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Journal Entry: April 17, 2009

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.

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Journal Entry: April 16, 2009

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.

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Journal Entry: April 15, 2009

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.

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Journal Entry: April 9, 2009

Friday
Friday night I got home from work and spent 40 minutes on the elliptical machine. Then I showered and had a quick dinner with T– in which she lamented the trial of potty training. After supper we were supposed to go over to my sister’s place to help set up for a party Saturday night, but I suggested T– go ahead and head over, and I would spend some time working with AB.

We went to the bathroom and I just made her sit on her potty until she did something. It was extremely unfun, for both of us. In the end, it took over an hour and a half, but she finally did it and I think that helped her (a little bit) get over the terror of doing something new.

Anyway, I’d spent the whole time telling her that as soon as she was done she could go see her cousins (something she was really excited about). As her bedtime rolled closer and closer I was ready to give up on it all and just put her in bed in a diaper, but it was right at 8:30 when she sealed the deal, and I could hardly back out of a promise after she’d done what I asked, so I packed her up and we drove out to my sister’s place.

I got a sneak peek at some of the party prep (and they put a lot of work into it), and AB spent half an hour or so playing with the girls, then we all headed back home. AB got to bed, and I went to my office to do a little writing.

Saturday
Saturday morning I did my workout — forty minutes on the machine — and then as soon as I was cleaned up we headed out to meet Mom and Dad and my sister’s family at IHOP for brunch, 11-ish, and we all crowded into a booth meant for maybe six people. Service was slow (as it usually is at IHOP), so even though the food was delicious it was hard to enjoy it because T– and I ended up having to rush out of there for a 12:30 commitment.

That was babysitting. K– and N– brought little Jason over, and we got to spend a couple hours watching Word World with AB while we passed a sleeping Jason back and forth. I think T– changed one diaper, but other than that there wasn’t much work to it. AB was a bigger handful.

K– and N– came to pick him up around two, and they hung around to talk for a bit. That was fun.

Then they left, and a little bit after that (around four) T– headed over to my sister’s place to help finish getting ready for the party at six. I watched AB for about an hour, then got her in her dragon costume and tried on my Warlock costume, which was mix-and-match of a pirate costume and a wizard costume from Halloweens past, plus a very WoW-styled set of shoulder armor that we’d built out of papier mache.

The party was for my brother-in-law’s thirtieth birthday, and he’s probably the most dedicated WoW player out of our group of pretty dedicated WoW players, so my sister decided to throw a costume party (and somehow convinced a bunch of people to go along). There’s a detailed description of the party at my sister’s blog, in case you want to know more, but my parents were there, as were K– and N–, and Toby and Gwyn, and Jeff’s brother, Greg.

Instead of party games we had quests. Mom and Dad got really into the costume portion, which was hilarious. My favorite bit was the food, though, which was set out in a buffet and each part of it labeled after an in-game food item. I laughed out loud when I saw the cheese tray bearing the tooltip text for Alterac Swiss.

Sunday
Sunday morning I got up early enough to do my workout, but halfway through it I heard a crash and rushed out of the office to find AB bleeding in the bathroom, with T– trying to tend to her. We had been using a glass jar for her candy rewards, but I guess she’d gotten a little greedy and tried to reward herself, and let the jar crash to the floor. She cut her middle finger — just a little slice, but it was bleeding like crazy, and she was freaking out.

It took us a good twenty minutes of fighting with her to get it cleaned up and get a bandaid on (then, of course, she immediately calmed down). T– took her to get dressed, and I went back to the office to resume my workout. Just as I finished, though, T– poked her head in the door to tell me they were leaving for church.

I’d lost track of the time spent taking care of AB, and my workout ran over. Worse, we’d left one of our cars at my sister’s place on Saturday night, so I couldn’t just show up late. Mom and Dad were supposed to be bringing it to church with them, though, so T– suggested I call them and ask them to drop it off at the house on their way. Then she and AB left for church while I jumped in the shower.

