The Average Blogger

2023 Review

2023, like every year, was the best one yet — but this one was exceptionally good! 

1. What did you do this year that you'd never done before?
Visited San Antonio. Visited Tahoe. Drove on Bonneville Salt Flats.  Got NYAB to attend dance lessons. 

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Every year I say I'm gonna diet, and every year the Still Youngish Prince (SYP) is right to scoff at me.  

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope. A couple friends, but we aren't particularly close...  

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother. But she had been absent for so long that it didn't really feel all that traumatic.   

5. What countries did you visit?
As usual, just this one. 

6. What would you like to have in the new year that you lacked this year?
New siding, but that's on hold.    

7. What date from the year will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I still don't do dates like this.    

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Pulling the trigger and going part-time at my job. Totally life-altering and game-changing. I'm ecstatic. 

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Only age-related aches and pains.  

10. What was the best thing you bought?
Travel, travel, travel. And my zippy Mazda CX-5, Jackie Blue!  

11. Whose behavior merited celebration? 
The kid, the kid, the kid. I'm continually impressed by the grown-up traits he demonstrates (even if they are tempered by occasional lapses.)  

12. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? 
Assorted folks on my periphery who made life harder for people I care about and then acted like they were the victims. 

13. Where did most of your money go? 
Same as last year: the house, travel, tuition.     

14. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 
Traveling with JB.  Winning big on the penny slots on our Notre Dame trip. 

15. What song will always remind you of this year?
Miles and Miles of Texas by Asleep at the Wheel, heard live at the San Antonio rodeo, which was totally awesome.  

16. Compared to this time last year, are you: 
i. happier or sadder? SO MUCH HAPPIER.  
ii. thinner or fatter? fatter and less fit but I have joined a gym and have good intentions. 
iii. richer or poorer? We're doing just fine. 

17. What do you wish you'd done more of? 
Yard work. Travel.    

18. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worked, but that's fixed now! Next goal is to retire entirely!   

19. How (did) you spend Christmas?
SYP home in early December; party at our house the 16th; Christmas Eve with JB's family at my niece KC's house; Christmas and Boxing Day at my mom's.  

20. Did you fall in love?
This one is an established daily tradition since 1998.  

21. What was your favorite TV program?
I don't know. With streaming, we watch a lot and it's hard to keep it all in mind. Maybe The Crown.   

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Too happy to hate this year. It's a nice feeling.    

23. What was the best book you read? 
I read some bad ones. I'm looking forward to reading some good ones in 2024.      

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?
See No. 15.  

25. What did you want and get? 
Reduced work hours 

26. What was your favorite film of this year?
To quote the SYP: Barbenheimer (although I liked Oppenheimer better of those two). 

27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 52. Spent the day in St. Louis at our first Cardinals Opening Day. It was gorgeous. 

28. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Same as last year: More play. Less work.  Also, if I could reconnect with a couple friends who appear to have dropped me for good without explaining why—but I guess they have their reasons and I'm unlikely to change, so maybe it's for the best. 

29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?
Big and baggy. A lot of sundresses.   

30. What kept you sane? 
For once, the main thing was not NYAB or sleep—it was going part-time at work. Of course, that meant more time for NYAB and sleeping, so .... 

31. What political issue stirred you the most?
I refuse to be stirred by that stuff anymore. It's become SEP.  

32. Who did you miss?
All the dead ones—especially my grandmother at her memorial, but my dad a lot, too, for some reason.  

33. Who was the best new person you met?
Probably Johnny Boggs and Debby Arnold (who introduced us).      

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned: 
It's easier to stay in compliance than try to bring everything back up to speed.    

35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Here's to the good times, here's to the sunshine.

2022 Review

2022 was pretty eventful! 

1. What did you do this year that you'd never done before?
Became a legit member of a small-town community. Joined the Friends of the Library. Invited an entire town to a party at my house. LOVED MY INDOOR POOL.    

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I had a resolution made FOR ME for 2023 to lose weight.  

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.   

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, although the diabetic dog probably came close.  

5. What countries did you visit?
Nowhere new this year.  The kid got his first trip to Chicago ... and his first trip to my friend Beth's house for a weeklong hurricane hunker-down. 

