
Yesterday's post I forgot to include an update on my writing, but I did a lot of writing on Friday, none of Saturday, and then some more on Sunday to get me up through the end of chapter 10 (at 40,000 words), and started into 11.
Yesterday I did another 1500 words over lunch, which should make it a simple matter to finish up chapter 11 today. I'm hoping to get a good start on 12, too, which puts the story just shy of the epiphany that leads to the climactic standoff. I'm looking forward to writing that part.
My twenty-one days complete, I had thought about skipping yesterday's workout to rest my knees (which are both hurting a bit), but when I got home from work I decided to do it anyway. I kept it at low resistance and went a little slower than usual, but I put in my full forty minutes (and got all caught up on Dollhouse).
While I was doing that, T-- ran up to Mazzio's to pick up some pizza for us and D--. Afterward we watched a couple episodes of Heroes to get caught up, as well as Chuck (which acts like it's heading a series finale instead of just a season), and Rules of Engagement. When that was all done, I didn't feel up to writing anymore, so I went to bed early.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Yesterday I did another 1500 words over lunch, which should make it a simple matter to finish up chapter 11 today. I'm hoping to get a good start on 12, too, which puts the story just shy of the epiphany that leads to the climactic standoff. I'm looking forward to writing that part.
My twenty-one days complete, I had thought about skipping yesterday's workout to rest my knees (which are both hurting a bit), but when I got home from work I decided to do it anyway. I kept it at low resistance and went a little slower than usual, but I put in my full forty minutes (and got all caught up on Dollhouse).
While I was doing that, T-- ran up to Mazzio's to pick up some pizza for us and D--. Afterward we watched a couple episodes of Heroes to get caught up, as well as Chuck (which acts like it's heading a series finale instead of just a season), and Rules of Engagement. When that was all done, I didn't feel up to writing anymore, so I went to bed early.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Journal Entry: April 20, 2009
Friday afternoon I got off work an hour early. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up chili fixins, then got it started and turned it down to simmer. T-- agreed to stir it for me, so I disappeared into the office for my workout.
After that I took a quick shower, and by the time I was done D-- was already at the house. K-- and N-- came over shortly after, and we all sat down to a delicious dinner (if I do say so myself). Afterward we watched last week's Lost, which K-- and N-- had put off so they could watch it with us (something my astute readers will recall that we, thanks to a mix-up on my part, had not done). Anyway, it was well worth a second watch.
After that K-- and N-- headed home. D-- and I sat up for a while discussing movies, but exhaustion drove me to bed before too long. It was probably 10:30 when I kicked D-- out.
Saturday morning I woke up early (for reasons of my own), and got in my workout before seven. Then we all spent some time lolling around the living room until T-- took AB with her to the ladies' luncheon at church. That had her out until noon-ish, so I called D-- and asked him if he wanted to join me for some really crappy Mexican food for lunch. We went to Pancho's, which is a place I remember fondly from my childhood. I've been a couple times in my adulthood and, seriously, it's really crappy Mexican food. As D-- observed, you're basically paying $8 for a lunch buffet that consists of the kind of food you can get out of a plastic tray in the frozen food aisle at your grocery store.
Oh, and not only is it lousy food, but the only one in town is half an hour away, so we wasted nearly two hours on the venture. But, y'know, none of it really took me by surprise. I dunno, it was just a weird craving for an awful Saturday-morning experience.
We got back home a little bit before T-- did, and I played a little Too Human. Then we watched some TV during AB's nap. After about an hour of that, I helped T-- load the car, because she had a crop Saturday night, and needed to early to get some shopping done. I stayed home to watch AB, and D-- hung around to help out.
K-- came over around 5:00 with his little one, after dropping N-- off at the crop, and we all sat around watching Clifford the Big Red Dog for forty minutes or so. Then D-- and I took AB up to McDonalds to grab some dinner for all of us, and when we were done eating I set up Rock Band. That was considerably more fun.
AB got the first turn, banging on the drums in Freestyle Mode, then D-- and K-- played for a bit while I chased AB around. 8:30 finally rolled around and I put her in bed, then I joined in for a few songs before my knee started bothering me.
Once again I was just exhausted by the end of the day (the cruel combination of forty-minute workouts and early mornings), so I sent D-- home around 10:30 and crashed early.
Sunday morning I woke up at six again, but this time I made liberal use of the snooze button so I didn't get out of bed until nine. Then I got cleaned up and met the girls at church, but we left early so as to get to our Easter party on time.
Some family friends of D--'s, the Huddlestons, have sort of taken AB as an adopted granddaughter. (Pictures of Diana at the zoo with AB and T-- litter T--'s blog, and she also went along with them to Sesame Street Live recently.) Anyway, she wanted to have a big Easter egg hunt, and invited my little sister's family and K-- and N--, too. So we all drove out to their place in the country east of I-35 for lunch -- grilled chicken breasts -- and then the egg hunt.
Glorious pictures were taken, and I think everybody had a great time. We got home around 3:00, and had no real plans for the rest of the day. I went back to my office to write, and ended up spending most of the time working on the fantasy project D-- and I are working on together, and chatting with Carlos about it. I felt bad for not making progress on the Ghost Targets book, but it was a fun diversion to spend an afternoon working on the other series.
After that I did my workout, and that brought me to 21 days in a row. I've read before that it takes 21 days of repeating a new action to make a habit of it, so I'm hoping to benefit from that. Anyway, whether that's true or not, 21 days was my goal, and I managed it somehow. So yay! Let's all celebrate.
I finished that, got cleaned up, and then T-- suggested Johnny Carinos for dinner. We invited D-- to join us, and while we were there Dr. Baird got seated at the next table over. He was my favorite Bible professor in college, but it's been so long since we last talked that I didn't think it was appropriate to interrupt him at dinner. He had a full table of guests, in addition to his family. It was still a surprising turn of events, though.
Then the night went to getting caught up on Kings, and after that we had to watch some Home Movies to cleanse the palate because, damn, that is some serious TV.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
After that I took a quick shower, and by the time I was done D-- was already at the house. K-- and N-- came over shortly after, and we all sat down to a delicious dinner (if I do say so myself). Afterward we watched last week's Lost, which K-- and N-- had put off so they could watch it with us (something my astute readers will recall that we, thanks to a mix-up on my part, had not done). Anyway, it was well worth a second watch.
After that K-- and N-- headed home. D-- and I sat up for a while discussing movies, but exhaustion drove me to bed before too long. It was probably 10:30 when I kicked D-- out.
Saturday morning I woke up early (for reasons of my own), and got in my workout before seven. Then we all spent some time lolling around the living room until T-- took AB with her to the ladies' luncheon at church. That had her out until noon-ish, so I called D-- and asked him if he wanted to join me for some really crappy Mexican food for lunch. We went to Pancho's, which is a place I remember fondly from my childhood. I've been a couple times in my adulthood and, seriously, it's really crappy Mexican food. As D-- observed, you're basically paying $8 for a lunch buffet that consists of the kind of food you can get out of a plastic tray in the frozen food aisle at your grocery store.
Oh, and not only is it lousy food, but the only one in town is half an hour away, so we wasted nearly two hours on the venture. But, y'know, none of it really took me by surprise. I dunno, it was just a weird craving for an awful Saturday-morning experience.
We got back home a little bit before T-- did, and I played a little Too Human. Then we watched some TV during AB's nap. After about an hour of that, I helped T-- load the car, because she had a crop Saturday night, and needed to early to get some shopping done. I stayed home to watch AB, and D-- hung around to help out.
