Accountability Wednesdays: Week 16

Before I get started today, I want to send out a belated “Happy Easter!” to all those who celebrate the holiday, and I hope you had a good one! This Easter was the first one that I really got to celebrate with my daughter since she was too young to understand what it was about the first two years, and last year I was working on the other side of the country during the holiday. Since I had the opportunity I staged a little egg hunt with goodies (cream eggs, M&M’s, mini-eggs, and little plastic bracelets) in plastic eggs. It was too fun watching her run around looking for the eggs, sometimes staring right at them and walking past. She also got a Build-a-Bear Fluttershy (My Little Pony) from us, which was the first thing she ran right for, which of course made my heart melt. Throw in some books and candy and a couple of games for her LeapPad from the grandparents, and the little missy had quite a lovely day, and therefore so did I. Little joys, my friends. Little joys.

Also, decorating eggs is a necessity! 😀

And now that I’ve thoroughly cleansed your pallet, it’s time to muck it up with a week’s worth of failure. o.o

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

On the upside of things, I weighed myself this morning and I am almost three pounds lighter than I was when I had my meltdown last week. I’m not exactly sure how that happened, or whether either of those two weigh-in’s was accurate, because it doesn’t seem likely that I lost three pounds in one week without doing anything at all. But for now, I’ll take it.

The bad side of things is that I had an awful week for poor eating, due in part to the Easter holiday. I mean, come on, chocolate was everywhere. I also had a lot more pop than I should have, so I’m reasserting myself to avoid it this week. Water, water, water…maybe if I repeat it enough times I’ll start to enjoy drinking it. lol

The other bad side of things is that I did almost zero activity last week. I hopped on the treadmill once, and that was it. My FitBit should seriously have some kind of shock function that fills me full of voltage if I get fewer than so many steps in a day. >.>

But there is another upside! Kinda. See, I’ve got a plan. My plan partially hinges on the weather not being an ass, but it’s a plan none-the-less. I broke out an old book I’ve got called “Buff Brides” that I used when I was trying to lose weight for my wedding. It’s actually a pretty nice program, laid out in a simple-to-understand “do this on this day” system, and it helped me last time so I figure it can help me this time. The program involves weight training three days a week, starting with simple exercises that neither take too much time nor beat you out so that you end up quitting right away. It also encourages three days a week worth of cardio, so I’m going to hike up my britches, pay that my stomach holds itself together until the doctor’s can give me a more definitive answer about my gastronomic issues, and start my Zombies! Run! app again. I hope to start my new plan this Sunday – starting with a Zombies! run – but I’m not committing to it for certain because I’ve got some other things to deal with between now and then. If not this Sunday, it’ll be the following Sunday. Hold me accountable, people! Ask me how I’m doing and yell at me if I say anything other than “Great!”

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

This week was much like the previous week. I’ve been doing pretty well with Facebook and the blogging community, interacting and getting conversations going and the like. Twitter is my weak point and I’m not really sure what to do about it. For some reason it feels like a lot of extra effort to add that one site to my daily routine, and I think it’s because I can never think of anything to say that I can compress into less than 140 characters. I’m just too wordy, I guess. 😛

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

This is the crux of my failure right here. I keep telling myself that I’m going to work on it, and I keep daydreaming about what it will be like when I’m 100% done and sending the file to Create Space, and yet it never happens. Partially my problem is a mixture of laziness and lethargy – I’ve been very badly obsessed with sitting on my ass and playing video games the past while – but at least part of the problem is good-old-fashioned fear. I long to have my book finished and published, but I also fear it. It’s that stupid human way of fearing both failure and success simultaneously. What is wrong with the human mind? A great many things, it would seem.

