Shocked, I tell you

So I made it to the end of the month with about $5 to spare.  Not a shock given the vet bills we had to pay.*  I am still shocked when money doesn't spontaneously disappear out of our accounts.  Funny how the first time we've tried to keep a bank account since my Nanny left banking we can get it to work without an issue.

Ahem.

So writer's block sucks monkey balls.  I will finish Safe Harbor, I just have to get over the hump between the last big thing and the ending.  I need to put something in there.  I think I know what, but I need to write it.  And of course the next story wants to be born and The First Run wants attention and I think I can get around the slow bit in Percival's Dominatrix.  Girl of Mysterious Sorrow has gone dormant, but that's okay.  The Rams are sturdy, they will keep.

I had a revelation today.  There was a discussion going on on Reddit over why someone's mother/mother-in-law orders rich desserts she knows will aggravate her Diabetes and then badgers others into sharing them with her despite their health conditions.  My reply:

The woman who raised me did the exact same thing. From what I could tell it's as if they know what they're doing isn't good for them and they feel guilty. They can't handle feeling guilty themselves so they project that other people are judging them and that's where the feeling is coming from. But if they can get someone else to join in then the other people in the room have no business judging them because so-and-so is doing it too. And guilt magically becomes self-righteous indignation. This covers anything from eating something indulgent to gossiping to spending too much to treating someone like crap

Multiply that behavior times a fuck ton of binge days, add in a few health issues and you have my current weight.  She used to binge at restaurants all day Saturday at a minimum.  We're talking all three main meals plus at least two or three snacks.  30,000 kcal easily and I am not kidding.  But she's be furious if you didn't keep up with her, and that is why.  Even if you restrict to  1000 kcal during the week the math is still against you.

Ah well.  Someone on there put it quite well, even though a contractor fucked you up it's still your house.  You can be all kinds of pissed at the contractor, that's entirely understandable, but it's still up to you to fix things.  Your parents were contracted by society to help you build the best life and strongest body possible.  Said contractor fucked it up...

Okay, moving on.  I finished this:

That is the Round Rose Cushion done in Vanna's Choice in Silver Blue.  Everything else was bits of scraps.  I love that scrap for roses.  Finishing that has put me behind in my knitting again but since it's liable to be over 100°f tomorrow I might just bail on my class again.  If not it doesn't seem to matter anyway, it's kind of become a free-for-all.

Also, that problem that very nearly had me not-married?  Much improved.  Possibly in a way that's causing my writer's block but I would take a happy marriage over fast writing any day.
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On tap for the week:

Home project of the week - None. This week is already crazy.  I have my first PT appointment and two parties to attend.  I'll be happy keeping up with the everyday stuff.

Books of the week - Tinder Box by Anthony P. Hatch and Lake Woebegone Days by Garrison Keilor, because I read slow these days.

Crochet of the week - Not sure yet. I'll get back to you.

Knitting of the week - The Building Blocks Blanket is ongoing

Sewing of the week - I've started on the Stitchers Stocking again. Still insanely slow going.

Writing of the week - Safe Harbor At least one chapter will go up this week. Maybe two. and I'll likely start noodling on the new one to try to get my brain going.

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*Without going in to detail I am not ready to delve into without crying one of our fur babies went to the Rainbow Bridge in May.  I'll tell that one when I can.

Another week blown away

...into tissues.

The theme of this week was...

No, that's not one of ours and I don't mean the four-legged kind.  (Although I suspect one of the four-legged kitties around here is developing asthma on me.)  No, the spousal unit has been sick all week with a nasty chest cold thing that's had him trying to cough up a hairball on a regular basis.

Of course this means I've nothing done.

But let's start with what has been working, shall we?  If only to perk up a bit before we head back down.  For starters it turns out I can keep to a budget and keep the bookkeeping straight.  For years and years money tended to evaporate right out of my account.  Nanny swore it was because I couldn't keep track to save my own ass.  But when it's in his account I don't have any problem keeping track.  Funny that, an account she can't access...

The second week of soup lunches has gone smashingly well.  Lunch is simple and quick and we've both been having a much easier time of sticking to meal plans.  That said I seem to be burning calories a lot faster than I should.  I've been trying to keep my calories down to my B.E.E, but when I try that I go woogie brain nearly every day.  Keeping it around 2400-2500 seems to be working, given that I burn at least 3,000 a day, or so says my Fitbit.  But now that I've gone off gluten again that means a bowl of popcorn in the afternoon.  Woe is me.