6. What would you like to have in the new year that you lacked this year?
A working hot tub, a gravel path that goes to the gate we installed in the fence, maybe new siding on the house. Things to stop breaking.   

7. What date from the year will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don't really do this, either. I do well to remember vaguely the season in which an event occurred.    

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Buying the house and getting moved in. The biggest family achievement not by me was the kid getting through his first semester. 

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing particularly dreadful. We all got COVID finally and were done with it inside of a week. 

10. What was the best thing you bought?
The house! 

11. Whose behavior merited celebration? 
The kid, the kid, the kid.  He did great this year. 

12. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? 
My new boss. I adore her as a person, but damn the work thing feels like a bad fit. 

13. Where did most of your money go? 
The house and its peripherals, and college tuition.     

14. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 
See the answers to No. 13.    

15. What song will always remind you of this year?
I have reached an age where I don't listen to much new music. I should probably rectify that, but with Sirius XM playing multiple channels of old favorites, it's unlikely to happen. 

16. Compared to this time last year, are you: 
i. happier or sadder? happier, although now I'm pretty hot to get out of the workforce.  
ii. thinner or fatter? fatter. And in worse shape. I dumped the gym when we left Virginia and didn't replace it with anything. 
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer, but quality of life is way better. 

17. What do you wish you'd done more of? 
Anything but work. Hang with JB, hang with my mom, hang with the library folks...   

18. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worked.   

19. How (did) you spend Christmas?
We spread it out over a couple weeks; Christmas weekend at my mom's; New Year's Eve day with JB's family.   

20. Did you fall in love?
This one is an established daily tradition since 1998.  

21. What was your favorite TV program?
Yellowstone, although it's not really new anymore. It was new to us.     

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Yeahhhh, and they all work at my place of employment.    

23. What was the best book you read? 
I'm not sure I read anything besides Poldark this year. Disgraceful.     

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?
That Sirius XM works in Moweaqua. 

25. What did you want and get? 
The house.  

26. What was your favorite film of this year?
Top Gun was great. Bullet Train was fun. 

27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 51. We bought the house. 

28. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More play. Less work.  

29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?
Big and baggy. A lot of sundresses.   

30. What kept you sane? 
NYAB. Sleep. Same as always. 

31. What political issue stirred you the most?
I have decided that fat and dumb are the way to be happy. I tried to ignore politics as much as I could. 

32. Who did you miss?
All the dead ones—especially the newly dead ones.  

33. Who was the best new person you met?
The Moweaqua librarian!!     

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned: 
Always take the wire transfer for funds. Don't let them mail a check.   

35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Another boring romantic, that's me.

Autumn

So, I did manage to get the Young Prince to decorate the yard in time for Halloween, and he had a nice day of the Actual 'Een—starting with his friend's bar mitzvah in the morning, progressing through his music lessons, spending the early evening trick-or-treating with some neighborhood kids, and wrapping up the night with some horror movie viewing par excellence.  

(His assessment: "I enjoyed going and wasn't bored or anything—but I think I'd learn more at services where most of the talking is done in English,"  "I am now learning my third Christmas song on piano, and I don't know why because it's not like anybody will come over to hear me play them," and, "Look, I got Reese's cups!") 

I spent most of that weekend working, wrapping up with a 32-hour stint from Sunday morning until Monday evening. I then took two days later in the week to clean house, do laundry, and take the YP to the allergist. Turns out he is allergic to virtually everything all year round, and in two weeks he begins a weekly regimen of shots that will last three to five years, but theoretically render him invulnerable in the long run.  Or so they say. 

We are also taking him for another assessment this week for sensory issues to see if something else is at play in his brain and whether someone can figure out how to make him less twitchy and grumpy. I have no idea what will come of that. Can't hurt, might help, probably won't do much of anything. And then next week, we find out what the school system has in mind as far as accommodating his assorted issues. I'm sure you can imagine how excited we all are about that bit of business. 

Meanwhile, Not Your Average Blogger is proceeding apace on his book and job and things seem to be going well on that score.