That said, I stand before you now (or rather, sit behind my side of the computer screen) and swear to you all that I am going to get something done toward this goal this week. Even if it’s just to go through and fix the invisible typos that my beta-reader pointed out, I will do something this week, I promise.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

You know what? I’ve changed my mind. This is the crux of my failure. If there’s one thing that I know for sure that a writer has to do, it’s write. We have to write, write, and write some more, and then have a couple of cups of coffee and keep writing. I have completely failed this aspect of writer-dom during the month of April. I figured – I really did – that if I wrote and scheduled all my A to Z Challenge posts in advance, then I would have tons of time to write other things throughout April without having to worry about the blog. Technically that did happen. I’ve had time to write. I just haven’t been using it. I completely wasted three weeks of not having to worry about writing blog posts by completely failing to write anything else. This past week the only thing I wrote – literally, the only thing that wasn’t a Facebook status or a comment reply – was last week’s accountability post…for a grand total of 875 words. The really sad thing? That was actually a better total than last week.

So my second promise for this week is to write something every day, even if it’s just a couple hundred words of nonsense. This complete and utter laziness toward writing has got to stop. How can I ever consider myself a professional writer if I don’t write?

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 12

First off, in case anyone is curious, the day surgery that I mentioned previously that took place on Monday went fine. I was so hungry that I had a permanent throbbing in my head, and the whole day surgery area of the hospital was backed up so I didn’t end up actually getting in until about an hour late, but all in all it went pretty well. I managed to grit my teeth through the IV insertion (I don’t mind needles so much, but when they’re poked in the underside of my elbow I get squeamish) and about twenty minutes later it was all over. I didn’t even fall asleep, which was really surprising because usually the littlest amount of drugs make me woozy. I hung out in recovery for half an hour just so they could determine that I was fully awake (how could I not be when I never fell asleep?) and on my way out the doctor mentioned to me that everything had looked pretty much perfectly fine. That’s good, in one sense, but also kind of bad because it means that they haven’t found the problem yet, and we already know that there is a problem. So I guess I’m going to be scheduled for a cat scan next. Fun times! I’m getting to experience the whole gambit of exploratory medicine! 😛

And so, moving on to the real point of this post:

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

As previously mentioned, I gave myself a bit of a pass this week because of the aforementioned day surgery. I had to fast for almost two days, which was excruciating, and also I never want to see a spoonful of Jello again. The days leading up to that I pigged out on whatever I damn well pleased, because yeah. Right after the procedure I ate a delicious roast meal courtesy of my grandmother-in-law, and then went home and ordered a garlic fingers. So yeah, it hasn’t been a great week for food. Neither has it been a great week for exercise, which I all but decided not to do. At all. I’m horrible, I know.

And here’s the thing. Out of curiosity, I weighed myself right before I started my fast, and lo and behold…I’ve gained five pounds since the start of this goal. I can’t say that I’m surprised, but I am definitely extremely disappointed in myself. The food thing is a sore spot for me because I crave food like a ravenous wolf even when I shouldn’t be hungry, but there’s no reason that I can’t at least be counteracting some of that over-eating with decent exercise habits. I mean, cripes, I have a treadmill in my basement. And dumbbells. And a yoga mat. And tension bands.

Someone, please, give me a good kick in the arse, will you?

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

Not bad, but definitely not my best week. I all but forgot about Twitter this week, although I have been pretty diligent on updating my Facebook Author Page with new posts and the occasional related “share”. The big thing has been networking amongst my fellow bloggers, particularly the ones who are going to be participating in the A to Z Challenge coming up soon. On “Theme Reveal” day I saw quite a nice little boost to my own stats while bouncing from blog to blog, checking out what everyone is going to be writing about. It was quite fun, and quite good for the blog as well (I’ve amassed a few new followers…hi everyone!), and I can’t wait for the actual challenge to see how the month goes. 🙂

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

Again, I feel like a complete tool for not even touching this this week. Surely this should be my top priority since I’m so close now, right? Well, I have a few explanations to admit to. Not excuses mind you, just explanations. See, for one thing, I’m so sick of editing that it’s making me grind my teeth just thinking about it. I want to finish with this manuscript, but when I sent it off to my beta-reader I was honestly expecting a few weeks grace…instead she finished the entire thing in one night! It was awesome, don’t get me wrong, but it also meant that editing was thrown back in my court right away, instead of the nice long break that I was expecting.

