Month: April 2009

Last Thursday I got chapter thirteen finished over lunch, then went home and typed it up. I skipped my workout (haven’t done anything since last Tuesday) because I’m having trouble with my knee. I took those four days off to rest it, and I’m going to start back with leisurely walks for a week before I get back to my high-intensity workout. Hopefully that’ll be enough.

Anyway, I came back out of the office around six and T– ran up to McDonalds to grab us some dinner. We spent the evening watching TV, and went to bed relatively early. Nothing really noteworthy.

Friday was my RDO, but I woke up early anyway. I’ve been working on that, trying to establish a real six o’clock habit. This time my goal was to get up before the rest of the family, lock myself in the office, and finish up my novel before I came out.

Unfortunately AB heard me getting ready, so I ended up on babysitting duty before I ever made it to the office. We played a little bit, and then I took her to the living room and started an episode of Word World for her. She sat on the couch next to me, in rapt attention, and I did half of chapter fourteen in my scribblebook.

T– got up a bit before nine and we all had some breakfast, then she started getting AB ready for a trip to Guthrie and I finally headed to the office. At that point I was able to type up what I had and finish off chapter fourteen in about an hour and a half. It’s the climax of the book, which is always the easiest chapter to write. After that comes the denouement, which is almost always the hardest, because by that point, as a writer, you’ve really already moved on.

Anyway, I finished my writing for the morning, emailed K– to ask if he wanted to meet for lunch, and then I changed into some work clothes and went out to do some work in the yard. I put down some Turf Builder (weed killer plus grass seed) front and back, and then mowed the back yard before I heard back from K– saying he was available but we’d have to make it quick.

So I ran up to Jersey Mike’s and had a turkey club, spent some time chatting with K– about Demigod, mostly, and then ran back home and mowed the front yard. Then I grabbed a shower, and by the time I was done T– was back from Guthrie with AB.

I went ahead and played Demigod for a couple hours while AB slept, then came out spent some time with the family. At 6:00 T– headed up to church for a Game Night with our small group, but I wasn’t up to that. I watched AB instead. I’d planned to go to IHOP for dinner, but at the last minute I decided to just stay home. We had chili and crackers and watched VeggieTales, which AB really seemed to enjoy.

Saturday morning I woke up early again and watched AB again, this time while T– went shopping garage sales with my little sister. She got home around 9:30 bearing breakfast, and after we’d eaten she took AB out to play in the back yard, so I went back to my office for some more Demigod. Around noon we headed to Taco Bell for lunch, then went to Homeland for some grocery shopping, then went home and put AB down for a nap.

While she was sleeping, T– and I curled up on the couch and watched Twilight, which was precisely what I expected it to be.

Then I divided much of the rest of the afternoon between playing Demigod and coordinating plans for the evening by phone. Then around 5:30 D– showed up and entertained AB for a bit before we headed over to my sister’s place for Poker Night.

At which point we had Poker Night. I didn’t get home until nearly 2:00 in the morning, and I promptly crashed.

Sunday morning I got up late and joined T– at church about five minutes into the service. I got a couple pages written on chapter fifteen, and then we went to Carl’s Jr. with K– and N– for lunch. That was fun, but AB is a real handful when we go out to eat. Still, we don’t get to see enough of those guys these days, so it was well worth it.

Afterward AB went down for a nap and T– went to the mall to do some shopping with N–. I played my game some, then emerged again when AB woke up and we played some games until T– got home.

D– came over around 5:30 and we drove up to Freddy’s to grab some dinner for us all, then brought it back to the house to eat. After that we watched some TV while I played my game and D– read some novel, and then somehow the day was done.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

About a month ago, our preacher did a sermon on fasting in which he discussed the physical, emotional, psychological, and (of course) spiritual benefits of fasting. It struck a chord with me, and as I had missed breakfast before church, and was already planning on skipping the Second Sunday Fellowship afterward, I decided on the drive home that I would just go ahead and fast for the rest of the day.

Then I got home, got bored, and called D– to see if he wanted to do something, and that something ended up being lunch. Alas.