K-- came over around 5:00 with his little one, after dropping N-- off at the crop, and we all sat around watching Clifford the Big Red Dog for forty minutes or so. Then D-- and I took AB up to McDonalds to grab some dinner for all of us, and when we were done eating I set up Rock Band. That was considerably more fun.
AB got the first turn, banging on the drums in Freestyle Mode, then D-- and K-- played for a bit while I chased AB around. 8:30 finally rolled around and I put her in bed, then I joined in for a few songs before my knee started bothering me.
Once again I was just exhausted by the end of the day (the cruel combination of forty-minute workouts and early mornings), so I sent D-- home around 10:30 and crashed early.
Sunday morning I woke up at six again, but this time I made liberal use of the snooze button so I didn't get out of bed until nine. Then I got cleaned up and met the girls at church, but we left early so as to get to our Easter party on time.
Some family friends of D--'s, the Huddlestons, have sort of taken AB as an adopted granddaughter. (Pictures of Diana at the zoo with AB and T-- litter T--'s blog, and she also went along with them to Sesame Street Live recently.) Anyway, she wanted to have a big Easter egg hunt, and invited my little sister's family and K-- and N--, too. So we all drove out to their place in the country east of I-35 for lunch -- grilled chicken breasts -- and then the egg hunt.
Glorious pictures were taken, and I think everybody had a great time. We got home around 3:00, and had no real plans for the rest of the day. I went back to my office to write, and ended up spending most of the time working on the fantasy project D-- and I are working on together, and chatting with Carlos about it. I felt bad for not making progress on the Ghost Targets book, but it was a fun diversion to spend an afternoon working on the other series.
After that I did my workout, and that brought me to 21 days in a row. I've read before that it takes 21 days of repeating a new action to make a habit of it, so I'm hoping to benefit from that. Anyway, whether that's true or not, 21 days was my goal, and I managed it somehow. So yay! Let's all celebrate.
I finished that, got cleaned up, and then T-- suggested Johnny Carinos for dinner. We invited D-- to join us, and while we were there Dr. Baird got seated at the next table over. He was my favorite Bible professor in college, but it's been so long since we last talked that I didn't think it was appropriate to interrupt him at dinner. He had a full table of guests, in addition to his family. It was still a surprising turn of events, though.
Then the night went to getting caught up on Kings, and after that we had to watch some Home Movies to cleanse the palate because, damn, that is some serious TV.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Journal Entry: April 17, 2009
So, I was wrong when I started my whining about the cost of our exterminator. I think I named a total figure around five hundred bucks, but we had the termite guys out to give us an estimate yesterday, and it's actually going to be closer to twelve hundred.
That's a big stressor, especially given other stuff that's going on. I got paid today, but we spent most of the last three days desperately watching our purchases and tracking the bank account online hoping we didn't get overdrafted before my check cleared. A number of factors went into that, but it's the sort of experience we've worked hard for the last two years to get out of. There was a time when that described pretty much every payday, and I liked having as much distance as possible between that time and me.
Anyway, we're not paying the exterminators out of our checking account, so that only applies in that both are sources of financial stress. No, we're paying for the bug treatments on our credit card. A couple months ago I had pretty realistic hopes of getting our last credit card paid off by June. Instead, we now have more total credit card debt than we ever have in our (often extremely mismanaged) financial history. That's depressing. It's been a bad couple months, moneywise.
Luckily, one of the most powerful treatments for anxiety, stress, and depression is exercise, and I've been doing well on that. After work yesteday I put in my forty minutes while T-- took AB grocery shopping. Then she made spaghetti for AB and D--, and meatball sandwiches for her and me. I think that's the first time she tried that, and they were fantastic.
After that we got caught up on The Office (which consisted of three episodes, including last night's), and watched a new 30 Rock. All of that was done with much interruption, because AB was not behaving. We had to wrestle her to the ground to put on her pajamas at bedtime, but once we got her in bed she actually fell asleep pretty easily.
By then I was too exhausted to write, so I watched the beginning of an episode of Bones with T--, then headed back to the office and played some Desktop Tower Defense. Or, in other words, killed time. Once I realized that was all I was doing, I shut it down and went to bed.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
That's a big stressor, especially given other stuff that's going on. I got paid today, but we spent most of the last three days desperately watching our purchases and tracking the bank account online hoping we didn't get overdrafted before my check cleared. A number of factors went into that, but it's the sort of experience we've worked hard for the last two years to get out of. There was a time when that described pretty much every payday, and I liked having as much distance as possible between that time and me.
Anyway, we're not paying the exterminators out of our checking account, so that only applies in that both are sources of financial stress. No, we're paying for the bug treatments on our credit card. A couple months ago I had pretty realistic hopes of getting our last credit card paid off by June. Instead, we now have more total credit card debt than we ever have in our (often extremely mismanaged) financial history. That's depressing. It's been a bad couple months, moneywise.
Luckily, one of the most powerful treatments for anxiety, stress, and depression is exercise, and I've been doing well on that. After work yesteday I put in my forty minutes while T-- took AB grocery shopping. Then she made spaghetti for AB and D--, and meatball sandwiches for her and me. I think that's the first time she tried that, and they were fantastic.
After that we got caught up on The Office (which consisted of three episodes, including last night's), and watched a new 30 Rock. All of that was done with much interruption, because AB was not behaving. We had to wrestle her to the ground to put on her pajamas at bedtime, but once we got her in bed she actually fell asleep pretty easily.
By then I was too exhausted to write, so I watched the beginning of an episode of Bones with T--, then headed back to the office and played some Desktop Tower Defense. Or, in other words, killed time. Once I realized that was all I was doing, I shut it down and went to bed.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Journal Entry: April 16, 2009
Yesterday was tax day, but that didn't mean a lot to us. Ours were done a while back. We ended up getting about the same amount back as I'd spent on the elliptical machine, so that works out nicely.
I headed home from work a little bit early so I could get in my workout before dinner. I did my forty minutes, showered, then we all climbed in the car and picked up a Happy Meal for AB before heading to Subway to meet up with D-- and K-- and N-- (as well as N--'s parents).
[Reader poll: Who doesn't care whether or not I use their full names? Post a comment if legibility is more important than privacy to you and yours. This technically only refers to B-- and E--, T--, D--, K-- and N--, and my little sister and her family. The concerns of the first and last groups in that list are the ones who prompted the convention in the first place, but I just applied it to everyone I expected to get at least a weekly mention.]
After dinner D-- and I walked over to the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market so he could pick up some groceries, then we went back to the house and watched Family Guy and South Park until T-- got home with AB. Then we put her to bed, so it was nearly nine when we finally started on Lost (which turned out to be another great one).
After that we three sat and talked for a while, then D-- headed home. I skipped my office time, but only because I'd already done about a thousand words on my book over lunch. So I got to go to bed early.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
I headed home from work a little bit early so I could get in my workout before dinner. I did my forty minutes, showered, then we all climbed in the car and picked up a Happy Meal for AB before heading to Subway to meet up with D-- and K-- and N-- (as well as N--'s parents).
[Reader poll: Who doesn't care whether or not I use their full names? Post a comment if legibility is more important than privacy to you and yours. This technically only refers to B-- and E--, T--, D--, K-- and N--, and my little sister and her family. The concerns of the first and last groups in that list are the ones who prompted the convention in the first place, but I just applied it to everyone I expected to get at least a weekly mention.]