Unfortunately, my phone was in the car that T– took to church, so that little plan didn’t work out. I ended up spending that hour or so playing Too Human, until Dad knocked on the door after service to let me know Mom was waiting in the car to take me up to Ole for lunch. It was another big family lunch (and this time D– joined us). Afterward we said our goodbyes to Mom and Dad, then headed home for a quiet Sunday afternoon. D– came over to hang out, after a busy weekend with a visiting college buddy, and we watched some TV while AB napped.

Then T– took AB to Small Groups at the church. I asked D– what sounded good for dinner, and he suggested going to a movie. We ended up seeing I Love You, Man — and no, the humor of the two of us going to see a movie about bromance and man-dates was not in the least lost on us. The movie itself was awesome, though. I highly recommend it.

I got home around nine-thirty, and instead of writing I watched some TV with T–.

Monday
Monday morning I got to work and spent my time reviewing for the Graduate Records Exam. I’d signed up for it last week sometime, and was scheduled to take the test at 12:30. I spent maybe an hour and a half reviewing, and that was just about enough time to get me really freaked out.

I grabbed some lunch on the way to the testing center, then showed up a little bit early and ate in the parking lot. When I got in, they gave me a clipboard to verify some of my registration information, then showed me in right away to get started. I was probably answering questions by noon, even though my appointment wasn’t until 12:30.

The test is listed as a four-hour process, but I did it in two. It consists of a written portion — two essays, which I would swear are just stoner traps — and then a multiple-choice Verbal (or English) portion and a multiple-choice Quantitative (or Math) portion. I did 700 in Verbal and 670 in Quantitative. The max. possible is 800, but apparently the Verbal portion is a lot harder than the Quantitative, because even with my scores so close together they come out to 96th percentile and 76th percentile respectively.

I’m doing all of this to get into the Masters of Professional Writing program at OU, though, and their only requirement is a 500 in Verbal, so I nailed that. They’re also interested in my writing score, which I won’t have back for another two weeks, but I feel like I did pretty well.

I’d already taken the whole afternoon off work, so I went ahead and headed home. I spent some time discussing the test with T–, then headed to the office and did my forty minutes while she took AB to do the grocery shopping. She picked up Mazzio’s on the way home, and we had a quiet evening watching TV. At nine I headed to the office, and got a little writing done.

Oh! After our tortuous experiences with AB Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday morning, we gave up on the whole making her sit on the potty thing. She spent most of the rest of Sunday in a diaper, actually. Then on Monday, all on her own, she kept rushing to the bathroom whenever she needed to go. She only had one accident all day, and I think five or six successful trips.

Tuesday
Tuesday AB realized that she could use her bathroom trips as a mechanism to get free candy, and started trying to figure out how to game the system. So that’s a little frustrating, but overall she has made remarkable progress, which has continued to present. I’ll resume my moratorium on discussing her potty training now.

Tuesday night wasn’t a super exciting one. I came home from work, worket out, had dinner (T– made some of her famous chicken crescent squares, which were delicious), then we watched a little TV. Instead of trying to write, I just went to bed early, but that didn’t gain me much. I was still late waking on Wednesday.

Wednesday
Wednesday after work I rushed home to try to get my workout in before dinner, which we’d decided to have at home. Halfway through I paused to place the order, then finished up, grabbed a quick shower, and rushed up to P F Chang’s to pick up our food.

Fantastic dinner, and not too ridiculously expensive. AB really does love the hot and sour soup, which weirds me out.

After that T– took AB to church, and D– read through his newsfeed while I played Too Human. We were all just waiting for 8:30, though, to catch this week’s Lost. It was a great one. I spent most of the show thinking, “I can’t wait to read about this on Lostpedia.” Think that sad if you will, I just consider it a recognition of the depth of their mythology. I enjoy learning about what’s included, but unaccessible on a casual viewing.