I had a possible nibble on my own writing effort, but it fell through, so I'm on round 2 of researching publishers.  I know I only need to find one match, but jeezopete.  You know, I hated dating, and this is an even worse variety of the "you're really nice, but..." song and dance. I suppose being told that my book is well written and interesting is preferable to being called illiterate and tasteless, but it's sort of like hearing "you look nice and smell good" as the lead-in to "but I'm just not that into you." It's complimentary, but ultimately not terribly helpful or much salve to the ego.  

So all of this agita has conspired to make me fairly preoccupied, alternating with ridiculously sleepy. As a result, not much else is happening. Barring some sort of massive upheaval, I expect the holding pattern will continue through Thanksgiving, if not the end of the year. 

Anyone want to come visit for the holidays and give me a reason to decorate and cook (and the kid an external reason to keep practicing his piano lessons)? 

Work and Play

More the former than the latter, I'm sorry to say. 

Last weekend I cleaned the house, cleared the yard, and then watched a "horror" movie with the Young Prince (his selection was the Disney quasi-classic Something Wicked This Way Comes. I was equally charmed, surprised, and disappointed he didn't pick something more sinister, like The Omen or Cujo, but I suppose he slept better for it.

On Sunday, we met up with a friend and saw My Fair Lady on the big screen. It was rather enjoyable; the first time I've seen it in a theater. And it was my first time seeing a movie I'm totally used to on a TV screen where I wasn't distracted by how terribly different the theater experience was. I was also quite happy to see that there were three little girls behind us singing merrily away with most of the lyrics.

(And yes, I know, if my Womyn Card hadn't been officially revoked ages ago, this would surely cast me out. Even the YP leaned over to me in the middle of "Why Can't A Woman" and hissed, "MOM! Why haven't feminists lost their stuff about this?" And I hissed back, "Oh, sweetie. They totally have.")   

Since then, it's been a series of school meetings for reviews of the kid's ADHD Allowances Plan, trying to keep up with work (where I'm trying to cram 40 hours of work into 24, and will doubtless be working even more than that 16-hour difference over the weekend) and looking ahead to December, when we might be dug out of work and will definitely be at the theater for the new Star Wars flick, having purchased our tickets Monday night along with the rest of the Western world. 

In the meantime, anyone got any good Halloween plans? 

October Sky

 The sun came out again yesterday and in two days we've had two of the most spectacular sunsets in recent memory. 

We survived the week of rain quite nicely. I actually rather enjoyed the gray and wet and stay-in-bed days, although I did feel like my toes might begin to mold if it went on much longer. It was a nice week for heavy winter food like pot roast, and since Not Your Average Blogger was home, that's what he made and I think I gained half a ton.

The high point for me, though, was that apparently my efforts at grading and graveling the flower bed have paid off in at least one respect: The basement didn't flood.  

On the work front, I went to a design seminar with Edward Tufte. It was ... interesting. The man is clearly a genius, and much of what he said was wonderfully, refreshingly clear-eyed common sense. But it was also largely useless, because he lives in a rarefied atmosphere where you can do things like hand out a worksheet, tell people to read it, ask if they have questions, and that's your meeting. Here on Planet Real World, the instruction to "give a presentation" implies something a bit more talky and hand-held and far less self-directed, and deviating from that expectation might be less than advisable. 

Tufte, like many geniuses, is also kind of a dick. He sniffed at the average IQ of those who frequent ESPN.com, he seemed inordinately fond of the word "idiot," and at one point compared Dick Cheney to "a volcano of evil."  I mean, really? We're still picking on Dick Cheney? Can't we update the material a little? Plus, much of the afternoon was spent on a weird tangent regarding etiquette—"respect your audience" (not sure he practiced that bit of preaching) and "if you find no value in what's being said, you can always walk out." (except when you can't, of course.) 

As I said: interesting. 

NYAB took the week off between the end of his old job and the start of his new one and worked assiduously on his book. I think he rather enjoyed it. NYAB has started his new job and has come home cheerful if tired, so that's nice.

The Young Prince had a particularly good week at school; something has motivated him to be more useful and he has earned himself a slew of Good Citizenship cards for listening attentively, helping clean classrooms, and so on. I don't know what prompted this, but I'm delighted by it and hope it continues. (Perhaps I should figure out some similar system to get him to work on his penmanship.) In another successful outing, he recorded his music lessons, and I was surprised by how interesting it was to listen to them. I have a much clearer idea now of how both teachers approach him and what they are trying to accomplish. Always a good thing.