After dinner D-- and I walked over to the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market so he could pick up some groceries, then we went back to the house and watched Family Guy and South Park until T-- got home with AB. Then we put her to bed, so it was nearly nine when we finally started on Lost (which turned out to be another great one).
After that we three sat and talked for a while, then D-- headed home. I skipped my office time, but only because I'd already done about a thousand words on my book over lunch. So I got to go to bed early.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Journal Entry: April 15, 2009
Thursday
Last Thursday night I got home from work and did my workout, then T-- and I watched TV for a while waiting to hear from D-- about possibly babysitting AB. He got caught up with a work event, though, so once we learned he wasn't going to make it, we packed up AB and took her out with us. We dropped her at my sister's place, and then headed to Kohl's for some much-needed wardrobe updates.
We both got some nice new clothes. It was nine by the time we picked up AB, and then another half hour home, so she was completely out by the time we put her in bed. Then I did a little writing (I think), and headed to bed early.
Friday
Friday morning was my RDO, but I woke up at six so I could get in my workout before we headed out of town. It was tough, with the shorter recovery period, and I spent most of the six hour drive regretting it because my back and legs were incredibly sore in the cramped car. I distracted myself by writing for the first half of the drive, though, and by driving for the second half. In that first half I got 1500 words done, though, which is a good day's output.
We grabbed a light lunch at McDonalds in Fort Smith, and got to Little Rock a little after two. Mom had a spread out for lunch, so we ate a little more. That was after saying hi to all the family, of course, which included my older sister and all her family, and my uncle Eric and his, who were on their way to Harding for Spring Sing (or something like that).
After we got the luggage in, I spent most of the afternoon hiding downstairs, talking with Jeff and Graham while they played WoW. It was a pretty brutal weekend to have my account inactive, and Graham spent all three days offering to pay for me to reactivate it, but I just can't afford the distraction. It would have been a lot of fun to have it live for those three days, but even if I'd cancelled it on Sunday it would still be active for another twenty-eight days, and I just don't have the willpower to resist that temptation. So I went with the ounce of prevention, and just stayed away from my computer all weekend.
For dinner Friday, Graham and I ran up to Whole Hog to pick up some barbecue. I've had it before, and theirs is easily as good as Steve's Rib's. It was awesome. Afterward the guys went back downstairs to play some more WoW, and I sat in the living room with T-- watching High School Musical. It was awful.
Saturday
Saturday morning the girls (and by that I meant every female in the house, which was a huge number) got up earlyish and went to do a photoshoot of the kids. By the time I woke up, Dad and Jeff were already playing WoW downstairs, so I grabbed a quick shower and then joined them in time to take over Dad's character so he could get ready.
While we were doing that, Granddad wandered downstairs (he'd been watching the coverage of the boat captain held captive by Somalian pirates on the news, as he had no interest in WoW). He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and said, "I was wondering...how would you boys like to spend the afternoon doing some manual labor?" We managed not to laugh at the question, and then not to groan at the details when he told us what he had in mind.
Then we got a call from the girls asking us to meet them on the other side of town for lunch, so I took over Jeff's character while he got ready, and then we rushed out the door.
Lunch was El Chico's, and we had fifteen people at the table, counting the kids. The kids had already been treated to ice cream as a reward for a fantastic photo shoot (and you should see the pictures of AB; she's adorable), and AB was asleep in T--'s lap when I showed up at the restaurant. The rest of us had some pretty good Mexican, though.
We went home, and I headed to the bedroom so I could put AB down for a nap when she showed up, but I fell asleep before that happened. I slept about an hour, then T-- came to tell me Granddad and Dad were back from Lowe's with the wood, and I was expected outside.
Dad's got a failing privacy fence, and Granddad's big plan for the afternoon was to fix it. Pretty much all of the cross-pieces are rotting out, but in some places they were bad enough that they'd pulled free from the uprights, so he had whole sections tilting drunkenly away from the fence. They're not too far off from selling the house, so Mom and Dad had pretty much decided to just leave the fence as it was for now and then get a new one put up when they were ready to put it on the market. Granddad just didn't like the look of it, though, so he chastised all of us into getting outside and doing some real work.
It was, too. They bought new wood for the cross-pieces, but our goal was to salvage what we could of the the slats. So we started out with the demolition, removing the slats carefully and then ripping the old cross-pieces off the uprights. Then Dad and Granddad got to work cutting new cross-pieces and putting them in place, while Jeff and I did what we could to nail the slats back up to cover the gaps.
Problem was, a lot of the slats were unusable, and in places trees had grown up to bulge the fence out so there was nothing we could do there. In the end, we spent three and a half hours working on it, and the best I can say is that it ended up looking better. There's still just as many gaps in the fence, and just as big, but instead of sections tilting drunkenly, there are nice, clean holes missing slats (which, to be fair, will be easy enough for Mom and Dad to fill in over another weekend).
Anyway, it wasn't a lot of fun.
For dinner we had leftovers, and then the rest of them went to the dining room to play dominos while T-- and I watched High School Musical 2. It was terrible.
Sunday
Sunday was Easter. We somehow got three families ready for church in time for class, which Dad was teaching. He gave his take on Pentecost, which I know is one of his favorite Bible stories. My older sister's family weren't there for class (or they were in another class, I don't know which), but when they showed up for service and T-- and my younger sister picked up their kids from class, we ended up with more than a full pew's worth, and it was a bustling, rambunctious crowd. (I refer, of course, to the children.)
Anyway, it was wild, and during service the storms came in so when I ran out to the car to pick up T-- and AB, I got drenched just crossing the parking lot. Then I had to sit ten minutes waiting to get out of my parking spot, because of all the other devoted husbands waiting in a long line to pick up their wives at the covered entrance. I spent another five minutes or so in the line, and then T-- finally just scooped up AB and rushed out to meet me rather than wait for our turns, which probably saved us another fifteen minutes. It was nuts.
We spotted Granddad waiting under the awning and unsure where he'd parked, so we picked him up, too, and drove around the church until we found his truck, then said a quick goodbye before he headed back to Longview.
Then back to the house for a big Easter feast -- ham and mashed potatoes, corn-on-the-cob and salad, and a cherry cheesecake for Graham's birthday. Uncle Eric and his crew were back, too, so we had a busy table. After we'd all had our fill, the kids were chased from the dining room and the grown-ups hid a couple hundred candy-filled eggs around the room for them. I'm sure sad sighs were sighed by some of the moms who were hoping for bright spring photos of kids romping around the yard, but it was black with rain outside, so the living room had to do. I don't think the kids gave it any thought, though, because they still got their candy.
Of course, some of them were more anxious than others. AB and several of the others found a cache of Easter candy in the living room while the adults were hiding eggs, and broke into it. Sophie and Lola ended up wandering the house waving their suckers around proudly, like magic wands, which is how they got caught, but AB spent the whole time crouched in a corner behind the candy basket, unwrapping chocolates and stuffing her face. I'm so proud.
They didn't get to eat any of their egg candy after that, but they still got to gather a bunch of it, and AB won me quite a bit of jelly beans. Good for her!
As soon as that was done we set to work packing the car, and we slipped out a little bit before three. The weather was still ugly, but the warnings were all past and we didn't really have any trouble on our drive. We got home around eight, and I dropped the girls off then headed up to Taco Bell to get us some dinner.