Anyway, after that D– went home, and one again I went to bed without writing. Since last Thursday, I’ve gotten about 2,000 words done, which is basically one third of my minimum writing goal (1,000 words a day). I’ve done enough to finish chapter 8, but I haven’t been terribly productive.

I’m not really beating myself up about it, though, because while that’s flagging I am busy doing a tremendous job on my workouts. I’ve now done a serious workout every day since I got the elliptical machine. I worked up to my 40-minute target in four days, and I’ve stayed at that ever since, without missing a day. This weekend could be a problem because we’re spending three days in Little Rock, but I’m going to try to get in my workout before we leave tomorrow morning and then do one as soon as we get home Sunday night, so I’ll only miss one day. Maybe I’ll even make myself go for a walk on Saturday. We’ll see.

Anyway, things roll ever onward. For the moment, the outlook is nice.

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

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Journal Entry: April 3, 2009

Yesterday I got home a little late from work and then spent a little while talking with T– and AB before working out, so it was nearly 6:30 by the time we started on dinner.

I did put in a 35-minute workout, and I plan on doing 40 tonight. In just a week I’ve gotten past the point where soreness or tiredness makes it difficult to finish my workout. Now it’s just the battle with boredom, because somewhere around 25 minutes I just want to go do something else. I’m going to try to watching some different shows — something I haven’t seen before — in the hopes that will keep me better distracted.

Anyway, after dinner T– and I spent much of the evening working on a crafts project. That took us until 10:00, an hour into my writing time, but I’d gotten enough work done over my lunch break that I decided to skip it for the evening, and we watched some TV instead.

It was a pleasant evening, and I’m officially at the halfway point in my book now. That’s pretty exciting.

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

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Journal Entry: April 2, 2009

Yesterday T– started potty-training AB.

And it was a miserable day for everyone. The end.

Actually, lots of other stuff happened, but it would have been fun to leave the whole post at that.

Anyway, after work I got home and spent a little time talking with AB, trying to reinforce some of the work T– had done over the course of the day. AB was sick of talking about it by then, though, so I gave up pretty quickly and retired to my office for a quick workout. I put in a full thirty minutes (which was tough), then grabbed a quick shower and afterward ran up to McDonalds to grab some dinner for us all.

D– brought over a pita, and we all ate together, then I tried taking AB to the bathroom for more training, but she just wasn’t having any of it. And I’ve just decided that, as much as it’s going to be a big factor in our lives for the next few weeks (I pray that it’s only a few weeks…), nobody is going to want to read about it. So I’ll skip over that.

K– and N– came over 7:30-ish, and we spent some time visiting while we waited for Lost to come on. About twenty minutes into Lost AB’s bedtime rolled around, and after an exhausting day of new and terrifying ideas, and then the party atmosphere of having K– and N– over at the same time as D–, she had no interest in going to bed. She wailed for half an hour. T– and I took turns trying to get her to go to sleep, and I think she finally exhausted herself with all the struggling and crying.

After that we were able to finish the episode and actually pay attention to what was going on, and it was a good one. Then K– and N– headed home, and D– hung around to watch an episode of Better Off Ted with us, which was fantastic. Then T– turned on Law and Order so he headed home and I headed to my office.

It was 10:00 by then, and I’d already gotten a lot of writing done over lunch, so I wasn’t really planning to do much. I went ahead and pulled up my book on Google Docs, though, and I was at the beginning of the chapter where the stricken wife spills the details on the big secret that was my inspiration for the whole book in the first place. So I decided to put in half an hour, and ended up doing two hours. Chapter seven is half done now, and I could have finished it last night but I made myself get to bed.

After all, I have a real job to do.

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

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Journal Entry: April 1, 2009

Yesterday at work I got started on my application to OU. I wrote several of my old professors requesting letters of reference (and already got two positive responses, which is enough for the actual requirements). I signed up to take the GRE next Monday, and prepared a 50-consecutive-page writing sample (I just went with the first four chapters of Gods Tomorrow), and updated my resume. All I’ve got left to do is prepare a letter of intent — a 3-page essay describing my career goals and why I think OU should admit me to their program. I can handle that.