Before I got around to that, though, I came up with a grandiose plan to begin fasting regularly, and as 21 is my favorite number, I thought it might be a good idea to fast on the 21st of every month. Then, as I said, I went out to lunch and forgot all about it.

About a week ago, D– was over for dinner, talking about his vegan diet project, and he said offhand that I couldn’t survive for a day without meat. I pointed out that, about a decade ago, I’d gone a week without eating at all. I could go a day without food, let alone meat.

That was a long time ago, of course. I was deeply, deeply spiritual back then (unblunted by the woeful ravages of real life), and my goal was forty days and forty nights, and I don’t think I told anybody I was doing it (because Jesus said not to). Anyway, that was probably a really stupid and dangerous endeavor, but it’s something I’ve never forgotten.

But, yeah, last Thursday night we were talking about it, and decided we should do a 24-hour fast, and I said it would have to be after Sunday because I wanted to finish my 21 days on the elliptical, and being low on energy didn’t seem conducive. We settled on Tuesday, because that seemed the most convenient. So that was yesterday.

So that was yesterday. I had my last food Monday evening (a handful of jelly beans, around eight o’clock), because I was working on the traditional sunset-to-sunset fast. Woke up yesterday morning hungry and drove into work, where I had a carton of fresh fruit in the fridge. I left it there. I brought one of my big OU cups to work, full of ice water, and refilled the frequently from the water fountain, just to have something in my stomach.

Around nine in the morning I heard the secretary making the rounds, filling up the candy bowls, and I wept a little (not really). I thanked the Lord that no one had brought in donuts (yes, really). I spent my lunch break taking a nap in my car.

I dunno. I’m not going to paint it as some huge trial and tribulation, because it was just one day. It really wasn’t bad. It was distracting — I spent all day having to think about food, instead of mindlessly chowing down on it — but it wasn’t really difficult. I got home from work and there were homemade cookies on the countertop sitting next to the open gallon bag of jelly beans. Then T– started making dinner for her and AB, quesadillas and cheese dip, and it smelled delicious. I’d anticipated that, though, and I took a walk to get away from the house. By the time I got back, around seven, they were done.

We watched TV, Castle and Heroes, and after sunset I ate a big bowl of chili leftover from last Friday. It was good, but not lifechanging. I kind of wish I’d kept going.

Anyway, it wasn’t until halfway through the day that I remembered my decision, about a month ago, to start fasting on the 21sts. It was entirely coincidence that I followed through — we picked Tuesday for much more practical reasons — but I was glad of it. I think I’m going to try to follow through on that plan.

But, yeah, that was my day yesterday. Disjointed, vaguely meaningful, and characterized by a deep, deep suffering that really wasn’t all that bad. I missed breakfast and lunch and had a late dinner. Somehow, I was able to take meaning from that, and I think that’s the part that matters.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Yesterday’s post I forgot to include an update on my writing, but I did a lot of writing on Friday, none of Saturday, and then some more on Sunday to get me up through the end of chapter 10 (at 40,000 words), and started into 11.

Yesterday I did another 1500 words over lunch, which should make it a simple matter to finish up chapter 11 today. I’m hoping to get a good start on 12, too, which puts the story just shy of the epiphany that leads to the climactic standoff. I’m looking forward to writing that part.

My twenty-one days complete, I had thought about skipping yesterday’s workout to rest my knees (which are both hurting a bit), but when I got home from work I decided to do it anyway. I kept it at low resistance and went a little slower than usual, but I put in my full forty minutes (and got all caught up on Dollhouse).

While I was doing that, T– ran up to Mazzio’s to pick up some pizza for us and D–. Afterward we watched a couple episodes of Heroes to get caught up, as well as Chuck (which acts like it’s heading a series finale instead of just a season), and Rules of Engagement. When that was all done, I didn’t feel up to writing anymore, so I went to bed early.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

So, I was wrong when I started my whining about the cost of our exterminator. I think I named a total figure around five hundred bucks, but we had the termite guys out to give us an estimate yesterday, and it’s actually going to be closer to twelve hundred.