Other thing is just plain stress and fear. I’m excited to have the manuscript done, but I’m terrified of what’s to come after that. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to self-publish this one, and it hurts my head thinking about everything that needs to be done before I can hit that final goal. For one thing, I’m going to need a cover, and I’m a crap designer. I don’t know if I should use a photograph or ask someone to draw something for me, or just have some kind of creepy design with the title overlaid on top of it. I have no idea what I’m going to write for the back cover, or how I’m supposed to format the inside. I know that there are tons of guides out there to help with this kind of thing, but then all that reading just becomes on more thing that I have to do and that stresses me out even more.

I desperately want to work on this this week, I really do. So let’s see if I can overcome that mountain of fear-stress over the next couple of days, okay?

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

This week was not nearly as good as I was expecting it to be. You see, I’ve been working on the A to Z Challenge, planning posts out in advance. I figured, this past week, that I would just fly through those 26 posts, and that the result would be a healthy word count. Instead I only managed a handful of posts, and that was absolutely it. In my defense, I had a couple of rotten days. The fasting and the resulting headaches made it pretty much impossible to do anything at all, and day surgery day was a write-off because I was busy dealing with that from 9 am to about 4 pm. Then, yesterday, the hubby and I decided to take a day shopping trip in the nearest “real” city (an hour and a half drive away) so that he could pick up a present for my upcoming birthday, so that was a write-off as well. Long story short, I wound up with 4515 words, which isn’t really half bad, but isn’t anywhere near where I was hoping to get. Better luck this week?

Accountability Wednesdays: Week 9

By the time you are reading this I will have been home from my shift out West for approximately one full day, which also means that I’ll have been unemployed for one full day. Yes, my job has ended once again. I was aware that it might not last very long because of the nature of the work we were doing, but I was a bit surprised to have been laid off so soon. I expected to get at least one more month out of it, as evidenced by the flight I had already booked and now wont get reimbursed for. But I’m not bitter. No, really, no bitterness here at all.

Hopefully I’ll get back to work sooner rather than later (if anyone knows of any commissioning jobs starting up soon, for the love of god let me know), but in the meantime I’m going to look on the positive side, which is that I’ll have time to focus on my goals for a little while.

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

I have mixed feelings about the success of this week, but I’m going to go ahead and say that it was a good one overall. For one thing, I successfully avoided calorie-bomb beverages for five out of seven days, and on those other two days it was just half a can of pop with supper. For every other beverage throughout the week I drank either water or herbal tea (with no milk or sugar). And for the record, that’s a huge sacrifice for me because I love pop and loathe plain water.

On the exercise front I can’t say that I did anything significant, but that’s because I’m much more out of shape than I thought I was. Every time I try to do anything I wind up feeling that my heart is going to burst from my chest, and the next morning my body feels like I got hit by a truck. So my plan for the next few weeks (and hubby, if you’re reading this, make me do it) is to hop on the treadmill for half an hour a day until I start to feel like I can handle something a little more intense.

Also, as a side note, I discovered that my FitBit can sync with the “My Fitness Pal” app, which is my favorite app for keeping track of calorie intake and exercise, so yay for that!

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

Week 9 was definitely not as good as week 8, but still not bad. I slacked off a little on Twitter, but I’ve been working hard on the “reciprocation” side of social media. That is, I’ve been actually hitting the “Like” button (or the “Favorite” button, or whatever) when I like something that someone else has posted or shared. I’ve also been sharing things that I really like to help promote them, and commenting on things instead of just moving on after I’ve enjoyed them. It only seems fair. If I want people to interact with me, I should interact with them, right? Right.

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

I feel like I’m forever repeating the same things over and over again, but as previously mentioned I haven’t been able to work on this for a while because I’ve been out West. That said, now that I’m home and unemployed for an indeterminate amount of time, I plan to put a real drive on for the final draft. If I can whip through the changes that I want to make based on my beta-reader’s comments, I should have a final draft in no time. Then I can focus on things like formatting and a cover, and get this sucker published!

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

The week when I fly home from out West always takes a hit on word count because of all the time I end up spending on packing, sitting on (extremely bumpy) buses, and just dealing with the hassles of traveling in general. That said, I’m actually not too disappointed in how I did this week. Handwriting blog entries in my notebook, I managed to put 3524 words to paper this week. I hope to at least double that number this coming week, so wish me luck!

