Just a blog.

The worst things about getting to work and not having students show up is that 1) Facebook is blocked here by the school and 2) It's so early there's no one on skype to chat with.

Oh, well.  OGT tutoring is halfway done this week.  Four weeks down, four to go (if I come and proctor the test like I did last time).  I will not miss getting up before 7 am.  I don't know how all of the real teachers do it.  After having to deal with this, my respect for educators has grown exponentially.

In other news, Joci is getting closer to crawling.  Yay!  She's gone from rolling around the floor to scooting like an inch worm.  I have a video, but it's not very good.  I'll try and get a good one and upload it sometime, because she looks crazy when she does it.

Sorry there aren't any pictures, I'm at work, so I don't have access to any recent ones.

I haven't posted a weight loss update in 2 and 1/2 weeks, because my job makes it basically impossible for me to weigh-in on Monday mornings.  However, the last time I weighed myself, I was still on track, and I updated my little widget thing on the side to reflect that.  Last week I was up to 9 pounds lost.  Or 9.5, I can't remember.  Anyways, I might shift my weigh-in day to Saturday or Sunday for the next few weeks.

I'm still working on my manuscript pretty much daily.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that my second draft would be just as difficult (if not more so) than my first.  All of the stuff I skipped over because I didn't want to take the time to do real research now must be researched.  I have to officially decide on a time of year, physical descriptions, ages, and more detailed histories for each character, as well as write in several new characters I just kind of tossed in at the end.  I've also added in several non-characters (I'm sure there's an official name for it, but I don't know what it is), who are people important to the characters in the book (like family members), but who don't actually appear in the book at all, except as motivation/explanation for real characters' behaviors.  They all have to be fleshed out, as well.  This is all aside from the complete rewrite of the earliest scenes of the villain and a few added scenes for the protagonists.

My third draft is going to be cutting, cutting, cutting, because by the time this one is done this story is going to be way too long.  I still don't know that it's any good, but when it's done I can definitely say that I've given it my best!

Oh, and I haven't found the right title yet.  I need a title.

First Draft Complete!

Well, as of 2:30 am, my first complete draft of a novel is FINISHED!  It's been a crazy, intense month spent working on it, but it's done.

I wrote a freaking book.

78,904 words, 390 pages in Courier New font, double spaced, one inch margins.  If published, it would probably translate into something like 340-360 pages.

I can't believe I wrote a freaking book.

Not that it's done yet, I still have a ton of work to do, most of which will involve adding several characters to the beginning that I invented towards the end, cleaning things up, checking for consistency, and adding a more detail.

But I wrote a book, and I'm dang proud of that, even if nothing ever comes of it.

Weight Loss 2011: Week 4

This week I lost another 1.5 pounds, bringing my total to 7.5 pounds!  Yay!

Being sick again probably helped.  Blah.

Word count

62,047 words.

That's 32,000 words in 15 days.

It's kind of nice to follow through on something for once.

Weight Loss 2011: Week 3

Hey everyone!  Not much time because I'm about to run out the door for my first day back as an OGT tutor, but I just wanted to post that I've lost another 1.5 pounds this week, bringing my total up to 6 pounds!  Yay!

I definitely need to start exercising, though, because I know this coasting thing I've been doing isn't going to work out much longer.

Conversations with Chaela (Part IV)

Chaela: Daddy is silly, mommy.
Me: Yes, he is.
Chaela: He's a good kid, but tell him to get a hair cut.

*

Me: Chaela, you're such a good artist!
Chaela: Yes, I am.  And I'm so pretty.

*

While in the bathroom by herself going potty, suddenly we hear her shout:

"I'm SICK OF THIS!"

*

Chaela: Mommy, where did daddy go?
Me: I'm not sure, honey.
Chaela: Oh!  He ran away from you again.

*

Every time it snows:

[gasp] "Mommy!  It's CHRISTMAS AGAIN!"