Something was wrong in their system, because it took me over a half an hour to get through the drive-through line, and there were only about four or five cars in the line before me -- just one between me and the menu board. I never figured out what the problem was, but during the long idle, in the hot, humid weather, my car overheated. It was scary, and I was worrying I wouldn't get home, but it seems to have been an environmental rather than a mechanical problem. I just shut the car off completely while waiting my turn at the window, turning it on just to roll forward every five minutes or so, and that was enough to cool it back off. I've been watching it since, but haven't seen any problems.
Anyway. Dinner at 8:40, then we put AB to bed, and then I went back to my office for forty minutes on the elliptical. After that I'd intended to type up some of the writing I'd done in my scribblebook over the weekend, but I just decided to go to bed instead.
Monday
Monday I made it to work on time, and got a good day's work done. Then I got home and worked out, making it my fifteenth in a row (if you count the three and a half hours swinging a hammer on Saturday, which I do). T-- picked up some Mazzio's for us for dinner, including a small veggie pizza for D--, who stuck around after dinner to watch some TV with us. We caught 30 Rock from last week, but the rest of our Thursday night shows had been preempted by coverage of the wildfires, so we switched to newer fare and watched The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother.
By then it was about nine, so D-- headed home and I went back to the office to write. I finished up chapter nine (which mostly consisted of transcribing from my scribblebook), then headed to bed.
Tuesday
Tuesday I got some frustrating news at work. The only other writer on our documentation team has been overwhelmed with projects for nearly a year now (during which time I've been pressing for a couple new hires and my Branch Manager has consistently responded, "I agree completely, but we're too busy with other things right now"). Anyway, she finally told our supervisor that she can't handle the workload, so he's going to be handing some of it off to me. That's all stuff I'm qualified to do, and it's within my job description, but I've been working above my job description for two years now and angling for a promotion to reflect that. This move will definitely put a big dent in that effort. And, of course, it means I'll be spending a lot more of my time working on less interesting projects. Lame.
Anyway, frustrating day at work. I got home and did my workout (day sixteen), and then T-- made us some chicken fried rice for dinner (fantastic) while an exterminator we'd hired did an inspection of the house and told us we had termites in addition to the bugs we already knew about, and the total cost of cleaning up our place was going to come to about $550 (not fantastic). We'd basically just brought him out to spray the foundation for a cool C note, but no. Now we've got a contract and quarterly payments and ugh.
After all that I didn't feel much up to writing, so we watched Castle and Chuck and Rules of Engagement, and then I went to bed early.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Last Thursday night I got home from work and did my workout, then T-- and I watched TV for a while waiting to hear from D-- about possibly babysitting AB. He got caught up with a work event, though, so once we learned he wasn't going to make it, we packed up AB and took her out with us. We dropped her at my sister's place, and then headed to Kohl's for some much-needed wardrobe updates.
We both got some nice new clothes. It was nine by the time we picked up AB, and then another half hour home, so she was completely out by the time we put her in bed. Then I did a little writing (I think), and headed to bed early.
Friday
Friday morning was my RDO, but I woke up at six so I could get in my workout before we headed out of town. It was tough, with the shorter recovery period, and I spent most of the six hour drive regretting it because my back and legs were incredibly sore in the cramped car. I distracted myself by writing for the first half of the drive, though, and by driving for the second half. In that first half I got 1500 words done, though, which is a good day's output.
We grabbed a light lunch at McDonalds in Fort Smith, and got to Little Rock a little after two. Mom had a spread out for lunch, so we ate a little more. That was after saying hi to all the family, of course, which included my older sister and all her family, and my uncle Eric and his, who were on their way to Harding for Spring Sing (or something like that).
After we got the luggage in, I spent most of the afternoon hiding downstairs, talking with Jeff and Graham while they played WoW. It was a pretty brutal weekend to have my account inactive, and Graham spent all three days offering to pay for me to reactivate it, but I just can't afford the distraction. It would have been a lot of fun to have it live for those three days, but even if I'd cancelled it on Sunday it would still be active for another twenty-eight days, and I just don't have the willpower to resist that temptation. So I went with the ounce of prevention, and just stayed away from my computer all weekend.
For dinner Friday, Graham and I ran up to Whole Hog to pick up some barbecue. I've had it before, and theirs is easily as good as Steve's Rib's. It was awesome. Afterward the guys went back downstairs to play some more WoW, and I sat in the living room with T-- watching High School Musical. It was awful.
Saturday
Saturday morning the girls (and by that I meant every female in the house, which was a huge number) got up earlyish and went to do a photoshoot of the kids. By the time I woke up, Dad and Jeff were already playing WoW downstairs, so I grabbed a quick shower and then joined them in time to take over Dad's character so he could get ready.
While we were doing that, Granddad wandered downstairs (he'd been watching the coverage of the boat captain held captive by Somalian pirates on the news, as he had no interest in WoW). He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and said, "I was wondering...how would you boys like to spend the afternoon doing some manual labor?" We managed not to laugh at the question, and then not to groan at the details when he told us what he had in mind.
Then we got a call from the girls asking us to meet them on the other side of town for lunch, so I took over Jeff's character while he got ready, and then we rushed out the door.
Lunch was El Chico's, and we had fifteen people at the table, counting the kids. The kids had already been treated to ice cream as a reward for a fantastic photo shoot (and you should see the pictures of AB; she's adorable), and AB was asleep in T--'s lap when I showed up at the restaurant. The rest of us had some pretty good Mexican, though.
We went home, and I headed to the bedroom so I could put AB down for a nap when she showed up, but I fell asleep before that happened. I slept about an hour, then T-- came to tell me Granddad and Dad were back from Lowe's with the wood, and I was expected outside.
Dad's got a failing privacy fence, and Granddad's big plan for the afternoon was to fix it. Pretty much all of the cross-pieces are rotting out, but in some places they were bad enough that they'd pulled free from the uprights, so he had whole sections tilting drunkenly away from the fence. They're not too far off from selling the house, so Mom and Dad had pretty much decided to just leave the fence as it was for now and then get a new one put up when they were ready to put it on the market. Granddad just didn't like the look of it, though, so he chastised all of us into getting outside and doing some real work.
It was, too. They bought new wood for the cross-pieces, but our goal was to salvage what we could of the the slats. So we started out with the demolition, removing the slats carefully and then ripping the old cross-pieces off the uprights. Then Dad and Granddad got to work cutting new cross-pieces and putting them in place, while Jeff and I did what we could to nail the slats back up to cover the gaps.
Problem was, a lot of the slats were unusable, and in places trees had grown up to bulge the fence out so there was nothing we could do there. In the end, we spent three and a half hours working on it, and the best I can say is that it ended up looking better. There's still just as many gaps in the fence, and just as big, but instead of sections tilting drunkenly, there are nice, clean holes missing slats (which, to be fair, will be easy enough for Mom and Dad to fill in over another weekend).
Anyway, it wasn't a lot of fun.
For dinner we had leftovers, and then the rest of them went to the dining room to play dominos while T-- and I watched High School Musical 2. It was terrible.
Sunday
Sunday was Easter. We somehow got three families ready for church in time for class, which Dad was teaching. He gave his take on Pentecost, which I know is one of his favorite Bible stories. My older sister's family weren't there for class (or they were in another class, I don't know which), but when they showed up for service and T-- and my younger sister picked up their kids from class, we ended up with more than a full pew's worth, and it was a bustling, rambunctious crowd. (I refer, of course, to the children.)
Anyway, it was wild, and during service the storms came in so when I ran out to the car to pick up T-- and AB, I got drenched just crossing the parking lot. Then I had to sit ten minutes waiting to get out of my parking spot, because of all the other devoted husbands waiting in a long line to pick up their wives at the covered entrance. I spent another five minutes or so in the line, and then T-- finally just scooped up AB and rushed out to meet me rather than wait for our turns, which probably saved us another fifteen minutes. It was nuts.