That’s a big stressor, especially given other stuff that’s going on. I got paid today, but we spent most of the last three days desperately watching our purchases and tracking the bank account online hoping we didn’t get overdrafted before my check cleared. A number of factors went into that, but it’s the sort of experience we’ve worked hard for the last two years to get out of. There was a time when that described pretty much every payday, and I liked having as much distance as possible between that time and me.

Anyway, we’re not paying the exterminators out of our checking account, so that only applies in that both are sources of financial stress. No, we’re paying for the bug treatments on our credit card. A couple months ago I had pretty realistic hopes of getting our last credit card paid off by June. Instead, we now have more total credit card debt than we ever have in our (often extremely mismanaged) financial history. That’s depressing. It’s been a bad couple months, moneywise.

Luckily, one of the most powerful treatments for anxiety, stress, and depression is exercise, and I’ve been doing well on that. After work yesteday I put in my forty minutes while T– took AB grocery shopping. Then she made spaghetti for AB and D–, and meatball sandwiches for her and me. I think that’s the first time she tried that, and they were fantastic.

After that we got caught up on The Office (which consisted of three episodes, including last night’s), and watched a new 30 Rock. All of that was done with much interruption, because AB was not behaving. We had to wrestle her to the ground to put on her pajamas at bedtime, but once we got her in bed she actually fell asleep pretty easily.

By then I was too exhausted to write, so I watched the beginning of an episode of Bones with T–, then headed back to the office and played some Desktop Tower Defense. Or, in other words, killed time. Once I realized that was all I was doing, I shut it down and went to bed.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Yesterday was tax day, but that didn’t mean a lot to us. Ours were done a while back. We ended up getting about the same amount back as I’d spent on the elliptical machine, so that works out nicely.

I headed home from work a little bit early so I could get in my workout before dinner. I did my forty minutes, showered, then we all climbed in the car and picked up a Happy Meal for AB before heading to Subway to meet up with D– and K– and N– (as well as N–‘s parents).

[Reader poll: Who doesn’t care whether or not I use their full names? Post a comment if legibility is more important than privacy to you and yours. This technically only refers to B– and E–, T–, D–, K– and N–, and my little sister and her family. The concerns of the first and last groups in that list are the ones who prompted the convention in the first place, but I just applied it to everyone I expected to get at least a weekly mention.]

After dinner D– and I walked over to the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market so he could pick up some groceries, then we went back to the house and watched Family Guy and South Park until T– got home with AB. Then we put her to bed, so it was nearly nine when we finally started on Lost (which turned out to be another great one).

After that we three sat and talked for a while, then D– headed home. I skipped my office time, but only because I’d already done about a thousand words on my book over lunch. So I got to go to bed early.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Thursday
Last Thursday night I got home from work and did my workout, then T– and I watched TV for a while waiting to hear from D– about possibly babysitting AB. He got caught up with a work event, though, so once we learned he wasn’t going to make it, we packed up AB and took her out with us. We dropped her at my sister’s place, and then headed to Kohl’s for some much-needed wardrobe updates.

We both got some nice new clothes. It was nine by the time we picked up AB, and then another half hour home, so she was completely out by the time we put her in bed. Then I did a little writing (I think), and headed to bed early.

Friday
Friday morning was my RDO, but I woke up at six so I could get in my workout before we headed out of town. It was tough, with the shorter recovery period, and I spent most of the six hour drive regretting it because my back and legs were incredibly sore in the cramped car. I distracted myself by writing for the first half of the drive, though, and by driving for the second half. In that first half I got 1500 words done, though, which is a good day’s output.

We grabbed a light lunch at McDonalds in Fort Smith, and got to Little Rock a little after two. Mom had a spread out for lunch, so we ate a little more. That was after saying hi to all the family, of course, which included my older sister and all her family, and my uncle Eric and his, who were on their way to Harding for Spring Sing (or something like that).

After we got the luggage in, I spent most of the afternoon hiding downstairs, talking with Jeff and Graham while they played WoW. It was a pretty brutal weekend to have my account inactive, and Graham spent all three days offering to pay for me to reactivate it, but I just can’t afford the distraction. It would have been a lot of fun to have it live for those three days, but even if I’d cancelled it on Sunday it would still be active for another twenty-eight days, and I just don’t have the willpower to resist that temptation. So I went with the ounce of prevention, and just stayed away from my computer all weekend.