*

At the store, she pointed at an exit sign:

Chaela: Look, mommy, it spells exit!
Me: Looking around to see if the other shoppers have noticed how smart my baby is. Yes, honey, you're right.  That sign says 'exit.'
Chaela: That's where we go to the bathroom.

*

Right now, Chaela is at the age where everything is a song.  In fact, right now she's singing "Mommy have a bad attitude about it, ah, ah, ah-ah-ah, ah, ah, ah-ah-ah... to the tune of Bingo.  We've been talking about attitudes lately, because she has one, so it needed discussing.  She's growing in to such a smart and good kid, it's hard to keep up with her.  I just hope I can be a good mother to her... I have so much to improve on!

Weight Loss 2011: Week 2

I hope you guys don't mind the weekly updates; it helps keep me motivated to do them, and I while I didn't fall off the wagon this week, it was dragging me kicking and screaming.  Of course, if I ever get off track, these updates may disappear...

Anyways, I was a day late with my weigh-in for week two because I ate breakfast yesterday before weighing in, so I didn't want to do it.  This morning I remembered.

I'm down another 2.5 pounds!  This is more than double my goal.  I would have been happy with two pounds in two weeks, and instead I've lost 4.5!  Yay!

I'm still not exercising like I should.  I want to today, but one of the women I visit teach called late last night to see if I could watch her girls this morning, and they got here early and might be here most of the day, so I'll be lucky if I get a shower in before they leave.  My excuse for this past week is that I got a cold, so that slowed me down for a while.  I really want this to be a lifestyle changing year, not just a weight-loss year, so I really, really need to start exercising!!

Oh, and I put some badges on my page, but apparently they round up to the nearest whole pound.  Oh, well, close enough!

Heck yes.

30,063 words.  Heck yes.

Now I'm going to bed.

Weight Loss 2011: Week 1

Nothing motivates me like success, and this week, I lost two pounds!  That's double my goal, so I'm pretty excited.

I've using the calorie counting app from Fitness Pal, and being accountable makes such and enormous difference!  I can honestly say that without it, I'd be staring at the same numbers this week as I did last week, because I had no clue how much I was overeating.

I did work out twice, but nothing big, just about 40 mins each of playing Dance Central, the Kinect game Will got me for Christmas.  I think this week I got lucky; my body is used to me consuming about twice what I have been (literally), and my metabolism was geared for that.  Now that I'm not eating as much, I'm sure it will slow down, which means I'll have to kick up the exercise.


A small update on my other two resolutions:

Submitting something to be published:
Though this isn't necessarily going to be the story I'm working on, I have high hopes for it.  This week I've gone from 8,000 words to 17,000+ words, more than I've ever done in such a short time.  I'm a little worried about burning out, but the more I write, the more I want to write, so I think that's a good sign.

Moving out:
No changes here, but on a related note, I was asked to come back as an OGT tutor for Pickerington Central, so that will mean a little income for us, which we haven't had in a few months.  It will be nice.  Also, I'm nagging Will to apply for a job at Best Buy.

If blogger had a chart making widget...

I wish blogger had a chart maker thing you could post on your sidebar... then I could keep you all updated on my weight loss New Year's goal without actually having to talk about it.  I've weighed in and I have my goal weight, now the challenge is just to do it.  My first real weigh in is on Monday.  When I did the math and realized what I'd have to weigh by the end of the year to achieve my goal, I almost gave up on it, so I can't think about that anymore.  All I'm going to tell myself is "1 pound this week."  Then I won't get intimidated and quit before I even start.



I would also use a chart maker tool to keep you all up to date on how far my current story is progressing.  The holidays slowed me down quite a bit, but now that they're over, I'm trying to get back on it (even though this blog post is just me procrastinating working on my story).



And I could use a chart maker to keep track of how many books I've read this year.  I think I'd use it to keep track of pages instead of individual books, though, since later in the year I might be re-reading The Wheel of Time.  Heaven help me.  I couldn't find a comic for this one.

What would you use a chart making blog widget for?