Excuses Excuses

One of the more ridiculous aspects of human nature is the ability to make excuses. It’s a strange thing, but no matter how much we want to do something, no matter how fiercely we desire to achieve our goals, we will find every reason under the sun to not actually do anything about it. It’s why so many people resolve to lose weight but never do. It’s why people stay in dead-end jobs despite having big dreams about what they want to do with their lives. It’s why most of us can never get our houses clean, and how we end up with late payment charges on our bills. Whenever something needs doing, we just come up with an excuse for why we can’t do it right now. Whenever we find ourselves being held accountable for something we didn’t do, we just come up with an excuse for why we couldn’t get it done. Some of us are better at coming up with excuses than we are at pretty much anything else.

The most common excuse in the world is “I don’t have the time”, despite the fact that most people have hours a day of disposable time that they waste by checking their Facebook account three hundred times or obsessing over the 300th level of Candy Crush. That is far from the only excuse that people come up with on a regular basis, however. For your perusal, here are a few of the most common excuses I hear on a daily basis (many of them from the inside of my own head), and why they’re an enormous pile of BS.

Common Excuse #1: “I just don’t have the time!”

Even though I already mentioned it I’ve gotta go with this one first, since it’s the one people spew on a daily basis. It’s all about time, or rather, the lack thereof. No one has the time to do anything, if this excuse is to be believed. We don’t exercise because we don’t have the time to go to the gym. We don’t feed ourselves properly because we don’t have the time for cooking. We don’t work towards our goals (writing a book, running a marathon, renovating a part of the house, etc) because dammit, we just don’t have the time!

It’s the first excuse that almost everyone will come up with, and as much as we feel like it’s true, it’s complete nonsense most of the time. For one thing, the overwhelming majority of us have time, but we spend it doing stupid things like playing pointless smartphone games or investigating every nook and cranny of Facebook like we’re trying to build a court case against our friends and family. For another thing, a lot of us have no sense of how to multitask. For example, say there’s a TV show that you watch every night. It’s a half hour of time that you can’t use for anything else because dammit, you worked hard all day and you deserve to sit down for 30 minutes and watch your show! That’s fine! No one is saying you can’t watch your show! But why not do some sit-ups, or push-ups, or walk on the treadmill, or practice some yoga poses while you’re watching your show? BAM! You’ve had your guilty pleasure and worked in a half-hour of exercise at the same time!

In our rush rush rush world filled with day jobs and chores and kids and all the stuff that you have to keep up on if you want to be a part of the world, it can feel like you have no time. But in reality, you just have to find those little pockets and opportunities to multitask. If you’re spending an hour a day playing Candy Crush you cannot turn around and complain that you have no time to cook yourself a decent meal. If you spend your evenings watching TV you have no right to say that you can’t find the time to exercise.

Common Excuse #2: “I’m just too tired.”

This one is closely related to “I just don’t have the time” because, again, our world today is very much about the rushing around, so we do tend to feel exhausted a lot of the time, at least emotionally. And I will allow that some people genuinely have medical issues that have them feeling tired day after day (GO SEE A DOCTOR!). Regardless, for most people this is an excuse of the highest order because it’s not fatigue…it’s laziness.

The worst offenders are people who decide to skip their workouts because they just feel too tired. I can speak for this one personally because I’ve done it a number of times. The truth is that most of the time you’re just convincing yourself that you’re tired because you don’t feel like doing anything. The great majority of the time if you just get up off your butt and force yourself to go exercise you’ll find that you actually feel great afterward.

The human mind is an incredible thing, but it lies. It will convince you that you’re too exhausted to do something that you don’t feel like doing, and yet somehow, magically, you’ll be awake half the night watching shows on Netflix or playing video games in the dark. Don’t believe your mind. Unless your body is literally collapsing beneath itself and your eyes are burning with the intensity of a thousand suns, chances are that you’re just being lazy and your brain is eager to give you a good reason to be so.

