Year of Consistency – Week 2
Time for my weekly check-in!
Writing: Oof. I have done no writing of my own, but I did an extremely thorough line edit for an MCS client! We’re talking 700 comments and a 7 page edit letter. Possibly I need to learn to be slightly less thorough, because I spent more time on it than I had estimated and got paid for. But I finished that yesterday and now I’m turning my attention back to my new YA proposal. I told Agent Jim I’d have it back to him by next Monday — without a deadline, I feel like I’d just futz around trying to make it perfect forever!
Reading: I read that manuscript, but I don’t think I’m counting MCS work toward my goal of reading 100 books. Otherwise, I finished Veronica Rossi’s THROUGH THE EVER NIGHT, which I absolutely adored. This series has become one of my favorites. Also, I picked up contemporary romance author Lauren Layne’s AFTER THE KISS — the first in her SEX, LOVE, & STILETTO series — on a whim and I’m partway through that and it’s super sexy. I haven’t read any adult romance in aaaages.
Business: I went to the post office last Friday? Um. I am way behind on email again. I love emailing with my writer friends – but it’s so hard to keep up with that + reader email! I guess my teaching gig also falls under business? I started my winter class on Friday – I’m teaching an after-school writing workshop to 3 awesome 9 year old girls.
Health: This fell by the wayside last week while I was sick. I was a total slug and didn’t walk at all, and I think that (plus not leaving the house for a whole week! eep) contributed to how depressed I started to feel. I’m doing okay with the dieting thing – if you don’t count the bottle of orange juice I drank when I was sick, I actually stayed within my weekly points allowance. And I got back on the treadmill today and ate a bazillion vegetables (for dinner I had vegetable lentil soup and roasted carrots! And then I had roasted tomato basil soup as, like, a snack because I had points leftover! I love soup so much.). It really makes a huge difference in my mood when I take better care of myself, and I have to remind myself that that is what it’s about, whether the scale is moving or not.
Cooking: I didn’t cook much while I was sick, relying instead on some takeout and quick stuff like baked potatoes and steamable veggies. But I did make my second Soup Project – a Kale & White Bean soup with veggie sausage and potatoes. It was a total fail – maybe a 2/5. The recipe called for water as the base and without any spices (and especially having subbed veggie sausage for a spicy meat sausage), it was way too bland. I tried adding miso paste, then sriracha sauce, then eventually drained it and used veggie broth. But it still wasn’t exactly flavorful. Alas!
Social/Other: So between being sick and being on deadline for that editing project, I did not leave the house for an entire week. Then I wondered why I felt all lonely and depressed. This is a major hazard of working from home, but I don’t usually go more than 2-3 days without heading out for a dinner with friends or to work at the coffee shop! But I’ve since made up for it. We didn’t do our weekly game night, but Saturday The Playwright and I went to a party, Sunday I had brunch with writer friends, yesterday I had my weekly dinner date with my BFF, and tonight I had dinner with another local writer friend, Diana Peterfreund, before the Laurie Halse Anderson event at Politics & Prose. Side note: Laurie Halse Anderson is so amazing, you guys. I love how deeply she cares about teens and how angry she gets on their behalf. She’s fascinating, such an interesting speaker, and I’m an enormous fan of her books – WINTERGIRLS is my favorite, but I particularly love SPEAK and FEVER, 1793 as well. I’m really excited to read her newest, THE IMPOSSIBLE KNIFE OF MEMORY.
And that was my week! What about you? How are you doing with your goals / resolutions?
Fresh soup is AMAZING (though if a soup goes bad I am incapable of saving it). Also, WW totally rocked for me when I bothered to stay in my points, but I'm 5' so I get 26 points and I got lazy. Instead I quit gluten (I'm not allergic, but it definitely hates me) and did P90X and that worked. And then my husband came home from deployment and I started making him tons of cupcakes. So. I was off track for awhile, but I'm doing P90X3 and I'm back on track. Mostly 😀 It's amazing how much getting around and moving helps, mood wise. Also, working out daily helps keep the migraines away for me. It's SO HARD when the scale doesn't reflect your efforts. Do you take measurements? Sometimes my scale doesn't move, but things definitely shift in a positive direction.
I think Wintergirls is my favorite too! I bought a signed Impossible Knife last week and can't wait to read it. I have a husband in the army and a daughter, so it might not be a fabulous idea for me, paranoia wise, but it sounds great.
Okay, I'm going to go psych myself up for a workout. I just ate some tofu scramble – om nom nom. 🙂
Agh, I only get 26 points per day too! My husband gets a lot more. Stupid boys – it seems so much easier for them to lose weight! I did take measurements before Christmas – I should check again in a few weeks to see if all this walking + all these veggies are making a difference. Thanks for suggesting that. I definitely FEEL healthier.
Oh, I hope Impossible Knife is resonant for you in a good way and not a scary one. *hugs*
26 is rough. If you ever need to cry about it, you let me know 😀 And yeah, my husband eats CRAP and like no problems. Of course he's in the Army and does PT every day, but still.