We spotted Granddad waiting under the awning and unsure where he'd parked, so we picked him up, too, and drove around the church until we found his truck, then said a quick goodbye before he headed back to Longview.
Then back to the house for a big Easter feast -- ham and mashed potatoes, corn-on-the-cob and salad, and a cherry cheesecake for Graham's birthday. Uncle Eric and his crew were back, too, so we had a busy table. After we'd all had our fill, the kids were chased from the dining room and the grown-ups hid a couple hundred candy-filled eggs around the room for them. I'm sure sad sighs were sighed by some of the moms who were hoping for bright spring photos of kids romping around the yard, but it was black with rain outside, so the living room had to do. I don't think the kids gave it any thought, though, because they still got their candy.
Of course, some of them were more anxious than others. AB and several of the others found a cache of Easter candy in the living room while the adults were hiding eggs, and broke into it. Sophie and Lola ended up wandering the house waving their suckers around proudly, like magic wands, which is how they got caught, but AB spent the whole time crouched in a corner behind the candy basket, unwrapping chocolates and stuffing her face. I'm so proud.
They didn't get to eat any of their egg candy after that, but they still got to gather a bunch of it, and AB won me quite a bit of jelly beans. Good for her!
As soon as that was done we set to work packing the car, and we slipped out a little bit before three. The weather was still ugly, but the warnings were all past and we didn't really have any trouble on our drive. We got home around eight, and I dropped the girls off then headed up to Taco Bell to get us some dinner.
Something was wrong in their system, because it took me over a half an hour to get through the drive-through line, and there were only about four or five cars in the line before me -- just one between me and the menu board. I never figured out what the problem was, but during the long idle, in the hot, humid weather, my car overheated. It was scary, and I was worrying I wouldn't get home, but it seems to have been an environmental rather than a mechanical problem. I just shut the car off completely while waiting my turn at the window, turning it on just to roll forward every five minutes or so, and that was enough to cool it back off. I've been watching it since, but haven't seen any problems.
Anyway. Dinner at 8:40, then we put AB to bed, and then I went back to my office for forty minutes on the elliptical. After that I'd intended to type up some of the writing I'd done in my scribblebook over the weekend, but I just decided to go to bed instead.
Monday
Monday I made it to work on time, and got a good day's work done. Then I got home and worked out, making it my fifteenth in a row (if you count the three and a half hours swinging a hammer on Saturday, which I do). T-- picked up some Mazzio's for us for dinner, including a small veggie pizza for D--, who stuck around after dinner to watch some TV with us. We caught 30 Rock from last week, but the rest of our Thursday night shows had been preempted by coverage of the wildfires, so we switched to newer fare and watched The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother.
By then it was about nine, so D-- headed home and I went back to the office to write. I finished up chapter nine (which mostly consisted of transcribing from my scribblebook), then headed to bed.
Tuesday
Tuesday I got some frustrating news at work. The only other writer on our documentation team has been overwhelmed with projects for nearly a year now (during which time I've been pressing for a couple new hires and my Branch Manager has consistently responded, "I agree completely, but we're too busy with other things right now"). Anyway, she finally told our supervisor that she can't handle the workload, so he's going to be handing some of it off to me. That's all stuff I'm qualified to do, and it's within my job description, but I've been working above my job description for two years now and angling for a promotion to reflect that. This move will definitely put a big dent in that effort. And, of course, it means I'll be spending a lot more of my time working on less interesting projects. Lame.
Anyway, frustrating day at work. I got home and did my workout (day sixteen), and then T-- made us some chicken fried rice for dinner (fantastic) while an exterminator we'd hired did an inspection of the house and told us we had termites in addition to the bugs we already knew about, and the total cost of cleaning up our place was going to come to about $550 (not fantastic). We'd basically just brought him out to spray the foundation for a cool C note, but no. Now we've got a contract and quarterly payments and ugh.
After all that I didn't feel much up to writing, so we watched Castle and Chuck and Rules of Engagement, and then I went to bed early.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Journal Entry: April 9, 2009
Friday
Friday night I got home from work and spent 40 minutes on the elliptical machine. Then I showered and had a quick dinner with T-- in which she lamented the trial of potty training. After supper we were supposed to go over to my sister's place to help set up for a party Saturday night, but I suggested T-- go ahead and head over, and I would spend some time working with AB.
We went to the bathroom and I just made her sit on her potty until she did something. It was extremely unfun, for both of us. In the end, it took over an hour and a half, but she finally did it and I think that helped her (a little bit) get over the terror of doing something new.
Anyway, I'd spent the whole time telling her that as soon as she was done she could go see her cousins (something she was really excited about). As her bedtime rolled closer and closer I was ready to give up on it all and just put her in bed in a diaper, but it was right at 8:30 when she sealed the deal, and I could hardly back out of a promise after she'd done what I asked, so I packed her up and we drove out to my sister's place.
I got a sneak peek at some of the party prep (and they put a lot of work into it), and AB spent half an hour or so playing with the girls, then we all headed back home. AB got to bed, and I went to my office to do a little writing.
Saturday
Saturday morning I did my workout -- forty minutes on the machine -- and then as soon as I was cleaned up we headed out to meet Mom and Dad and my sister's family at IHOP for brunch, 11-ish, and we all crowded into a booth meant for maybe six people. Service was slow (as it usually is at IHOP), so even though the food was delicious it was hard to enjoy it because T-- and I ended up having to rush out of there for a 12:30 commitment.
That was babysitting. K-- and N-- brought little Jason over, and we got to spend a couple hours watching Word World with AB while we passed a sleeping Jason back and forth. I think T-- changed one diaper, but other than that there wasn't much work to it. AB was a bigger handful.
K-- and N-- came to pick him up around two, and they hung around to talk for a bit. That was fun.
Then they left, and a little bit after that (around four) T-- headed over to my sister's place to help finish getting ready for the party at six. I watched AB for about an hour, then got her in her dragon costume and tried on my Warlock costume, which was mix-and-match of a pirate costume and a wizard costume from Halloweens past, plus a very WoW-styled set of shoulder armor that we'd built out of papier mache.
The party was for my brother-in-law's thirtieth birthday, and he's probably the most dedicated WoW player out of our group of pretty dedicated WoW players, so my sister decided to throw a costume party (and somehow convinced a bunch of people to go along). There's a detailed description of the party at my sister's blog, in case you want to know more, but my parents were there, as were K-- and N--, and Toby and Gwyn, and Jeff's brother, Greg.
Instead of party games we had quests. Mom and Dad got really into the costume portion, which was hilarious. My favorite bit was the food, though, which was set out in a buffet and each part of it labeled after an in-game food item. I laughed out loud when I saw the cheese tray bearing the tooltip text for Alterac Swiss.
Sunday
Sunday morning I got up early enough to do my workout, but halfway through it I heard a crash and rushed out of the office to find AB bleeding in the bathroom, with T-- trying to tend to her. We had been using a glass jar for her candy rewards, but I guess she'd gotten a little greedy and tried to reward herself, and let the jar crash to the floor. She cut her middle finger -- just a little slice, but it was bleeding like crazy, and she was freaking out.
It took us a good twenty minutes of fighting with her to get it cleaned up and get a bandaid on (then, of course, she immediately calmed down). T-- took her to get dressed, and I went back to the office to resume my workout. Just as I finished, though, T-- poked her head in the door to tell me they were leaving for church.