Common Excuse #3: “It’s just so boring!“

This excuse is most commonly used for people trying to avoid exercise: as in, “but exercising is so boring!” It can also be used in other situations, however. For instance, someone who would rather eat fast food every night than cook something healthy for themselves might complain that cooking is too boring, or someone who requires practice to achieve a goal (learning to play an instrument, perhaps) might complain of the same.

This is just another form of being lazy because for the most part the “boring” factor can be overcome with a little bit of effort. Exercise, for instance, does not have to be boring if you’re willing to do a bit of research to find a method of exercise that you find enjoyable. Cooking doesn’t have to be boring if you’re willing to get a little creative, maybe involve a loved one or make a game out of it. If you really want to achieve something, you’ll find a way to make it a worthwhile event that keeps you interested.

Common Excuse #4: “I can’t afford it.”

Sometimes this is a valid excuse, but only in specific situations, like if want you’re trying to eat better but have been recently unemployed (healthy food is damn expensive and that’s a rant for another day). In most cases, however, this is another situation in which the excuse-maker simply refuses to put in a bit of thought. Someone who is trying to lose weight and get in shape, for instance, may whine that gym memberships are too expensive and there’s no way they can afford it. But who said they had to go to the gym? There are tons of excellent exercises that you can do right from home with little or no equipment. This is more a case of people assuming that the only way to accomplish something is to spend a ton of money. Paying for things makes us feel accountable and as though we’ve already accomplished something just because money has changed hands, but it’s a hollow victory. Save your money and look instead for ways that you can accomplish your goals without spending anything.

Common Excuse #5: “I just have no motivation at all.”

Of all the excuses out there, this one may be the worst because it is effectively saying, “I have these goals, and I really want to achieve them, but I just plain don’t want to do anything and don’t want to have to take any responsibility for not doing anything.” No matter what kind of goal we’re talking about, stating out loud that you have no motivation is the same as stating that you don’t actually care about your goal at all, because if you did that would be motivation enough. I’ve heard this excuse a hundred times, even coming out of my own mouth, and even hearing myself say it is frustrating to say the least. Don’t say that you “have no motivation.” Skip right to the honest truth: “I feel like I should probably [lose some weight/get my book published/do some work around the house/etc] because that’s what other people expect of me, but I don’t actually care enough to actually do it, so I’m just going to sit around and whine like there’s a secret ‘motivation switch’ in the back of my brain that someone flicked off while I wasn’t looking.”

What it all comes down to in the end is that excuses are only just that…excuses. If you really cared about your goals, about getting things done or making changes in your life, you would do it instead of just telling the world around you about all the reasons why you can’t manage. Because, trust me, no one really cares about your excuses. They’re too busy complaining about their own.

Accountability Tuesdays – Week 40

We’re officially one week into October. Halloween and NaNoWriMo grow closer as the days get colder. And I have several dozen things to be dealt with, so let’s just jump right into it this week, shall we? 🙂

Health and Body Image Goal

As per my mini-goal, I’ve been getting a bit of exercise in each day, which has been a half hour on the treadmill. There were two days in the past week that I didn’t hop on the treadmill, but one of those days was spent shopping, so I got the exercise in by doing a lot of walking around and running after the baby, so really I just missed the one.

The treadmill-ing has been going well, and I can honestly say that I feel good after doing a half-hour program on it, but I can’t say the same about the whole “eating better” thing. For one thing, exercise makes me hungry. There’s no denying that, and I refuse to go around all day feeling like there’s a ravenous little beast in my stomach clawing to get out. For another thing, the hubby and I have been taking part in our annual October tradition of watching a horror movie every night, and watching movies late at night inevitably leads to snacking. True, I could be snacking on healthier things than chips and ice cream, but…yeah.

Feel free to yell at me for having no food-related willpower.