After work I had a pretty short evening. I got home while T– and AB were out shopping, so I went straight to the office for a quick workout. I did 25 minutes on the elliptical, and probably could have done 35 but I was still sore from Monday and didn’t want to overdo it.

After that I grabbed a quick shower, and then we headed up to Schlotzky’s to meet my little sister and her family for dinner. AB was incredibly excited to go play with Sophie and Lola — and, yes, I misspelled Sophie there somehow (according to her mother), but I can’t remember how she says it’s supposed to go, so that’ll have to do.

Anyway. I played the evil father and made AB sit in her chair until we were all done eating, then she got down and the three girls ran wild in the mostly-empty restaurant while we talked. We eventually got a little tired of that, so T– invited them to come over to our place, and we let the girls run wild in AB’s room while we talked.

They eventually headed out around 8, and then I did some chores in the kitchen while T– gave AB a bath. After that, AB went to bed and T– and I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother. It was okay.

Then I headed to the office, and spent most of my writing time chatting with D–. I did put in some time on prewriting for a new novel I’ve been working on since Sunday morning. (I got the idea for it on the drive to church.) I threw together a Project Report over on my other page, in case you’re curious. Should be fun to write, but it’s appended to the end of a very long To Do list as far as my novels go, so don’t hold your breath for an opportunity to read it.

I went to bed around 11, and woke up early feeling miserable. Remember how I didn’t want to overdo it? Well I did. I still think I’m going to go workout when I get home this evening, but I’m sore all over. That’s the penalty for going so long without doing anything at all, though. Ugh.

I did get some more writing done on my GT book over lunch, today. Chapter 6 is done, at 24,000 words. It turned out more dramatic than I’d expected, so that’s cool.

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

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Journal Entry: March 31, 2009

Yesterday our new elliptical machine showed up. The delivery guy actually called while I was getting ready for work, and said he could bring it by during the day if someone could be home to meet him. T– graciously offered to commit to that, and was rewarded with an early delivery. She called me around noon to say he had already come and gone.

I bought it off Amazon last Wednesday, and opted (of course) for the free shipping, because the next cheapest was over a hundred bucks. The free shipping was 5-9 business days, which meant best case scenario wouldn’t have it arrive until tomorrow, so that was a pretty lucky break. Also…really glad I didn’t shell out a hundred bucks to get it sooner.

Anyway, I got home from work last night and T– and I immediately set to work building the thing. We put it together out in the living room while AB watched Winnie the Pooh, but she was actually far more interested in what we were doing. It was a lot of work to put together, but not terribly complicated. It’s a good design, and the finished product is sturdy and exactly the right size for my stride.

Also, it’s about five inches too wide in every direction to get through the door into my office, where we wanted to house it.

So I ended up dismantling it while T– made us some sandwiches for dinner, then dragged it into the office in four pieces and reassembled it there afterward. I have a little old cheap TV in the office, hooked up to my fileserver so I can watch my media files while I work out. We’ll probably replace it with a small wall-mount HDTV (with an actual digital connection to the computer, instead of the cobbled-together S-Video hookup I’m using now), but our finances aren’t right to go buying new TVs at the moment.

Anyway, when I had everything set up properly around 8:30, I put on an episode of Newsradio (in spite of Bruce’s warning), and did a fast-paced jog through the whole episode. It was killer. My goal is to watch through all the episodes of Buffy and Veronica Mars as part of my daily workout, but I might have to work up to the 40-minute run. Or go slower, but that’s not terribly tempting.

When I finished that, I went to the living room to watch Castle and Rules of Engagement with T–. We had four other shows to watch from Sunday and Monday evening programming, but I had to get back to the office and do my writing.