The main weekend event was that the YP and I left NYAB to work on his book and went to see The Walk, which was visually breathtaking. I don't know what to call it. Cinematography? CGI? Whatever, it was stunning. Your stomach will flop in spots if you have any issue with heights whatsoever.  (I could have done without the obligatory yaps that artists must be anarchists, but into each film a little pandering must fall, I suppose.) The YP also enjoyed the soundtrack, though I found that purely secondary.

The only fly in our ointment was we found out that the YP's psychiatrist may be going out of our health plan network. This is not a particularly big deal in and of itself; I like her, but not enough to pay out-of-network prices if I have an alternative. I'm just hoping I can avoid the hassle of searching for a new doctor and going through what is probably an inevitable dance of Everything You've Done Up to Now Is Wrong and Let's Change Everything Because Now I'm in Charge. 

This weekend we are off to a fall festival in the mountains. I'm hoping autumn is a bit farther along up there and I will manage to snap a few good photos, mixed in with the requisite shopping, eating, and hiking. 

Whoops.

Where did July go?  How did I miss an entire month of posting? Oh, right, I was off doing stuff. And I did a fair bit of offline journaling, allowing me to vent my political opinions without adding to the shouting match that social media has become, and which I'm finding increasingly distasteful. 

So, let's see.  Work is still crazy busy, although I had time to spend 3 days in project management training that didn't do much except show me that I learned a lot more about organizational efficacy (and buzzwords) at my previous job than I realized. Not Your Average Blogger has also been busy—freelancing, book research, plus a day job.  

As for play time... The Nats game and subsequent fireworks on July 3 were fun, minus a downpour and the fact we were sitting on the wrong side of the park and had to move to see them.  

The next day, we went to the Fourth celebration at Great Meadow, which was really cool. They had a polo exhibition, shot off a bunch of model rockets, did helicopter demonstrations, and had some fun kid activities, along with a really great show.  I also got  lot of reading done while waiting, which was nice. We also ran into NeighborGirl, which was a lovely surprise, especially when I got stung by a bee and she got to see if she had to dig the stinger out. 

The following week, the Young Prince went to his second week of video game camp, right in his wheel house. He liked it enough that he wants to go again next year—and I'm willing to look into sending him for the whole summer, since it means he might actually be able to develop some useful working knowledge related to something he's genuinely interested in and doesn't have to be prodded into spending hours on.

 

However, he didn't get to finish that week, because we bailed and went to Illinois to visit my family for a quick visit while Not Your Average Blogger drove on to Nebraska for Fremont Days and gave a book talk. It was a nice visit, though my dad was flat out for a couple days and the kid was grumpy at having to pitch in and do some work. The only real disappointment was that it had been raining so much for so long that there was no way to go exploring on various back parts of the property without drowning or getting stuck. I did bring home my great-grandfather's rocking horse, which needs a little bit of TLC, so I need to find someone who can administer that kind of attention. 

The following weekend, we went to another baseball game. It was Star Wars day, which kept the YP more interested and engaged than usual. We also had a run-in with an obnoxious fan that NYAB handled most brilliantly and ended with the obnoxious fan calling up a security guard to "deal with" NYAB—and then irritating the security guard so much that he got hauled off his own self, amid applause. It was a lovely story and an excellent teachable moment for the YP, along the lines of "when we tell you not to be an obnoxious jerk, it's so you don't end up like that guy, who obviously didn't realize he was being an obnoxious jerk." And the kid actually did seem to absorb the lesson, which was also satisfying. 

The weekend after THAT, the kid was invited to a friend's house, so NYAB and I took advantage of our freedom and high-tailed it to Charles Town, where we spent a giddy evening gambling and eating a fantastic steak dinner, highlighted on my side with a surprisingly great booze drink that was vaguely reminiscent of the fizzy pink drinks my dad used to make for my mom (and me) when I was in high school. The evening was a rousing success, NYAB made an inadvertently large and risky play on an electronic roulette machine and it paid off magnificently. Even counting dinner, we left ahead of the game. So we went out the next day and blew the winnings on a new tablet/laptop that he can use for working on his next book. 