Editing

I can’t honestly say that the editing process has been going as quickly as I had hoped it would, but I can still say that it’s going pretty well. I’ve “finished” four chapters and am currently working on the fifth. I say “finished” with quotation marks because there are a couple of small details that might have to be changed once I’ve asked a few people a few questions of a few more knowledgeable people (mostly involving info on guns, of which I know positively jack). That’s the kind of thing that will only take a few minutes though, so I’m calling the editing process approximately 30% done. Ten and a half chapters left to do in 24 days, which is two and a quarter days per chapter. Think I can do it? @_@

1,000,000 Word Goal

Writing a blog post a day even on my off-days is going quite well. I already have a couple of posts scheduled in advance, and it’s my hope that I’m able to get ahead enough to have a good number of posts scheduled for during NaNoWriMo. Also, since a lot of the editing process has involved complete rewordings of key scenes, I’ve managed to rack up a word count over the past week of 11684 words. A little more would have been nice, but still very good considering that most of my time is being spent on editing old words rather than writing new ones.

All in all the mini-goals are going fairly well (aside from that whole eating better thing), so I’m happy so far. Now if I can work in a little extra time with the editing and also find time to start (and finish) missy’s Halloween costume, I’d be really kicking ass. Anyone have a time machine I could borrow?

Accountability Tuesdays – Week 26

Two things to mention before I get to the heart of the matter today. First of all, it’s week number 26! That means I’m halfway through the year! And while I’m nowhere near where I would need to be to be on track with my million word goal, I’ve written more in the past six months than in the previous 2 years combined! But more on that later.

The other thing I want to mention is that as you are reading this I am packing up my last couple of bits and bobbles from the control room at work, chucking it all in a backpack, and awaiting the bus that will return me to camp where I’ll giddily await my plane home. My last plane home. That’s not to say that I won’t end up back out in Alberta for work in a few months or so, but for now I’m heading home with nothing on the horizon except spending quality time with my family and maybe enjoying a number of alcoholic beverages from the comfort of my back deck. Look upon me and be in awe, for I am officially ON VACATION!

Okay, that’s enough of that. 🙂

Health and Body Image Goal

I’ve been a bit on the ins and outs with this goal, unfortunately, but I’m still not doing too badly. As I mentioned last week I did, in fact, drag myself to the gym and try running on the treadmill. It wasn’t ideal, but acceptable. I figured that’s what I’d do until my stomach felt better. But then my stomach felt worse. I don’t know if it’s the actual physical exertion that’s bothering me, or if it’s the camp food (which, thank god, I won’t be enjoying any more of any time soon), or if I’ve been suffering from some as-yet-diagnosed condition inherited from my sickly parents (love you guys, really :P), but I’ve hardly been able to stand leaving my room in the morning and suffering through the bus ride to work, never mind exercising on top of that. Luckily, about two days ago, my symptoms seemed to subside and I’ve felt halfway decent since then, so here’s hoping all will be well when I get home and try to run around my neighborhood again.

All that said, I’ve still been managing to eat pretty well. I’ve had a cookie here, some pop there, but for the most part I’ve been eating decent food (or as decent as it gets on camp) and not too much of it. I haven’t weighed or measured myself recently because I doubt I’ve lost anything during my refusal-to-exercise days, but I’ve recently had an unusual number of coworkers tell me that I look like I’ve lost weight, so I’m just going to go ahead and say, “Woohoo! I look like I’ve lost weight!”

Editing Goal

I have a stupid, STUPID confession to make. I did try to get some editing done this week, I swear, I really did. But when I finally took out my tablet and opened up the files I transferred there for editing purposes, I discovered something idiotic. Of the four different word-processor-ish apps I have on my tablet, none of them open rtf files. Guess what format all my files are in? After two days of searching for an Android program that DOES open rtf files (for free, because screw that, I’m not paying for an app that I only need for a week) I gave up and admitted defeat. Apparently the world of tablets and smartphones does not believe in the existence of rtf files. So the editing will have to wait for this coming week. Grr.

1,000,000 Word Goal

I have been writing like a maniac this week, mostly due to my rediscovery of 750Words.com. I don’t know what it is, but I love just typing and typing and typing and watching the word counter go up. It’s addictive. Over the course of the week I’ve written blog posts, typed out a few scenes for Returning Hope, did a couple of writing exercises, and did a little bit of free-writing (i.e. writing whatever came to my head as it came to my head). Through all of this combined I managed to once again beat my best week score with a total word count of 16556. In addition to that, I’m happy to announce that I’ve reached a yearly total so far of over 165,000. Again, it’s nowhere near where I need to be for my goal, but it’s a heck of a lot more than I normally would have written, so I’m proud. Revel in my pride! Only six months to go to try and boost that total up as high as I can!