For dinner Friday, Graham and I ran up to Whole Hog to pick up some barbecue. I’ve had it before, and theirs is easily as good as Steve’s Rib’s. It was awesome. Afterward the guys went back downstairs to play some more WoW, and I sat in the living room with T– watching High School Musical. It was awful.

Saturday
Saturday morning the girls (and by that I meant every female in the house, which was a huge number) got up earlyish and went to do a photoshoot of the kids. By the time I woke up, Dad and Jeff were already playing WoW downstairs, so I grabbed a quick shower and then joined them in time to take over Dad’s character so he could get ready.

While we were doing that, Granddad wandered downstairs (he’d been watching the coverage of the boat captain held captive by Somalian pirates on the news, as he had no interest in WoW). He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and said, “I was wondering…how would you boys like to spend the afternoon doing some manual labor?” We managed not to laugh at the question, and then not to groan at the details when he told us what he had in mind.

Then we got a call from the girls asking us to meet them on the other side of town for lunch, so I took over Jeff’s character while he got ready, and then we rushed out the door.

Lunch was El Chico’s, and we had fifteen people at the table, counting the kids. The kids had already been treated to ice cream as a reward for a fantastic photo shoot (and you should see the pictures of AB; she’s adorable), and AB was asleep in T–‘s lap when I showed up at the restaurant. The rest of us had some pretty good Mexican, though.

We went home, and I headed to the bedroom so I could put AB down for a nap when she showed up, but I fell asleep before that happened. I slept about an hour, then T– came to tell me Granddad and Dad were back from Lowe’s with the wood, and I was expected outside.

Dad’s got a failing privacy fence, and Granddad’s big plan for the afternoon was to fix it. Pretty much all of the cross-pieces are rotting out, but in some places they were bad enough that they’d pulled free from the uprights, so he had whole sections tilting drunkenly away from the fence. They’re not too far off from selling the house, so Mom and Dad had pretty much decided to just leave the fence as it was for now and then get a new one put up when they were ready to put it on the market. Granddad just didn’t like the look of it, though, so he chastised all of us into getting outside and doing some real work.

It was, too. They bought new wood for the cross-pieces, but our goal was to salvage what we could of the the slats. So we started out with the demolition, removing the slats carefully and then ripping the old cross-pieces off the uprights. Then Dad and Granddad got to work cutting new cross-pieces and putting them in place, while Jeff and I did what we could to nail the slats back up to cover the gaps.

Problem was, a lot of the slats were unusable, and in places trees had grown up to bulge the fence out so there was nothing we could do there. In the end, we spent three and a half hours working on it, and the best I can say is that it ended up looking better. There’s still just as many gaps in the fence, and just as big, but instead of sections tilting drunkenly, there are nice, clean holes missing slats (which, to be fair, will be easy enough for Mom and Dad to fill in over another weekend).

Anyway, it wasn’t a lot of fun.

For dinner we had leftovers, and then the rest of them went to the dining room to play dominos while T– and I watched High School Musical 2. It was terrible.

Sunday
Sunday was Easter. We somehow got three families ready for church in time for class, which Dad was teaching. He gave his take on Pentecost, which I know is one of his favorite Bible stories. My older sister’s family weren’t there for class (or they were in another class, I don’t know which), but when they showed up for service and T– and my younger sister picked up their kids from class, we ended up with more than a full pew’s worth, and it was a bustling, rambunctious crowd. (I refer, of course, to the children.)

Anyway, it was wild, and during service the storms came in so when I ran out to the car to pick up T– and AB, I got drenched just crossing the parking lot. Then I had to sit ten minutes waiting to get out of my parking spot, because of all the other devoted husbands waiting in a long line to pick up their wives at the covered entrance. I spent another five minutes or so in the line, and then T– finally just scooped up AB and rushed out to meet me rather than wait for our turns, which probably saved us another fifteen minutes. It was nuts.