I'd lost track of the time spent taking care of AB, and my workout ran over. Worse, we'd left one of our cars at my sister's place on Saturday night, so I couldn't just show up late. Mom and Dad were supposed to be bringing it to church with them, though, so T-- suggested I call them and ask them to drop it off at the house on their way. Then she and AB left for church while I jumped in the shower.
Unfortunately, my phone was in the car that T-- took to church, so that little plan didn't work out. I ended up spending that hour or so playing Too Human, until Dad knocked on the door after service to let me know Mom was waiting in the car to take me up to Ole for lunch. It was another big family lunch (and this time D-- joined us). Afterward we said our goodbyes to Mom and Dad, then headed home for a quiet Sunday afternoon. D-- came over to hang out, after a busy weekend with a visiting college buddy, and we watched some TV while AB napped.
Then T-- took AB to Small Groups at the church. I asked D-- what sounded good for dinner, and he suggested going to a movie. We ended up seeing I Love You, Man -- and no, the humor of the two of us going to see a movie about bromance and man-dates was not in the least lost on us. The movie itself was awesome, though. I highly recommend it.
I got home around nine-thirty, and instead of writing I watched some TV with T--.
Monday
Monday morning I got to work and spent my time reviewing for the Graduate Records Exam. I'd signed up for it last week sometime, and was scheduled to take the test at 12:30. I spent maybe an hour and a half reviewing, and that was just about enough time to get me really freaked out.
I grabbed some lunch on the way to the testing center, then showed up a little bit early and ate in the parking lot. When I got in, they gave me a clipboard to verify some of my registration information, then showed me in right away to get started. I was probably answering questions by noon, even though my appointment wasn't until 12:30.
The test is listed as a four-hour process, but I did it in two. It consists of a written portion -- two essays, which I would swear are just stoner traps -- and then a multiple-choice Verbal (or English) portion and a multiple-choice Quantitative (or Math) portion. I did 700 in Verbal and 670 in Quantitative. The max. possible is 800, but apparently the Verbal portion is a lot harder than the Quantitative, because even with my scores so close together they come out to 96th percentile and 76th percentile respectively.
I'm doing all of this to get into the Masters of Professional Writing program at OU, though, and their only requirement is a 500 in Verbal, so I nailed that. They're also interested in my writing score, which I won't have back for another two weeks, but I feel like I did pretty well.
I'd already taken the whole afternoon off work, so I went ahead and headed home. I spent some time discussing the test with T--, then headed to the office and did my forty minutes while she took AB to do the grocery shopping. She picked up Mazzio's on the way home, and we had a quiet evening watching TV. At nine I headed to the office, and got a little writing done.
Oh! After our tortuous experiences with AB Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday morning, we gave up on the whole making her sit on the potty thing. She spent most of the rest of Sunday in a diaper, actually. Then on Monday, all on her own, she kept rushing to the bathroom whenever she needed to go. She only had one accident all day, and I think five or six successful trips.
Tuesday
Tuesday AB realized that she could use her bathroom trips as a mechanism to get free candy, and started trying to figure out how to game the system. So that's a little frustrating, but overall she has made remarkable progress, which has continued to present. I'll resume my moratorium on discussing her potty training now.
Tuesday night wasn't a super exciting one. I came home from work, worket out, had dinner (T-- made some of her famous chicken crescent squares, which were delicious), then we watched a little TV. Instead of trying to write, I just went to bed early, but that didn't gain me much. I was still late waking on Wednesday.
Wednesday
Wednesday after work I rushed home to try to get my workout in before dinner, which we'd decided to have at home. Halfway through I paused to place the order, then finished up, grabbed a quick shower, and rushed up to P F Chang's to pick up our food.
Fantastic dinner, and not too ridiculously expensive. AB really does love the hot and sour soup, which weirds me out.
After that T-- took AB to church, and D-- read through his newsfeed while I played Too Human. We were all just waiting for 8:30, though, to catch this week's Lost. It was a great one. I spent most of the show thinking, "I can't wait to read about this on Lostpedia." Think that sad if you will, I just consider it a recognition of the depth of their mythology. I enjoy learning about what's included, but unaccessible on a casual viewing.
Anyway, after that D-- went home, and one again I went to bed without writing. Since last Thursday, I've gotten about 2,000 words done, which is basically one third of my minimum writing goal (1,000 words a day). I've done enough to finish chapter 8, but I haven't been terribly productive.
I'm not really beating myself up about it, though, because while that's flagging I am busy doing a tremendous job on my workouts. I've now done a serious workout every day since I got the elliptical machine. I worked up to my 40-minute target in four days, and I've stayed at that ever since, without missing a day. This weekend could be a problem because we're spending three days in Little Rock, but I'm going to try to get in my workout before we leave tomorrow morning and then do one as soon as we get home Sunday night, so I'll only miss one day. Maybe I'll even make myself go for a walk on Saturday. We'll see.
Anyway, things roll ever onward. For the moment, the outlook is nice.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Friday night I got home from work and spent 40 minutes on the elliptical machine. Then I showered and had a quick dinner with T-- in which she lamented the trial of potty training. After supper we were supposed to go over to my sister's place to help set up for a party Saturday night, but I suggested T-- go ahead and head over, and I would spend some time working with AB.
We went to the bathroom and I just made her sit on her potty until she did something. It was extremely unfun, for both of us. In the end, it took over an hour and a half, but she finally did it and I think that helped her (a little bit) get over the terror of doing something new.
Anyway, I'd spent the whole time telling her that as soon as she was done she could go see her cousins (something she was really excited about). As her bedtime rolled closer and closer I was ready to give up on it all and just put her in bed in a diaper, but it was right at 8:30 when she sealed the deal, and I could hardly back out of a promise after she'd done what I asked, so I packed her up and we drove out to my sister's place.
I got a sneak peek at some of the party prep (and they put a lot of work into it), and AB spent half an hour or so playing with the girls, then we all headed back home. AB got to bed, and I went to my office to do a little writing.
Saturday
Saturday morning I did my workout -- forty minutes on the machine -- and then as soon as I was cleaned up we headed out to meet Mom and Dad and my sister's family at IHOP for brunch, 11-ish, and we all crowded into a booth meant for maybe six people. Service was slow (as it usually is at IHOP), so even though the food was delicious it was hard to enjoy it because T-- and I ended up having to rush out of there for a 12:30 commitment.
That was babysitting. K-- and N-- brought little Jason over, and we got to spend a couple hours watching Word World with AB while we passed a sleeping Jason back and forth. I think T-- changed one diaper, but other than that there wasn't much work to it. AB was a bigger handful.
K-- and N-- came to pick him up around two, and they hung around to talk for a bit. That was fun.
Then they left, and a little bit after that (around four) T-- headed over to my sister's place to help finish getting ready for the party at six. I watched AB for about an hour, then got her in her dragon costume and tried on my Warlock costume, which was mix-and-match of a pirate costume and a wizard costume from Halloweens past, plus a very WoW-styled set of shoulder armor that we'd built out of papier mache.
The party was for my brother-in-law's thirtieth birthday, and he's probably the most dedicated WoW player out of our group of pretty dedicated WoW players, so my sister decided to throw a costume party (and somehow convinced a bunch of people to go along). There's a detailed description of the party at my sister's blog, in case you want to know more, but my parents were there, as were K-- and N--, and Toby and Gwyn, and Jeff's brother, Greg.