And with that said, I plan to spend the next several hours in the lounge at camp, with my feet up, reading A Dance With Dragons, and waiting for my final flight home. See you soon, Cape Breton!

Accountability Tuesdays – Week 25

It’s (more or less) official; my job is over and we’re all headed home after this shift. I’m not too depressed about that because it means I get to go home and enjoy the summer with my family, and there will definitely be more work in the future. That said, I have to inform you that the last week of a job that you know is over is absolutely painful. I’ve been spending my time scanning documents that have to be saved and transferring over changes that have been made between the master books and the working copy books, and it is unbelievably mind-numbing. At this time one week from now I may be a drooling puddle of goo on the floor.

Cheery today, aren’t I?

Okay, let’s get on with it then, shall we?

Health and Body Image Goal

I’ve been eating pretty well, I can tell you that. I don’t know if it’s sheer willpower or if my stomach (the organ, not my flab-belly) has been shrinking and I’m just not as hungry as I usually am. I have been scoffing on peanut butter cookies in the evening (OMGSOGOOD), but aside from that I’ve been eating good foods and decent portions of them.

On the exercise front I can’t claim as much success. Believe me, I do want to be going for my zombie runs, but I’ve been a little gun-shy since last Thursday. That morning I got up to go for a run and before I made it out of the building I almost doubled over with pains in the gut. I ended up nearly sprinting back to my room and staying there the entire day. I still have no idea whether it was a stomach bug or food poisoning, or what, but I’ve been a little nervous about venturing too far from a bathroom ever since because I still don’t feel quite right. I know I have to buck up eventually though, so tomorrow I’m going to try running on the treadmill in the ladies gym (which is only about thirty seconds from a bathroom) and see if I can’t build my confidence back up.

Editing Goal

I’ve regressed back to the days of getting nothing done…dammit. I do plan on doing some editing before the end of this shift, I swear, but I’ve gotten a little caught up in the writing aspect, as documented below.

1,000,000 Word Goal

This week I rediscovered a little thing called 750Words.com. It’s nothing fancy, just a daily challenge to write approximately 750 words on your personal section of the site, but there’s something strangely motivational about it. In three days on the site I managed to rack up over 8000 words alone. All together, through a variety of blog post planning, writing exercises, and a little bit of good old fashioned freewriting, I managed to write 13421 words this week, which if I’m not mistaken makes this my best week yet this year. Not too shabby, hmm?

I hope to focus more on writing (and editing) in the coming months while I’m temporarily out of work, and I plan to use 750Words.com for a little boost of motivation. You should check it out…it’s very simple, but it somehow makes you want to achieve the goal. I’ve joined the monthly challenge for July, and I hope to have more success with that than I had with Camp NaNo. 🙂

Until next week! Ciao!

Priorities

Today is going to be a thoroughly unproductive day.

I’m not going to do any housework today. I’m definitely not going to do any yard work. I won’t be working on my novel, or any other writing project for that matter (it’s actually a miracle I’m bothering to write this blog post). I won’t do a single lick of exercise…not running on the treadmill, not my 10-Minute-Trainer videos…if I can help it I’ll scarcely burn a single damn calorie.

Why the sudden complete and utter disdain for ‘work’? Well it’s not that, really…it’s just that I’ve got more important things to worry about today.

What’s going to happen is this:
I’m going to get up and get a shower (already done), and wait for the baby to wake up (in progress). I’m going to dress the baby in something cute, and we’re going to have breakfast. Then we’re going to go outside for a little while because the sun has finally come back and the baby is going to want to see it. When she has thoroughly worn herself out running through the grass and poking at my flowers, we’ll go back in and grab something for lunch. And then it’s into the car for a three-hour drive to the airport because hubby/daddy is coming home!

