Before we get down to the accountability today, I have a few things to talk about. The first is a bit of an excuse for why this week’s post is going to be a little doomy and gloomy. As I’ve mentioned previously, I recently started a new job. Something about that new job that I didn’t know until less than a week ago is tht the camp (where I live while I’m on shift) is an hour’s bus ride away from the site. Another thing that I didn’t know right away is that said bus ride does not overlap at all with any of my 12-hour shift. And yet another thing that I actually didn’t find out until I got here is that we don’t get paid for our lunch break, so my 12-hour day is actually a 12-and-a-half-hour day. When you work in the bus rides plus the time it takes to gather my gear and lunch in the morning, that means that for the 14 straight days of my shift I’m working 15-hour days. That leaves nine hours a day in camp to have dinner, shower, do anything that might need doing (like laundry), and sleep. To make a long story short: unless I plan to give up a great deal of sleep, I’m not going to be getting a whole lot of anything done during the time that I’m out here. So go easy on me, will you? I wrote a large chunk of this very post on my iPhone during lunch break. -_-
On a lighter note, I have recently discovered the world of “subscription boxes”. In case you don’t know, a subscription box is a service where you pay a fee each month, and each month the company you’re dealing with sends you a mystery box full of goodies that (presumably) has a retail value that is significantly higher than what you paid. I kinda knew that these things existed, but I never realized how many of them there really are, or how many of them would actually appeal to me. Believe me when I say that it has taken a great exercise of willpower to keep myself from signing up for about a dozen of them. The one that I did decide to take a chance on is Nerd Block. This particular subscription is aimed at nerds, and is all about geeky merchandise and collectibles. There is an “adult” block, two kid blocks (one for girls, one for boys), and a “horror” block for nerds who love stuff like zombies and horror movies. The adult and horror blocks always include a t-shirt and several collectibles, all foro $19.99 plus shipping and handling (for myself in Nova Scotia it comes out to about $32). The kids’ blocks are all toys and collectibles, at a cost of $13.99 plus shipping and handling (for me, about $21). At first I was a bit iffy about whether the price after shipping (goddamn it costs a fortune to ship anything to Nova Scotia) wouldn’t be worth it, but then I started watching review videos and I was impressed with the amount (and quality) of items that came in each box. So I thought, hell…I’ll give it a try. I ordered a girls’ box for my daughter, and an original adult box which will – depending on the items – be divided between myself, my husband, and my daughter. But don’t tell either of them…I’ll probably hold on to the items until their birthdays or Christmas…shhhhh….(my husband totally doesn’t read these accountability posts and this is how I’m going to prove it).
The reason i’m explaining all this is because I plan to do an unboxing/review of the blocks when I recieve them, and I wanted to get my readers’ opinions on something. Should I write the reviews and just include pictures, or should I do a video? I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed watching other peoples’ unboxing videos and I thought it might be fun to do my own. But then again, my skill has always been in the written word, not the spoken one. So I’m going to leave it up to you guys: would you rather see a well-worded written review with photos, or an unboxing video in which I’ll probably stumble over myself and say, “Ummm…” a lot?
Okay, now on to the accountability….*gulp*
Goal #1. Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.
This, just…yeah. As I explained, my new schedule pretty much allows me no time to do anything besides work, eat, and sleep. In fact, I’m losing sleep in order to finish writing this post, and I’m probably going to be very mad about it in the morning. I did manage to get one run and one strength exercise session in before I came out here, but now that I’m here it’s pretty much all over. There is literally no way that I can fit in exercise without giving up sleep, and since I already require more sleep than it is possible to get out here, that’s not going to happen any time soon. I am extremely POed about it, I don’t mind telling you. But that’s all there is to it.
On the eating side of things, I’m not really sure what to say yet. I do tend to eat more while I’m living on camp, just because there’s so much food to be had, but I also tend to eat more better things like fruit and boiled eggs and the like. I guess the tell will be whether I end up gaining or losing weight while I am completely and utterly unable to exercise.
On the upside of things, I think the meds my doctor gave me for my stomach issues may be helping. I’ve been having a hard time remembering to take them, because it’s a three-times-a-day kind of thing that I’m not used to, but I think I have a system down now and I’ve actually been feeling pretty good. More to come on that after I’ve had another week or so to test the waters.
Goal #2. Be more active on social media and work hard on my author platform.
I’m a bit up in the air about whether this was a good week or not. It kinda feels like it was, but that may be because I spent so much time conversing with a coworker on Facebook. Something that I can comment on is that I’ve been getting lots of random shares, comments, and retweets, so that’s pretty awesome.
Also awesome? Remember that silly picture I made up for 9gag about Robert Downey Jr’s inception-like role in Tropic Thunder?
That totally wound up on RDJ’s Facebook page. I was totally stoked. I mean, I’m not silly enough to think that RDJ himself found the picture and was like, “This is so cool! I’m going to post it on my Facebook!”, but the fact that it wound up there in any way is pretty cool. Go me for actually doing something humourous that people enjoyed. 😀
Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.
I’m certain you know where I’m going to go with this one. Right off the bat, I don’t have my manuscript files with me because (as I’ve mentioned before) I don’t take my laptop out West with me and it’s impossible to work on those files via my tablet. Second, even if I did take my laptop or could use my tablet, I wouldn’t have the time. Again: losing sleep just to write this post.
Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.
I made a boo-boo pertaining to this goal: I forgot to make a copy of the file where I keep track of my word count to bring out West with me. Thus, I have no idea what my total is for this week. I’m almost positive that I had about 4000 words written before I left, and I’ve somehow managed to scribble out something like 3000 words in between orientation courses and bumpy bus rides, so we’ll just go ahead and say that it’s about 7000. I expect that number to go down significantly by next week since, again…no goddamn time.
And now, with all that said, I’m going to prove how desperate I really am for sleep and go to bed. -.-zzzzzZZZZZZZ
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