I typed up all the stuff I wrote about in my scribblebook yesterday, which finished out chapter five, then I kept going right into chapter six, and it’s about half done now at 2,000 words (or 22,000 total, for the book).

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

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Journal Entry: March 30, 2009

Wednesday
Last Wednesday night we had dinner at the newly-reopened Moe’s Southwest Grill up in Edmond, for the convenience of our Edmond contingent which consists of K– and N– as well as my little sister and her family (who live about a mile from the restaurant). Unfortunately my sister was sick, and K– and N– had a whole slew of houseguests (including one who flew in Wednesday night), so none of the Edmond contingent made it.

We still had fun dining out with D–, though. While we were there, he informed us that he’s embarking on a quest to practice a vegan diet for one month. He read a book about its medical benefits (and specifically advocating the one-month challenge), and he thinks he’s up to the task. We’re watching with what I would describe as “horrified fascination.” I don’t think I could ever survive such an ordeal, but I wouldn’t put it past D–, and I’m sure even in just the first month he’ll start to see some real benefits from it.

After dinner we all split up. T– took AB to church, D– went home, and I went over to K– and N–‘s place to grab some DVDs from K–. Then from there I went by the gym and canceled our languishing membership, with a little defense from the guilt-factor in the knowledge that a new elliptical machine was in the mail.

I got back to our part of town around 7:40, and headed to D–‘s place. We went for a walk (more guilt-dodging), and talked about our collaborative writing project. It may have been nineteen months since I last mentioned it, but it’s not a dead project.

After that we headed to my place, in time to meet T– for the new episode of Lost. While we were waiting for the TiVo to build up a bit of a commercial buffer, I mentioned that I’d been considering picking up an over-the-air HD antenna, and D– reminded me that Cox offers free HD channels for the local stations (the same ones I would pick up over-the-air). I checked it out, and sure enough we were able to track down all the major networks (on channels like 74-4 and 106-2), but TiVo was unable to fetch program information for them, so we couldn’t set up Season Passes.

A little research revealed that, with a $2/month CableCard from Cox, TiVo could properly recognize and record the channels, so I decided it was a worthwhile investment. I’ve had an HDTV for five years now, and only actually had HD programming for about eighteen months of that. We didn’t discover any of that in time to get an HD recording of Lost, but we should be covered for this week.

After the show, D– headed home and I went to the office to get some writing done.

Thursday
Thursday morning T– called Cox and scheduled a service call for Friday, to get the CableCard installed. She also asked if I’d be interested in having pizza for dinner, to which I responded with enthusiastic affirmation. We invited D– over, and spent the evening watching TV (still standard def, but 30 Rock is funny either way).

I also proclaimed that I would, over the course of my three-day weekend, write three chapters a day (which would put me back on track to finishing the novel in March). There were witnesses, so I cannot pretend I didn’t make that claim. I did not, it should be said, follow through on it. Thursday night, I don’t think I did any writing at all.

Friday
Friday was my Regular Day Off. I woke up around 9:30, went to my office, and wrote until lunch. I got about 1200 words done, finishing up the scene I’d meant to finish on Thursday night, and setting up to finish off chapter five. I had hoped to finish the chapter before lunch, but the delicious aromas of chicken salad sandwiches lured me out of the office early.

We had lunch together, and then T– headed out to run some errands while I watched AB. It was about an hour and a half until her naptime, and we spent much of that watching Sesame Street. Then when she went to bed, I took care of some chores around the house, then headed to the office and ended up deciding to bring my laptop out into the living room. I got it set up and got started on the second half of chapter five before T– got home. Then we turned on an old episode of Lost, and I got pretty distracted, and didn’t accomplish much for the rest of the afternoon. Around 3:30 I gave up on writing and instead got started on dinner.