Last Friday, NYAB and I went to a seminar on PTSD and one of the main guys in my book. The staff historian said the event was posted on Facebook and got all kinds of traffic, but as it turned out we were two of three people in attendance. Still, it was fun to just sit and gab with the guy; we are getting to know him rather well at this point. 

The rest of the weekend was spent at the Quicken Loans National. It was a rough start; the YP was sick when we arrived, then made a miraculous recovery, but resented being hot and prodded to walk the course. He'd finally adjusted his attitude, and been excited to stand about three feet away from Tiger Woods when NYAB felt a twinge in his back and I called a halt to the proceedings while we could all still walk home—and upon arriving there, we all collapsed into TV comas and outright napping. Next day, NYAB and I went back and left the YP at home—and he did the laundry! and folded everything! and brought the baskets up to the bedrooms! 

This weekend, we are going to an exhibit at the National Geographic Museum that's built around the Indiana Jones movies. Apparently it combines real artifacts with props and stuff from the movies. I'm curious to see how they make that work. Maybe I'll actually get back on track and go back to posting regularly, and you will get to read all about it next week.  I suppose it all depends on how things shake out at work. 

A Non-Event Event

Last week was all discombobulated. The Young Prince missed some school.  I worked weird hours so I could run some errands, like drop off the Fun Car for its annual $800 repair job. This year it was tie rods, bearings, and a fuel line the dang squirrels ate. (Sigh.  I suppose it's really time to unload that thing on someone who will treat it with the year-round love it deserves. That, or kit out the undercarriage with all kinds of squirrel-killing devices. Maybe both.) We also made a Costco run, which is always sort of an ordeal, and we cleaned out the house and dumped a metric ton of toys and clothes at Goodwill. Next weekend, we tackle the garage. Pray for us. 

In much more exciting news, Not Your Average Blogger officially sealed his second book deal, so that was cause for celebration, and will be a preoccupation for the coming year. (And might get him out of cleaning said garage, lucky man.)

In the middle of all this fell the 17th anniversary of when NYAB and I first met. He made reservations for us to have dinner at one of our favorite places (The Rail Stop, in The Plains, in case you're ever nearby), and then we came home and watched movies. Short of throwing in a nap, I really couldn't have asked for a better anniversary date.  I laugh harder, have more fun, and learn more sitting around my (now clean) house with NYAB and the YP than I do anywhere else.  

May everyone I know be even half as lucky as I am. 

Second Gear, I Lean Right

Except for the facts that I own a Toyota and I don't like motorcycles, the rest of this Beach Boys lyric fits fairly well. Things are moving along, and I certainly do not keep left. 

So, although it doesn't seem like much happened, I feel as if a wave is coming in that I'll be able to ride for a while.  The yard is in good shape and I'm working up the energy to do a lot of spray-washing and waterproofing and bleeblah, perhaps this weekend. I really need to take a day off work and clean my house. It is scandalous, as a result of staying up til 4 and 5 a.m. and spending all my time working on the book.

But!  The payoff of those late hours is that I have officially completed my first round of revisions and placed my manuscript in the hands of a capable editor friend and a noted local history buff. I have every confidence that these two people will save me from myself. 

The rest of the weekend was lovely, as well. On Friday, I set my nose to the microfiche grindstone at the library and found two final puzzle pieces on my narrative that I had been seeking for months, then had lunch with NeighborGirl.  On Saturday, my boys graciously came along with me for a tour of the Brentsville jail—and I think even the Young Prince was a little impressed with the tour and the vibe. I really do hope that I can work this so that publication of the book and the jail opening come close to coinciding.  We went to the Nationals game on Sunday and even the YP got interested in the game, although he also read his book for a couple innings.  Monday was yard work and naps. 

The other big thing I did this weekend is I bought an "electronic foot file," which is basically a big dremel to sand down heel calluses.  I go barefoot as much as I am able, though I wear shoes all winter, and every spring my feet are ... Not Attractive, let's say.  And I have tried everything—creams, pumice stones, those callus razors—and nothing was ever particularly effective, so I figured this might be good money after bad, but I am a slave to consumerism. I didn't even wait to get home, I fired it up in Not Your Average Blogger's car. This led to much dismay on his part, as the thing was actually quite effective and soon his front dash was coated in a layer of powder-fine foot-dust (a material that you really don't want to think very much about, trust me). After an hour of steady work on my part (and piles and piles of said dust, it is a VERY messy process), my heels are the nicest they have been since I was a teen-ager. Even NYAB commented on them, and he is not particularly verbal regarding most of my self-improvement projects. So, yes, I endorse this one, wholeheartedly.