 (And for anyone who is about to point out that the Fitbit is inaccurate, I have to say go back and re-read.  It's inaccurate for moderate-to-high heart rates, making it not medically accurate or useful for athletes.  It does just fine for the low-to-moderate heart rate of the average tubby housewife who wants a good ballpark for what she burns every day.)

Of course what I have not been doing is writing or knitting.  FML,  seriously.  I will straighten out my schedule this week, I swear it.

That said, I am also stepping up the housewife game .  Granted as often as I do that you would think I would be at the top by now.  I suspect the top involves household staff.  Anyway, I'm starting with adding a few things to my Daily List, and working out a more comprehensive weekly list and so on.  And then doing as much as Frankenbrace and I can do together.

The one thing I have learned this week is that I need to get up more or less when Kitty does, so I can drive him to the bus stop if needed.  Which means a strict bedtime.  Which means a strict other few things.  Which might lead to more of other things.  Fingers crossed, but it should.  That is the reward of discipline after all.

Ahem.

I have no idea if I'm ever going to come up with a weekly schedule or not.  But I think I might try.  And if I do I'll share it, or anything else that comes up.  For now my discipline says I must go shower and all of that.

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I'm going to start a bit of a new feature here.  What's on tap for this week.

Soup of the week - Chicken and Rice, aka Gluten-Free penicillin.  That recipe without the noodles, served with cooked rice instead.

Home project of the week - A list of home projects.  After that the bathroom linen cupboard.

Books of the week - Tinder Box by Anthony P. Hatch, because Mummy loves a good disaster story.
                                 Lake Woebegone Days by Garrison Keilor, because I love Lake Woebegone, even though the ramblings of Baby Boomers can sometimes annoy me.  Tell me about them, not about you.
                                 All of the housework manuals.  Research you know.

Crochet of the week - Round Rose Cushion, which I should be able to finish.

Knitting of the week - The Building Blocks Blanket is ongoing

Sewing of the week - I am picking up the Stitchers Stocking once again this week, I swear.

Writing of the week - Safe Harbor  At least one chapter will go up this week.  Maybe two.

Time for another round of excuses

Yup, I dropped this again.  Time for another round of trying to keep it up.

So what happened?  A lot of things happened.  Let's take them in order, shall we?

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Salad happened.

Yep, salad.

Salad.

This stuff:

Salad.  All healthy and green and shit.

See, when the spousal unit was at home we were having a nice, big salad every day for lunch.  His internal hunger goes off at exactly 11:45 am every day, at which point he'd stick his head in my office door and say "Lunch?"  And I'd say "Sure!" and we'd go off and build salads together.

75 g  Lettuce

10 g  Green Onion

25 g  Spinach

25 g Red Onion

25 g Snow Peas

40 g Bell Pepper

40 g Radishes

40 g Cucumber

50 g Shredded chicken

2-3 cherry tomatoes, depending on size

2t Salad dressing

A very precise, carefully measured salad.  Every day.

In order to facilitate this, when we ran out of salad fixings he'd go to Trader Joe's on his bicycle, buy about $40 worth of produce, come home and we'd chop it all into square containers.  Into the fridge it would go to be made into future salads.  And life was good.

Until he went to work.

See, going to TJ's in a pain.  It's all the way on the other side of town.  The parking lot is small and cramped and crooked.  If you don't get there before 10am you're going to be playing bumper cars with the Baby Boomers in their SUV's in a lot built for sub-compacts.  Also, Annie has a bad knee (more on that in a minute) so she can only get to one errand a day before she has to have a sit down.  And the spousal unit does like to drive to work on occasion.  So I only got the car 2-3 days a week and I have 3 grocery stores to hit.  So I could only get to TJ's once a week and even that day it was a pain-in-the-ass.

Problem #1.  Produce doesn't last a week.

Now for a long time I thought I was gluten intolerant.  I won't say allergy because "allergy" should really be reserved for things that make you break out in hives and stop breathing.  I say gluten intolerant because I did not digest it well.  I'll spare you the details.  But in the effort to save money in the days between jobs I decided to try non-GF bread again, and I found out that I can eat a slice or two a day with no ill effects.