I mixed up a big batch of chili, because the weatherman assured us we were due to be snowed in for the weekend and I wanted plenty of tasty leftovers to keep us nourished. I spent half an hour or so getting it together, and then let it cook all afternoon, and when we finally ate it at 6:00 it was so delicious I had two and a half helpings. There wasn’t really a ton leftover for our snowday, but that was okay because the snowday didn’t happen.

Saturday
Saturday morning we woke up to a little bit of snow on the ground, mostly decorating the lawn but not really anything on the road. B– came over around 11:30 to drop off his daughter, who we were babysitting while E– presented one of her papers at a symposium. That’s a pretty prestigious thing, and I’m proud of her for getting invited to present it. She shared a copy with me during the week and asked for markup, but I didn’t see anything that needed correcting (apart from some nitpicky punctuation). It was a fascinating look into bilingual education for small children, and the perception of it by parents.

Anyway, B– slipped out after E–‘s speech (though apparently she stayed for the whole thing), and came around 1:30 to pick up Maddy. After that AB went down for a nap, and a few minutes later T– headed out to do some shopping for her crop, and then go host her crop. I sat down to do some writing, and made about 1,000 words worth of progress on the second scene in chapter five, then D– came over to hang out and help me watch AB for the evening, and I pretty much stopped work for the day.

Instead I pulled out Too Human, an XBox 360 game. I tried the demo forever ago and really enjoyed it, but the negative critical reviews were enough to stop me buying it. (It doesn’t take much.) Back when I was thinking about picking up The Numerati, though, D– sent me a link to a $20 discount promotion for the game, and free shipping for purchases over $50, so I got those two in a bundle (along with another book of the same sort).

Anyway, the game had been sitting on my shelf for a couple weeks, so I finally broke it out. The multiplayer is only available over XBox Live, so we just played through the single-player campaign, passing the controller back and forth. The first half hour or so of the game is just the demo, which I’d played through repeatedly, so I let D– do that while I played with AB. Then he got to a rough battle and I took over, and played for a while until AB started getting fussy and demanding supper. I heated up some leftover pizza for her, and D– ran up to Taco Cabana because we didn’t really have anything vegetarian-friendly in the fridge.

Then I think AB took over the TV, watching some WordWorld until her bedtime. After I got her in bed, I started up Too Human again, but D– headed home. I played until I hit a roadblock, got frustrated, and then I put it away and actually started writing again. I got another 1,000 words done on chapter five, most of the rest of the chapter, but I got distracted right after Katie met the victim’s wife but before they actually started talking (which will make up most of chapter six). I was at word count for chapter five by that point, but still needed a few more paragraphs to tie it up.

Instead of doing that, I started playing some stupid game on my laptop, and was still doing that when T– got home around midnight.

Sunday
Sunday morning, during church, I finished chapter five in longhand, writing out the introduction between the two women in my scribblebook. Then after services we went to lunch with D–, and K– and N–, and N–‘s parents, at Ole. The service was terrible, so I don’t think we’re going to get K– and N– back there ever. Alas. All my favorite salsa places consistently aggravate K– and N–.

Anyway, after that we went home and spent the whole rest of the day watching Lost. It was delicious.

In case you’re keeping track, over the course of the three-day weekend, I just almost completed one chapter. All I’ve got left to do is type it up.

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

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Journal Entry: March 25, 2009

Friday evening, T–‘s parents came in for a weekend visit. After dinner we introduced them to Flight of the Conchords and Castle (and they liked the latter considerably more than the former). We also rewatched Lost, because John hadn’t seen it yet.

When it came time for AB to go to bed, she had no desire to leave the party. We had to put her back in her bed nine or ten times, and then during the night she kept waking up. We haven’t really had that problem since she started sleeping in her toddler bed, but Friday night was awful, and Saturday night wasn’t much better.

I didn’t do any office time Friday night (or Saturday, either), because my office is also the guest bedroom. I made up for it Saturday morning, though, when T– and her parents went to the Science Museum down by the zoo. While they were there, I spent two hours writing and finished up chapter two.