And now I face another week of work, though I hope to spend some of my off-hours putting a dent in non-paid work that will beautify the other spots of my life. I imagine a fair amount of this will be put off in favor of harassing the YP as he practices piano, however. I'm sure he will be delighted if he reads this. 

A Couple Great Weekends

I promise that I am trying to get back into the habit of weekly posting. But I'm also trying to up my presence on Twitter, finish the book, get the yard in good shape, keep the house from falling down, monitor the Young Prince, and avoid getting fired.  This adds up to a lot of plates spinning. 

And on the weekends, we have, again, been more in the mode of Doing than Recording.  For the anniversary of V-E Day, we blew off the kid's swim lesson and went to the Smithsonian's "Fly In to Victory Day,"  watched a movie about D-Day that the kid liked but probably didn't retain much of, then went out and looked at airplanes.  Photos can be seen here. (Unlabeled, as usual. I aim to make it a retirement project to give them all names and descriptions. Sort of like I meant to blog every week this year.) 

Unfortunately, in blowing off the swim lesson, we also missed a memo that the following Saturday would be a meet of some kind in Woodbridge. So he missed that since we didn't know, but I think he and his dad had a lovely time anyway.  I spent the day at a symposium about Reconstruction and After the War, where I met some lovely people and got a couple good insights for the book.  When that was over, I met the lads for dinner and then the YP and I went to see the Avengers at a "real" Imax theater, which he enjoyed immensely. 

He's been doing so well, lately.  Part of the deal of going to the movie on Saturday involved him having to finish 2 books and write five pages of his novel.  He met all deadlines with grace and very little complaint. I'm not sure how his actual classwork is going, but what I do know about seems to be moving smoothly.  We will face a challenge to that on June 16—I won (or lost, depending on your outlook) the chaperone lottery for the sixth-grade trip to Gettysburg.  This entails getting up at 5:30 a.m. to be at school by 6. I hope I am rested enough not to be cranky.  The good news is I do not get carsick, so this will be a good chance for me to either chat with a seat mate or retreat into the Outlander series and put a great big dent in that. 

Before that rolls around, however, we have Memorial Day. The outing for Saturday is a trip to the Brentsville Jail, where they are giving a tour of the reconstruction, then the usual errands and obligations (and an apology to the swim team). Sunday we are going to a baseball game. The plan for the holiday is to sit in bed and do nothing, but I imagine some yard work will creep in. We are close to getting the flower bed completely graveled and it looks much better this way.  The weeds still pop up like mad, but I am now equipped with weed killer and went to town on it yesterday. I forgot to look at it this morning to see how it turned out. Perhaps pictures of that will follow at some point. 

The only downside to a holiday is the dent it puts in my diet.  My fitness app thingie tells me I've lost 8 lbs since January. This is nice. It is also somewhat interesting to me, in that Exercise has played very little role, and I don't think Eating Less has been as significant as What I Eat. The new elliptical has been put into use (though not enough)  and while those stints have been good for my general sense of well-being and feeling accomplished,  the needle on the scale does not seem to be terribly affected by it. 

What has made a significant (and—believe me —utterly surprising) difference is subscribing to Blue Apron.  Three meals a week, Not Your Average Blogger and I joyfully bicker as we wash lettuce and pick tarragon leaves off stems and prepare what we have received. This means our plates are seeing a lot more things like beets and spinach and red onions and a lot less protein and starch. I’m not ready to proselytize for them, but I was a little shocked to eat a 700-calorie dinner after dark one night and not PAY FOR IT WITH GRIEF the next morning, you know?