I think that deserves a day of saying “screw that” to my other commitments, hmmm? 🙂

Brain Dump

A few things, some bigger deals than others, have been happening lately, and since I find Sunday to be an excellent day to talk about the week that has just passed, you get to hear about them all. 🙂

– As previously mentioned, a week and a half ago I got a call offering me my job back at the paper mill. The job offer is conditional on the sale of the mill being completed, which is conditional on Nova Scotia’s Utility Review Board okaying the deal that the buyer has created with Nova Scotia Power. If the Board okays the deal, the buyer is hoping to start up the mill some time in August.

Personally, I don’t see it happening that way. For one thing, even though the government is probably going to be pushing the Board to okay everything and get the sale over with, I don’t think they’re going to agree with it right off the get-go. The deal the buyer and NSP came up with is, in my opinion, overly complicated, and also gives NSP the rights to 18% of any profits made by the mill. I’m sure everything will get the okay eventually, but I don’t think it’s going to be a quick process. I believe the Board will have a few issues with bits and pieces of the agreement, and that will slow things down.

For the other thing, I think the buyer is drastically overestimating how easy it’s going to be to get staff back in that mill. A large number of maintenance workers have already found other jobs or gone out West for work, and my understanding is that many of them are reluctant to come back. Why give up an excellent camp job for the absolutely sickening contract we were strong-armed into? Also we seem to have lost quite a bit of management (of the necessary type) and it’s going to take time to fill those positions.

No, I definitely don’t think that mill is starting up in August.

– The reason I bring up the uncertainty of when the mill might start up is because last week I got a call for another job…a camp job working for MMR Canada. This company will fly me out to the site where I will work for 14 days straight, then fly me home for 14 days straight, rinse and repeat. In the 14 days that I work, I will make more money than my husband and I made combined at the mill. In other words, it is a really good opportunity that is impossible to pass up. Even if I only work there until the mill starts up (a decision that will have to be worked out later, once I know what it’s like out on this site), it will still be more than worth it. So this Saturday my hubby is flying home from the job he’s been at, and he will stay with the baby while I’m on my 14 day shifts.

I have a powerful belief that the baby will lose her tiny little mind when she sees daddy come through the airport gate. 🙂

– Because of the impending start date of my camp job, I’ve been really trying to force myself to write. I’ll never find the time to write while I’m on camp (I’m working 12 hour days!), but I might be able to find a few minutes a day to edit, which is why I’m desperately trying to get to the end of my zombie novel before I leave (June 19th). And I’m so close I can taste it. My main character is currently at the ‘big reveal’ moment, which is essentially the end of the story. If I had to estimate I’d say that there might be about 5000-6000 words left to this story, so if I work really hard (and my brain starts cooperating with the ‘big reveal’ wording) then I might actually have it finished this week. ^_^

– Also because of the impending start date of my camp job, I’ve been thinking that I need to start trying to get into shape. If my duties are anything similar to what they were at the mill, I’m in rough form. And the fact is that the work I’ll be doing out there will probably be much more physically demanding than what I’m used to. With this in mind I decided yesterday that today I would start getting up early and running again, as well as trying to eat better.

I set my alarm for 6 am. The baby woke up at 5:30 am. 😐

Since I can’t use my treadmill while the baby is awake (it’s in the basement, which is also where a bunch of dangerous stuff and also the kitty litters are, so I can’t just take her down there with me), I’ve been waiting all day for the little booger to lay down and take her nap so I can get my exercise in. It is now coming up on lunch time and she appears to have no plans of the sort. I’m at least twice as tired as she is.

And as far as eating better…..I’d forgotten how hard that is. I had a bowl of grapes, a glass of juice, and a coffee for breakfast, and a little later I had a bowl of oatmeal that I hoped would tide me over until lunch. I’ve also since had 2 more glasses of juice (it’s a calorie-free concentrated thing that you mix with water) to try to keep my belly feeling full. It’s not helping. I’m freakin’ starving. And it doesn’t help that we have a whole closet just packed with the discount Halloween candy we buy every year after the holiday. 😐 I’m not cut out for diet and exercise.

– And finally, my word counts for the week. Aside from one crappy day and one day where I evidently forgot how to write, I did pretty well! An average of 1303 words per day!

Sunday – 1396
Monday – 2617
Tuesday – 1098
Wednesday – 211
Thursday – 0
Friday – 1960
Saturday – 1839