Instead of party games we had quests. Mom and Dad got really into the costume portion, which was hilarious. My favorite bit was the food, though, which was set out in a buffet and each part of it labeled after an in-game food item. I laughed out loud when I saw the cheese tray bearing the tooltip text for Alterac Swiss.
Sunday
Sunday morning I got up early enough to do my workout, but halfway through it I heard a crash and rushed out of the office to find AB bleeding in the bathroom, with T-- trying to tend to her. We had been using a glass jar for her candy rewards, but I guess she'd gotten a little greedy and tried to reward herself, and let the jar crash to the floor. She cut her middle finger -- just a little slice, but it was bleeding like crazy, and she was freaking out.
It took us a good twenty minutes of fighting with her to get it cleaned up and get a bandaid on (then, of course, she immediately calmed down). T-- took her to get dressed, and I went back to the office to resume my workout. Just as I finished, though, T-- poked her head in the door to tell me they were leaving for church.
I'd lost track of the time spent taking care of AB, and my workout ran over. Worse, we'd left one of our cars at my sister's place on Saturday night, so I couldn't just show up late. Mom and Dad were supposed to be bringing it to church with them, though, so T-- suggested I call them and ask them to drop it off at the house on their way. Then she and AB left for church while I jumped in the shower.
Unfortunately, my phone was in the car that T-- took to church, so that little plan didn't work out. I ended up spending that hour or so playing Too Human, until Dad knocked on the door after service to let me know Mom was waiting in the car to take me up to Ole for lunch. It was another big family lunch (and this time D-- joined us). Afterward we said our goodbyes to Mom and Dad, then headed home for a quiet Sunday afternoon. D-- came over to hang out, after a busy weekend with a visiting college buddy, and we watched some TV while AB napped.
Then T-- took AB to Small Groups at the church. I asked D-- what sounded good for dinner, and he suggested going to a movie. We ended up seeing I Love You, Man -- and no, the humor of the two of us going to see a movie about bromance and man-dates was not in the least lost on us. The movie itself was awesome, though. I highly recommend it.
I got home around nine-thirty, and instead of writing I watched some TV with T--.
Monday
Monday morning I got to work and spent my time reviewing for the Graduate Records Exam. I'd signed up for it last week sometime, and was scheduled to take the test at 12:30. I spent maybe an hour and a half reviewing, and that was just about enough time to get me really freaked out.
I grabbed some lunch on the way to the testing center, then showed up a little bit early and ate in the parking lot. When I got in, they gave me a clipboard to verify some of my registration information, then showed me in right away to get started. I was probably answering questions by noon, even though my appointment wasn't until 12:30.
The test is listed as a four-hour process, but I did it in two. It consists of a written portion -- two essays, which I would swear are just stoner traps -- and then a multiple-choice Verbal (or English) portion and a multiple-choice Quantitative (or Math) portion. I did 700 in Verbal and 670 in Quantitative. The max. possible is 800, but apparently the Verbal portion is a lot harder than the Quantitative, because even with my scores so close together they come out to 96th percentile and 76th percentile respectively.
I'm doing all of this to get into the Masters of Professional Writing program at OU, though, and their only requirement is a 500 in Verbal, so I nailed that. They're also interested in my writing score, which I won't have back for another two weeks, but I feel like I did pretty well.
I'd already taken the whole afternoon off work, so I went ahead and headed home. I spent some time discussing the test with T--, then headed to the office and did my forty minutes while she took AB to do the grocery shopping. She picked up Mazzio's on the way home, and we had a quiet evening watching TV. At nine I headed to the office, and got a little writing done.
Oh! After our tortuous experiences with AB Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday morning, we gave up on the whole making her sit on the potty thing. She spent most of the rest of Sunday in a diaper, actually. Then on Monday, all on her own, she kept rushing to the bathroom whenever she needed to go. She only had one accident all day, and I think five or six successful trips.
Tuesday
Tuesday AB realized that she could use her bathroom trips as a mechanism to get free candy, and started trying to figure out how to game the system. So that's a little frustrating, but overall she has made remarkable progress, which has continued to present. I'll resume my moratorium on discussing her potty training now.
Tuesday night wasn't a super exciting one. I came home from work, worket out, had dinner (T-- made some of her famous chicken crescent squares, which were delicious), then we watched a little TV. Instead of trying to write, I just went to bed early, but that didn't gain me much. I was still late waking on Wednesday.
Wednesday
Wednesday after work I rushed home to try to get my workout in before dinner, which we'd decided to have at home. Halfway through I paused to place the order, then finished up, grabbed a quick shower, and rushed up to P F Chang's to pick up our food.
Fantastic dinner, and not too ridiculously expensive. AB really does love the hot and sour soup, which weirds me out.
After that T-- took AB to church, and D-- read through his newsfeed while I played Too Human. We were all just waiting for 8:30, though, to catch this week's Lost. It was a great one. I spent most of the show thinking, "I can't wait to read about this on Lostpedia." Think that sad if you will, I just consider it a recognition of the depth of their mythology. I enjoy learning about what's included, but unaccessible on a casual viewing.
Anyway, after that D-- went home, and one again I went to bed without writing. Since last Thursday, I've gotten about 2,000 words done, which is basically one third of my minimum writing goal (1,000 words a day). I've done enough to finish chapter 8, but I haven't been terribly productive.
I'm not really beating myself up about it, though, because while that's flagging I am busy doing a tremendous job on my workouts. I've now done a serious workout every day since I got the elliptical machine. I worked up to my 40-minute target in four days, and I've stayed at that ever since, without missing a day. This weekend could be a problem because we're spending three days in Little Rock, but I'm going to try to get in my workout before we leave tomorrow morning and then do one as soon as we get home Sunday night, so I'll only miss one day. Maybe I'll even make myself go for a walk on Saturday. We'll see.
Anyway, things roll ever onward. For the moment, the outlook is nice.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Journal Entry: April 3, 2009
Yesterday I got home a little late from work and then spent a little while talking with T-- and AB before working out, so it was nearly 6:30 by the time we started on dinner.
I did put in a 35-minute workout, and I plan on doing 40 tonight. In just a week I've gotten past the point where soreness or tiredness makes it difficult to finish my workout. Now it's just the battle with boredom, because somewhere around 25 minutes I just want to go do something else. I'm going to try to watching some different shows -- something I haven't seen before -- in the hopes that will keep me better distracted.
Anyway, after dinner T-- and I spent much of the evening working on a crafts project. That took us until 10:00, an hour into my writing time, but I'd gotten enough work done over my lunch break that I decided to skip it for the evening, and we watched some TV instead.
It was a pleasant evening, and I'm officially at the halfway point in my book now. That's pretty exciting.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
I did put in a 35-minute workout, and I plan on doing 40 tonight. In just a week I've gotten past the point where soreness or tiredness makes it difficult to finish my workout. Now it's just the battle with boredom, because somewhere around 25 minutes I just want to go do something else. I'm going to try to watching some different shows -- something I haven't seen before -- in the hopes that will keep me better distracted.
Anyway, after dinner T-- and I spent much of the evening working on a crafts project. That took us until 10:00, an hour into my writing time, but I'd gotten enough work done over my lunch break that I decided to skip it for the evening, and we watched some TV instead.
It was a pleasant evening, and I'm officially at the halfway point in my book now. That's pretty exciting.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Journal Entry: April 2, 2009
Yesterday T-- started potty-training AB.
And it was a miserable day for everyone. The end.