 

I was talking to my weight loss pal about it  last week, and she was not surprised—said she’s done well on things like NutriSystem and Jenny Craig, but the problem is you don’t view that as a lifestyle change so much as a temporary means to an end.  Once you go back to the “real” world, you lose the parameters/serving sizes/discipline and the weight comes back. I guess Blue Apron is a kind of halfway house to those?  But since I didn’t go into it as a weight loss plan so much as a “WTF kind of food is THAT? Let’s try it!” plan, it feels less like brainwashing.  :)  So I'm not sure what we'll be eating for the three-day weekend aside from ballpark hot dogs, but there will have to be some effort to counterbalance that. 

 

Have a good holiday, everyone! 

So Much to Say

My goodness, I fell right into my old habit of Doing Instead of Reporting. 

Since last we spoke I have been to a book festival in Bowling Green, Ky., that was quite a bit of fun, I spent a night in a  hotel all by myself and finished my first draft, and I saw the new Avengers movie. Betweentimes I made a new friend, spent a jillion dollars to be told nothing is wrong with our plumbing (but will be soon), and had about six work-related nervous breakdowns. 

All in all, I'm coming out ahead, even if I'm running behind. 

So, let's see.  We drove to Bowling Green and stopped at Henry Clay's house along the way. It's a lovely spot, especially in spring, but we didn't bother to tour the house because we didn't time it right and didn't want to hang around for an hour. In Bowling Green, we were in the Staybridge, for a pretty cheap rate -- and it had TWO bedrooms, TWO bathrooms, plus a full kitchen and living room. It was amazing, seriously. I could live there quite comfortably. Especially with the maid service and all... The festival was fun; The kid and I went to four panels, which is pretty good for us.  Diana Gabaldon gave what is apparently her standard recitation, but it's a hilarious one, so good on her.  Then we listened to a bunch of middle-grade writers talk about writing, which was sort of interesting. I think the Young Prince got a few pointers that might help him in the long run if he can keep them in mind. After that was Not Your Average Blogger's panel, where he knocked it out of the park, as usual, and then a panel of authors flogging books on Civil War/Reconstruction era, which was also interesting. I was half-hoping to find a kindred spirit there to hit up for a critique of one of my chapters, but the only person who came close was NYAB's friend from high school, Marty, who drove in just to see us and kindly sat through the panel with me and laughed and eye-rolled at the same things I did.  I was so glad he came; we had an absolutely wonderful time hanging out with him. 

So then it was back to work and crashing disasters hair on fire all week. 

The next weekend, I worked on my book. My plan was to go to the library and stay there til it closed, then go to a  hotel and write til I dropped. Not so much. The night before I planned to bail, water was backing up into the basement, which means septic troubles.  So I got four hours at the library, then had to come home and wait for a plumber while NYAB took the YP to his music lessons. (A thousand dollars later, our tanks are pumped empty, we were told nothing is wrong with the pump or the drain field, but that we need to replace the whole tank and pump and some kind of switch box and whatnot in the next 2 years. Sigh.) Then we went to dinner (and it was prom night, so that was fun people-watching), and I finally got to the hotel and down to writing at around 8.  Still, I finished the draft.  And I went through all my existing notes to make sure I'd included everything I wanted. Good progress. 

The next steps are to go through my critiques, fix what is mentioned, find the holes I have marked for filling, and then double-checking all my citations. I'm hoping to send my proposal ... soon. 

Except then it was another week of Work Disasters. On the upside, a good friend of JB's has become my new BFF and partner in weight loss adventures, and she is very kind about listening to me whine and rail and pitch the scale out the window. Having a new friend to gush with made it a little less irritating when work bled over into my weekend—and I did get to see the new Avengers movie, as I already said. I didn't like it as much as the first one, but it was pretty good for what it was. And we got a lot of yard work done, which is satisfying. 

We also have two new acquisitions for the house. First, the kid got a new box spring and mattress—I think his old one was probably 35 years old, if not more. It is funny, because the new one is so tall that his face is now parallel to the window. (And yet, he still won't wake up on first prodding....) The second was a lightweight elliptical machine. I love it. Now I just need to use it (see weight loss adventures, above). Which means I have to get home before 9 p.m., which means I really need to figure out a way to stop caring about work disasters. 

This weekend is Mother's Day. I guess I'd better do something about that for my mom, huh?  Beyond that, NYAB has an overnight the following week for a book talk, and we are wide open. Anyone want to come visit?