After that I gave D– a call, and he and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. Shortly after we got back, T– called to invite us to join them at County Line Barbecue for lunch. We did, and it was delicious (as always).

Before any of us had finished our meals, AB started yawning (well short of her usual 1:30 nap time), and then finally put her hands on the edge of the table, and rested her forehead on them so she could go to sleep. I finished up my brisket then pulled her out of her high chair so she could rest in my lap, which was probably a little more comfortable for her.

Then we went home and put her in bed. When she woke up, John and Karla took her to play at the park just down the road, and D– and T– and I watched some TV. Among other things, we watched a TED Talk by Aubrey De Grey, who believes we’re within about ten years of curing human aging. I’d read some articles by and about him before, but that was my first time to see him on TV. He looks like a crazy homeless man. I like his ideas, though. In fact, I’d spent the morning writing a scene in Ghost Targets: Expectation that took place in a fictional De Grey clinic, named after this guy and his crazy quest.

Anyway, around 6:30 T– and family had some soft tacos for dinner, and I helped myself to some of the salsa. Then about an hour later D– and I headed over to B– and E–‘s place (by invitation this time), and B– made up some pasta and we watched Point Break enhanced by the Rifftrax commentary. I…well, I’d never seen the movie before, and I can’t even imagine sitting through it without the Rifftrax dub. But with it, it was hilarious. After that we watched some stand-up, and finally headed home around 11:30.

Sunday morning we went to church, and got to see K– and N– and baby JD, but they hurried off afterward to grab a quick lunch and pick up N–‘s sister from the airport. We took a more leisurely lunch at the recently-relocated Poblano’s, and AB once again fell asleep mid-meal. On the drive home, we spent some time trying to explain to her that she was so sleepy during the day because she kept getting out of bed during the night, but I have no idea how much of that got through to her.

T–‘s parents left pretty early in the afternoon, and I spent much of the rest of the day getting our entertainment system rearranged. D– loaned us an HD TiVo he wasn’t using, so I swapped it out with the one in our living room, and moved that one to the TV in the office (which, at the time, wasn’t hooked up to cable or even power). While I was at it, I tried to get my fileserver (which is close to that TV) to play video output on the TV, but I had to cobble together a cable out of mismatched adapters, and it’s a standard def TV (and an old one and a cheap one, on top of that). So it didn’t really turn out well.

Then we spent the evening watching TV, and around 9:00 I headed back to the office to finish up chapter four.

On Monday I slipped out of work a few minutes early so I could grab T– and rush to our accountant’s office before they closed at 5:00. We got there with fifteen minutes to spare, and discovered that, rather than getting a sizable refund as I’d expected, we owed $200 on our Federal taxes. Not too bad, but it was most unexpected. I looked into the paperwork and discovered that we hadn’t gotten credit for the most expensive repairs we did on the Tulsa house last year (the carpet and the new air conditioner). So we’ve got to get that information back to them, and hope they can get our paperwork amended in time for the deadline.

After that disappointing trip, we headed home under a tornado watch, and spent the evening watching TV.

Yesterday T– had to work in Tulsa, and even with a stop at the bank for babysitter money and a stop at McDonalds for dinner, I beat her home. The babysitter was still filling me in on AB’s day when T– walked in the door, though, and then she took over.

I spent much of the evening working on a programming project for XBMC, trying to build a utility script that could make some plugins considerably more responsive (at the cost of system resources, but on modern PCs that’s a cheap cost). We also got several TV shows watched, including Castle (another good one) and Heroes (just waiting for it to die, so I can stop watching).

Then I went back to the office, and got 1,200 words done on chapter 5. Finishing in March is now outside the realm of possibility, but I’m not letting that get me down. As long as I can get 1,000 words done a night, I’m happy. There’ll be days I do more (and days I do a lot more), so if I can keep it at 1,000 words a night, consistently, I’ll still be beating the pants off anything I’ve ever managed in the past.

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