conniewilkins56 wrote: »

gewel321 wrote: »

Today is my pre biopsy appointment to determine where they want to get the tissue to see how far the cancer has spread. Not going to say I’m not nervous but it is what it is. Scale says 200.1. Sigh could have given me the .2 today! Lol going to be a loooong day today.

Sending you positive vibes my friend!

Fingers crossed for you. Sending you so many good thoughts.

Today is another rare gloomy day in otherwise sunny Florida!....no swimming today although it is very warm outside and humid....lots of football viewing planned for this afternoon...I recorded my lowest weight this morning, 254.4!....almost my own “ One der land”...meaning I am closing in on that 100 pound loss!...I can NOT believe I have been able to do this!...of course I have had some bad days, some hungry days, and days I have felt I could never stay with this!...and I still have pounds to lose!...but for today I am happy and I am in a good place mentally...I really might be able to do this....I always will be thankful for all of the motivation and encouragement from this wonderful group of Losers...

We've had a pretty quiet day overall. He got up at two and wrote til I got up at seven, and then ate breakfast and went to bed, napped, got up, had lunch, and then napped again, ate dinner, read some coding books after dinner, and went up at seven to lie down. He may sleep or he may come back down. His new anti-anxiety med is rather sedating, and I hope he adapts to it. Calm and awake would be my goal here. (grin)

I got done what I wanted to for a Sunday; hair washed (it's a project when it's hip=length) and the sheets changed on the beds. Laundry got caught up yesterday, and I've set up the week's medications, so we're good. I still have another large glass of water and, shoot me now, 750 more calories to eat. Gahh. Hate this. I had dinner and I am so very much not hungry.

What a weekend.

Friday, we (me, my husband, and our best friend) began our road trip, and drove from MD to MI. It was a long day, but a fun drive. I snacked WAY too much on crappy/amazing car snacks, lol. We spent Saturday there, saw my husband's brother and wife, and got to play with our adorable 2 year old niece. She has so much energy. It was so much fun - we usually only get to see her once a year. Sunday we drove from MI to MN, a much shorter driving day (but just as many junk food snacks lol).

I snacked WAY too much, and was uncomfortably full each day. And...I didn't enjoy it. (I mean, I enjoyed it enough to do it 3 days in a row, but it didn't feel great). I was worried that I'd be tempted to keep going, but honestly I couldn't wait to arrive and not have the snack temptation anymore (or have to feel so full anymore). Now that I'm home, I'm eating more normal amounts of healthier food on a more normal schedule. I'm not logging this week, but my goal is to avoid that too-full feeling.

Tomorrow is my grandma's funeral, and will be a tough day. I'm excited to see my friends and family, but sure wish it was under different circumstances. Honestly I think the hardest part will be not being able to hug them. I'm not planning on doing anything tomorrow except resting, sleeping, and making sure my mom does the same.

Today was yet another over-goal day for me calorie-wise. I've been having way too many of those lately! My main issue has been social eating - I spent last weekend with my parents, my mom stayed with me three days this week, and then both parents visited again today. Whenever we're together, we eat out A LOT and when my mom visits, she buys junk food and then leaves it at my house. I haven't figured out how to handle these situations - on the one hand, it's pretty much impossible to eat restaurant food two meals a day and stay under my calorie goal. On the other hand, I don't want to tell my parents I'm watching my calories and ask that we not go out to eat, because then they will turn into the Calorie Police and I'll never be able to eat anything "unhealthy" in their presence without hearing comments on it. My parents are both slim and my dad in particular has been quite insensitive about my weight in the past. So for now, I'm keeping quiet and just trying not to go overboard - turned down the chips with my sandwich at lunch and didn't eat the appetizer at dinner. I love spending time with my parents, but I'm ready for a few weeks apart so I can see results again!

Finally got the paint so that I can touch up where the electricians cut holes in the walls to run the extra lines. (With two people working/schooling from home, we wanted enough carrying capacity.) I did the master bedroom this morning, and did the area in the corner of the library where we put in a four slot outlet for the coffee bar. Once that dries I'll put the outlet cover back on and hang the floating shelf we bought on that wall, so that I can display some of my historical jugs and mugs there. However, I'm kind of keeping an eye on the door for the earthquake wax to get delivered. I have two cats, and one is fond of racing about the house at high speed, and believes that if the cat can jump to it, the cat belongs there, regardless of what might be on the shelf. So those ceramics will get waxed down.

Today was much better than yesterday....I went swimming, did some chores, ran errands and fixed dinner....itchy eyes and stuffy nose feels better than taking the sinus meds made me feel!

amart4224 wrote: »

NovusDies wrote: »

Being on a crowded trail is not really hiking to me though.

Agreed! A big part of the attraction of hiking for me is getting away from "civilization" and it's just not the same when it's swarming with people.

Definitely!

I had an opportunity to go to Yellowstone back in 2007, but I was by myself and wasn't in the shape I'm in now, so I stuck to the main areas, but that touristy feel kind of put a damper on the enjoyment of the park. Like you said, @NovusDies , I don't mind passing someone once in a while - especially when hiking in the cell phone dead zone that is large parts of WV - because of the safety factor (though my dad worries to death about me hiking and walking, scared I'm going to be mugged or attacked), but when its a bunch of people? That takes away from being able to just lose myself in the scenery.


As for my day today? It's shaping up to be like the last few days, which is a fight with a low mood and lack of will power or incentive. I'm starting to realize that a large part of what I have been calling "tired" is definitely mental and not physical, but that mental fatigue is just as difficult to deal with. I have all sorts of things that need to be done, but getting the mental energy to start them is exhausting in and of itself. That's also part of the reason I've found myself pretty quiet here on the forums lately.