We spotted Granddad waiting under the awning and unsure where he’d parked, so we picked him up, too, and drove around the church until we found his truck, then said a quick goodbye before he headed back to Longview.

Then back to the house for a big Easter feast — ham and mashed potatoes, corn-on-the-cob and salad, and a cherry cheesecake for Graham’s birthday. Uncle Eric and his crew were back, too, so we had a busy table. After we’d all had our fill, the kids were chased from the dining room and the grown-ups hid a couple hundred candy-filled eggs around the room for them. I’m sure sad sighs were sighed by some of the moms who were hoping for bright spring photos of kids romping around the yard, but it was black with rain outside, so the living room had to do. I don’t think the kids gave it any thought, though, because they still got their candy.

Of course, some of them were more anxious than others. AB and several of the others found a cache of Easter candy in the living room while the adults were hiding eggs, and broke into it. Sophie and Lola ended up wandering the house waving their suckers around proudly, like magic wands, which is how they got caught, but AB spent the whole time crouched in a corner behind the candy basket, unwrapping chocolates and stuffing her face. I’m so proud.

They didn’t get to eat any of their egg candy after that, but they still got to gather a bunch of it, and AB won me quite a bit of jelly beans. Good for her!

As soon as that was done we set to work packing the car, and we slipped out a little bit before three. The weather was still ugly, but the warnings were all past and we didn’t really have any trouble on our drive. We got home around eight, and I dropped the girls off then headed up to Taco Bell to get us some dinner.

Something was wrong in their system, because it took me over a half an hour to get through the drive-through line, and there were only about four or five cars in the line before me — just one between me and the menu board. I never figured out what the problem was, but during the long idle, in the hot, humid weather, my car overheated. It was scary, and I was worrying I wouldn’t get home, but it seems to have been an environmental rather than a mechanical problem. I just shut the car off completely while waiting my turn at the window, turning it on just to roll forward every five minutes or so, and that was enough to cool it back off. I’ve been watching it since, but haven’t seen any problems.

Anyway. Dinner at 8:40, then we put AB to bed, and then I went back to my office for forty minutes on the elliptical. After that I’d intended to type up some of the writing I’d done in my scribblebook over the weekend, but I just decided to go to bed instead.

Monday
Monday I made it to work on time, and got a good day’s work done. Then I got home and worked out, making it my fifteenth in a row (if you count the three and a half hours swinging a hammer on Saturday, which I do). T– picked up some Mazzio’s for us for dinner, including a small veggie pizza for D–, who stuck around after dinner to watch some TV with us. We caught 30 Rock from last week, but the rest of our Thursday night shows had been preempted by coverage of the wildfires, so we switched to newer fare and watched The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother.

By then it was about nine, so D– headed home and I went back to the office to write. I finished up chapter nine (which mostly consisted of transcribing from my scribblebook), then headed to bed.

Tuesday
Tuesday I got some frustrating news at work. The only other writer on our documentation team has been overwhelmed with projects for nearly a year now (during which time I’ve been pressing for a couple new hires and my Branch Manager has consistently responded, “I agree completely, but we’re too busy with other things right now”). Anyway, she finally told our supervisor that she can’t handle the workload, so he’s going to be handing some of it off to me. That’s all stuff I’m qualified to do, and it’s within my job description, but I’ve been working above my job description for two years now and angling for a promotion to reflect that. This move will definitely put a big dent in that effort. And, of course, it means I’ll be spending a lot more of my time working on less interesting projects. Lame.

Anyway, frustrating day at work. I got home and did my workout (day sixteen), and then T– made us some chicken fried rice for dinner (fantastic) while an exterminator we’d hired did an inspection of the house and told us we had termites in addition to the bugs we already knew about, and the total cost of cleaning up our place was going to come to about $550 (not fantastic). We’d basically just brought him out to spray the foundation for a cool C note, but no. Now we’ve got a contract and quarterly payments and ugh.

After all that I didn’t feel much up to writing, so we watched Castle and Chuck and Rules of Engagement, and then I went to bed early.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.