Actually, lots of other stuff happened, but it would have been fun to leave the whole post at that.
Anyway, after work I got home and spent a little time talking with AB, trying to reinforce some of the work T-- had done over the course of the day. AB was sick of talking about it by then, though, so I gave up pretty quickly and retired to my office for a quick workout. I put in a full thirty minutes (which was tough), then grabbed a quick shower and afterward ran up to McDonalds to grab some dinner for us all.
D-- brought over a pita, and we all ate together, then I tried taking AB to the bathroom for more training, but she just wasn't having any of it. And I've just decided that, as much as it's going to be a big factor in our lives for the next few weeks (I pray that it's only a few weeks...), nobody is going to want to read about it. So I'll skip over that.
K-- and N-- came over 7:30-ish, and we spent some time visiting while we waited for Lost to come on. About twenty minutes into Lost AB's bedtime rolled around, and after an exhausting day of new and terrifying ideas, and then the party atmosphere of having K-- and N-- over at the same time as D--, she had no interest in going to bed. She wailed for half an hour. T-- and I took turns trying to get her to go to sleep, and I think she finally exhausted herself with all the struggling and crying.
After that we were able to finish the episode and actually pay attention to what was going on, and it was a good one. Then K-- and N-- headed home, and D-- hung around to watch an episode of Better Off Ted with us, which was fantastic. Then T-- turned on Law and Order so he headed home and I headed to my office.
It was 10:00 by then, and I'd already gotten a lot of writing done over lunch, so I wasn't really planning to do much. I went ahead and pulled up my book on Google Docs, though, and I was at the beginning of the chapter where the stricken wife spills the details on the big secret that was my inspiration for the whole book in the first place. So I decided to put in half an hour, and ended up doing two hours. Chapter seven is half done now, and I could have finished it last night but I made myself get to bed.
After all, I have a real job to do.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
And it was a miserable day for everyone. The end.
Actually, lots of other stuff happened, but it would have been fun to leave the whole post at that.
Anyway, after work I got home and spent a little time talking with AB, trying to reinforce some of the work T-- had done over the course of the day. AB was sick of talking about it by then, though, so I gave up pretty quickly and retired to my office for a quick workout. I put in a full thirty minutes (which was tough), then grabbed a quick shower and afterward ran up to McDonalds to grab some dinner for us all.
D-- brought over a pita, and we all ate together, then I tried taking AB to the bathroom for more training, but she just wasn't having any of it. And I've just decided that, as much as it's going to be a big factor in our lives for the next few weeks (I pray that it's only a few weeks...), nobody is going to want to read about it. So I'll skip over that.
K-- and N-- came over 7:30-ish, and we spent some time visiting while we waited for Lost to come on. About twenty minutes into Lost AB's bedtime rolled around, and after an exhausting day of new and terrifying ideas, and then the party atmosphere of having K-- and N-- over at the same time as D--, she had no interest in going to bed. She wailed for half an hour. T-- and I took turns trying to get her to go to sleep, and I think she finally exhausted herself with all the struggling and crying.
After that we were able to finish the episode and actually pay attention to what was going on, and it was a good one. Then K-- and N-- headed home, and D-- hung around to watch an episode of Better Off Ted with us, which was fantastic. Then T-- turned on Law and Order so he headed home and I headed to my office.
It was 10:00 by then, and I'd already gotten a lot of writing done over lunch, so I wasn't really planning to do much. I went ahead and pulled up my book on Google Docs, though, and I was at the beginning of the chapter where the stricken wife spills the details on the big secret that was my inspiration for the whole book in the first place. So I decided to put in half an hour, and ended up doing two hours. Chapter seven is half done now, and I could have finished it last night but I made myself get to bed.
After all, I have a real job to do.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Journal Entry: April 1, 2009
Yesterday at work I got started on my application to OU. I wrote several of my old professors requesting letters of reference (and already got two positive responses, which is enough for the actual requirements). I signed up to take the GRE next Monday, and prepared a 50-consecutive-page writing sample (I just went with the first four chapters of Gods Tomorrow), and updated my resume. All I've got left to do is prepare a letter of intent -- a 3-page essay describing my career goals and why I think OU should admit me to their program. I can handle that.
After work I had a pretty short evening. I got home while T-- and AB were out shopping, so I went straight to the office for a quick workout. I did 25 minutes on the elliptical, and probably could have done 35 but I was still sore from Monday and didn't want to overdo it.
After that I grabbed a quick shower, and then we headed up to Schlotzky's to meet my little sister and her family for dinner. AB was incredibly excited to go play with Sophie and Lola -- and, yes, I misspelled Sophie there somehow (according to her mother), but I can't remember how she says it's supposed to go, so that'll have to do.
Anyway. I played the evil father and made AB sit in her chair until we were all done eating, then she got down and the three girls ran wild in the mostly-empty restaurant while we talked. We eventually got a little tired of that, so T-- invited them to come over to our place, and we let the girls run wild in AB's room while we talked.
They eventually headed out around 8, and then I did some chores in the kitchen while T-- gave AB a bath. After that, AB went to bed and T-- and I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother. It was okay.
Then I headed to the office, and spent most of my writing time chatting with D--. I did put in some time on prewriting for a new novel I've been working on since Sunday morning. (I got the idea for it on the drive to church.) I threw together a Project Report over on my other page, in case you're curious. Should be fun to write, but it's appended to the end of a very long To Do list as far as my novels go, so don't hold your breath for an opportunity to read it.
I went to bed around 11, and woke up early feeling miserable. Remember how I didn't want to overdo it? Well I did. I still think I'm going to go workout when I get home this evening, but I'm sore all over. That's the penalty for going so long without doing anything at all, though. Ugh.
I did get some more writing done on my GT book over lunch, today. Chapter 6 is done, at 24,000 words. It turned out more dramatic than I'd expected, so that's cool.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
After work I had a pretty short evening. I got home while T-- and AB were out shopping, so I went straight to the office for a quick workout. I did 25 minutes on the elliptical, and probably could have done 35 but I was still sore from Monday and didn't want to overdo it.
After that I grabbed a quick shower, and then we headed up to Schlotzky's to meet my little sister and her family for dinner. AB was incredibly excited to go play with Sophie and Lola -- and, yes, I misspelled Sophie there somehow (according to her mother), but I can't remember how she says it's supposed to go, so that'll have to do.
Anyway. I played the evil father and made AB sit in her chair until we were all done eating, then she got down and the three girls ran wild in the mostly-empty restaurant while we talked. We eventually got a little tired of that, so T-- invited them to come over to our place, and we let the girls run wild in AB's room while we talked.
They eventually headed out around 8, and then I did some chores in the kitchen while T-- gave AB a bath. After that, AB went to bed and T-- and I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother. It was okay.
Then I headed to the office, and spent most of my writing time chatting with D--. I did put in some time on prewriting for a new novel I've been working on since Sunday morning. (I got the idea for it on the drive to church.) I threw together a Project Report over on my other page, in case you're curious. Should be fun to write, but it's appended to the end of a very long To Do list as far as my novels go, so don't hold your breath for an opportunity to read it.
I went to bed around 11, and woke up early feeling miserable. Remember how I didn't want to overdo it? Well I did. I still think I'm going to go workout when I get home this evening, but I'm sore all over. That's the penalty for going so long without doing anything at all, though. Ugh.
I did get some more writing done on my GT book over lunch, today. Chapter 6 is done, at 24,000 words. It turned out more dramatic than I'd expected, so that's cool.
Other than that, it's just things and stuff.
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