I DID get the high parts of my yard cut back yesterday - hopefully will be it, though I might need to hit it one more time with the riding mower if we get the prolonged warm spell in the forecast - and the garden boxes fences down and put away and some cleaning up of the yard done, the lawn ornaments and wind chimes put away, the bird feeders out, the ladders put away (my mother borrows them and then never hangs them back up), and more of my house plants re-potted. I'm down to one but ran out of dirt again, so it will have to wait until I can get to Lowe's. I also got the gas out of one of my push mowers.


I still need to get the gas out of the remaining mower, clean the straw out of my building, get the windows put into that building and the siding on at least one side, the dog kennel I plan to use as a chicken run up, the chicken house put together, the gas out of the riding mower and the battery out of it brought into the house (though I'll wait another week or two on that in case I have to hit the yard one more time), the tulip, daffodil, and lily bulbs put into the ground, crawl under the house and check on the little heater I have under there to keep water pipes from freezing, clean off the back porch area so I have a place to stack pellets, wire the out building so I actually have lights in there, and make that lantern pole I bought stuff for before the camping trip in two weeks.

Then there's the indoor work that needs done - I desperately need to dust and spray for spiders, the house needs vacuumed again, the bathroom needs cleaned, I've got a couple of sewing projects to do, pumpkin to cut up and get canned, not to mention finish up my Christmas program for the church.....

*sigh* and just thinking of all that makes me so tired. And of course, then there's the fight to try to stick to my deficit because I've been blowing that most days, which is dangerous as I had switched to a 500 calorie deficit to try to ease into maintenance but its not working and the drive to snack is killing me to the point where I know I've been over maintenance a few days this week. I've been retaining water, leaving me feeling puffy, and I just have such a hard time concentrating on anything. I find myself looking for mindless games to play where I can just let my mind wander.


And I know this is depression I'm dealing with, but that doesn't stop the stupid critical side of myself from making me feel guilty because I don't get all this work done in a "timely" manner or sticking to my deficit like I'm supposed to....*sigh*



On the flip side, the letting my mind wander bit has gotten the characters in my head talkative lately - they've actually given me a huge amount of information in the last couple of weeks that I'd been trying to figure out for years; now if they would give me the DETAILS so I can actually get a plotline together, and then if they'd be kind enough to actually give me DIALOG perhaps I might actually be able to get something down on paper?!!!

Of course not. And the biggest dab-blamed problem? I can't get a map of this world figured out that clicks, which is what the best friend complains about......(Yes, guys, I'm thrilled that you finally gave me a rough timeline; that helps immensely, yes, but I need a ever-lovin' stinkin' map too!)

*sigh* Of course when it comes to writing, while I'd love to be able to write fiction, I can't seem to get anything down. I'll pull up Word or a notebook and a pencil and tell myself just to start, that I can clean it up later, but nothing comes; I can't get started at all and end up just frustrated. I can come up with a basic overview; its like I know what I want to happen, but I can't figure out how to write it out scene by scene or come up with the connecting details that are needed to get from point A to point B.

*sigh* Ah well, its probably for the best anyway. Most people would think I need on medication if I have "characters" talking to me, and its not like there aren't already thousands of fantasy style writers out there with all kinds of worlds to play in. And while our characters are quite dear to me (including the best friend's characters, and yes, Currin, that means you too *sigh* egotistical showoff....... ahem) I don't think I do justice in trying to explain them to others, either.


Meanwhile, today is church day, so I need to finish drying my hair (shouldn't take too long now with as short as it is), get dressed and get down there to run through my piano piece for this morning.

AlexandraFindsHerself1971 wrote: »

I am at the point where I need to do a solid mapbuilding and some family trees for the novel in my head. I need to run the trees back about six generations too, because ultimately everyone's related in the nobility, and it MATTERS.

@AlexandraFindsHerself1971

It absolutely matters!

And my problem is I've got the Fay and then I have mortal races, but my Fay have been completely monopolizing the conversation with their history (especially my Unseely King who turns out not to be so Unseely (well, depending on whether you consider Unseely to be evil or Unseely to mean unblessed in that he's had a LOT of very terrible things happen to the poor guy)). My Unseely King has went from being a second hand bad guy evil neutral type to one of the chief primary characters in the story world I have, and has gone from being a bad guy to a tragic good guy almost anti-hero type (and the anti-hero bit keeps sliding the more he lets out.....) And then there's his kids, his grandkids, his in-laws, King Oberon of the Seely Court and all HIS relations, the other courts (and I STILL need 4 more courts to round out the 12 that is supposed to be in the Fay Alliance!)

Then there's the mortal races which I really need to get a good solid grip on the timelines for, figure out how fay time and mortal time relate to each other since they aren't synced one to one, or at least, go in and out of being synced, and figure out how to get the dwarves broken completely free from Tolkien's dwarves, and keep the elves from going too far into being Kryn elves, and convince Raistlin that he has to change his name, and get the Erlking story and how it relates to Queen Mab (who, after finding out her background, I realized wouldn't talk to me for reason that she's completely diabolically evil-step-mother-queen-in-snow-white evil and is masquerading as being a good person on the alliance, no less), then there's the dragon story line, the vampire storyline, how this all relates back to the secret north king, and figuring out how to get the original bad guy back into prominence because he's taken a backseat lately to other characters we've created, but he has such a primary roll in the primordial ancient history that there's no way he's just sitting on the sidelines in the modern time.......

And finishing out the original pantheon and what happened to those guys because they aren't in the picture anymore; the bets friend is waiting impatiently on that because the kingdom she is formulating needs that information, not to mention the stinkin' map!