Big mistake.

See, I used to be a baker.  A ribbon winning cookie baker.  And now I could eat flour again.  So of course I started making cookies.

The other thing to note is that I have a fucked-up hunger response.  Thanks to my shitass childhood I don't usually feel hungry,  I'll eat something and then go and go until my blood glucose drops, my liver dumps and I end up with zombie brain.  And how do we fix zombie brain kiddies?  With something quick and sweet.  Cookies!

So since my spousal unit wasn't sticking his head in my office door any more at 11:45 am I was letting it go and letting it go and grabbing a couple of cookies when my BG was dropping because it was a lot faster than building a very precise salad.  Until about 4pm or so when I realized I still needed to build him one to take to lunch the next day.  But by then I wasn't hungry and it wasn't that long until dinner...

Problem #2  I wasn't eating my share of the produce

Problem #3  I was letting myself go zombie brain too often

And oh yeah....

Problem #4  I really am gluten intolerant.

Yes, I started spending an excessive amount of time sick and miserable because I was getting 1,000 calories/day from wheat products.  Especially cookies.  And I have not been nearly as productive as I could be in what time I had because zombie brain.  And wasting money on food to be tossed and all the trouble with building it all and on and on....

Solution?

Soup.

You get all the health benefits of all the vegetables,  It keeps for exactly 7 days in the fridge, so you can make it on Tuesday and eat the rest of the week.  If you're concerned about that throw some of it in the freezer and take it out later in the week.  And when you go zombie brain pour it in the bowl and pop it in the microwave.  2 minutes later you're eating something healthy and gluten-free.  And it's already pre-packed for the spousal unit to take for lunch.

So this week I'm starting the soup train again.  Which means I'll only have to fuck around with meals one day a week.  Go me.  I'm starting with The Pioneer Woman's Chicken Tortilla Soup (tortilla chips are GF).

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The next thing that happened is that I decided to take a knitting class.

I can't knit sweater right now, I'm still losing weight.  I can't knit socks right now, I'm still losing weight/water.  I only wear so many hats and scarves and mittens.  But we are in the process of girling up our bedroom, which means I can do pillows and blankets.  And since we have cats they have to be (dirt cheap) acrylic or (reasonably cheap) superwash wool.  And I was in desperate need for a non-kinky social group.

(By the way, God is an iron)

So when my LYS offered a class using the Building Blocks book by Michelle Hunter I signed up.  Learn to cable!  Learn to read charts!  Learn mattress stitch already!  Fuck me, I was there!

Problem #5  I have a knitting deadline every week.

I am a slow-ass knitter.  I don't know how people make as much progress as they do.  It might be because they knit in front of the TV and I only watch an hour a night, I don't know.  But all I know is that knitting to a constant deadline is a drag.  But here I am. (In fact I should be knitting now.  I'm behind).    But that's another reason why I haven't been writing, I've been knitting.

Pictures at some point.  When I catch up.

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Then there is the knee problem.

Take some advise from your Auntie Annie, don't get old and fat.  And since everyone gets old, don't get fat.

When you are old and you are fat and you decide to a) take up exercise as a hobby and b) take up caning as a Domme four things will happen:

1)  Your sub will be very happy
2)  Your general health will improve greatly
3)  You will learn that you have arthritic knees that are prone to injury
4)  Between caning the granite ass of a bike commuter and swinging kettle bells you will strain a tendon in said knees and end up with a partially dislocated patella

If you are going to do all of those things please make sure that you have good health insurance.  If you don't you will be living with chronic pain and hobbling around on a cane for roughly 4 months.  Which will suck down all of your energy and then some.

Problem #6  I've been hurting a lot.

That said, I've lost 20 lbs since my diagnosis, which is just about a pound a week.  And I got it fixed on Friday, said kneecap was wiggled back into place and now I get to wear The Frankenbrace for the next six weeks while the tendon heals.   And I get to start physical therapy which will hopefully lead to working out again.

 Go me.

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So that, collectively, is why I haven't been writing.  But now that I am in therapy (see previous entry re: I'm still married) I've come to realize that I need to make space for this sort of thing to stay sane and not have hysterical fits when shit does not work.  So I am going back to writing once a week.  Or else.

This is already too long.  More next week.