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Archive for 2013

When the Masters are Asleep, the Dog Will Play

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 23, 2013| 8 Comments »

I don’t know if “play” is exactly the right word for this. Apparently, hubby and I both fell asleep while Duke was still loose in the house. When we woke up, Duke was in the living room, acting innocent. We put him in the laundry room, where he stays at night when it’s cold outside. So I got up this morning to feed the cats. I’ve been keeping their food in the room they stay in when we’re not at home. This is the mess I walked into. I knew the cats weren’t able to caused this kind of destruction. Duke had obviously done this while we were asleep last night. This is an entire bag of cat food. The bag itself was torn to shreds. The cats’ food and water bowls were missing, and I found them under the pile. This was a hard cleanup because there were bits of the bag all through the food. Grrrrrrr. Oh, and that’s the bottom of my office chair you see in the picture if you’re wondering.

mess

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Fitness Friday 3/22/13 – Better Than I Thought

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 22, 2013| 17 Comments »

I was really dreading getting on the scale this morning. I had gained a half pound last week, and I really didn’t think I did any better this week. When I’m not actually tracking my food intake, sometimes it’s hard to tell how well I’m doing. But when I got on the scale this morning, I got a pleasant surprise. I hit my 20 lb. milestone! I’m really happy about that and feel I need to celebrate and reward myself somehow. I haven’t figured out what I want to do yet.

I was a little concerned that my blood sugar is up a bit. Not bad. It was 135 this morning, which isn’t bad at all for a diabetic, but I was getting used to it being under 120, closer to 100 most of the time. I need to figure out what’s going on with that. It kind of makes me mad since I’m sacrificing sweets. I was eating at my mom’s church a couple of days ago because my aunt had died, and here in the South, you always have a big meal after the funeral. My mom and uncle, who are both diabetic, were eating dessert. There were lots of desserts there. I didn’t touch it. I told my uncle I really missed eating desserts. He said, “I’m not supposed to have it, either, but I usually don’t except on special occasions.” I still didn’t touch it. Uncle and Mom, if you’re reading this…I just had to tell! Ha ha.

Yesterday, I found a box of Whitman’s Sampler candy. SUGAR FREE! Pure bliss. It kind of made up for not having dessert at the church. Of course, I had to buy a box of regular Whitman’s Sampler for hubby. 🙂

Stats for this week:
Beginning weight: 193
Today’s weight: 173
This week’s loss: 2 lbs.
Total loss: 20 lbs.

Yay!

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Black Dagger Brotherhood

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 21, 2013| 20 Comments »

I’ve posted about this series before, but now that I’m further along, I want to talk about it again. I know many of you have probably read at least some of the Black Dagger Brotherhood books by J.R. Ward. And if you haven’t, you’ve probably heard of them. Kait Nolan calls them “crack”. And I really get that now that I’ve been reading them. I’m on book 7 or 8 or something like that.

What’s so special about these books? It’s hard to really explain that. One of the things I like is how she has two or three stories going at once. There’s always the main story, then another side story about one of the other characters, usually whom the next book is about. And there’s always a story about the “enemy”. J.R. Ward makes you care about the characters. And her characters are really, really flawed, especially the Brothers. Each one has his own problem to overcome. Sometimes multiple problems. These books always leave you wanting to read the next one. And that’s good writing. That keeps readers coming back for more. I do have to occasionally read (listen to) something else between some of the books. They are so intense and so sexual that I need a good mystery or detective novel in between.

Are there annoying things about these books? Most definitely. The language can drive me crazy sometimes. A “situation” is always called a “sitch”. That one gets on my nerves a lot. Today, someone “snagged” someone else a glass of water. They couldn’t simply pour a glass of water. Or get a glass of water. Sometimes those little things grate on my nerves, but just for a second. Then I’m back in the story. I know the spelling of the names bother some people, but I listen to the audio books (I love the narrator!), so that isn’t an issue. All authors have things, I suppose, that get on other people’s nerves. But if the story is good, and told well, then we keep reading. I’ll feel so empty when the series is over. I have two more books to read in this series before I’ve read all of the ones written so far. But the books are SO long, and I just listen to them in my car, so it will be awhile before I’m done. 🙂

How about you? Have you read these books? Which is your favorite? Does the language bother you? I’d love to hear about it.

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Random Ramblings About My Cats

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 19, 2013| 10 Comments »

I probably shouldn’t be doing this at work since I’m so busy, but most people get scheduled breaks. I don’t, so I just take breaks when I can. And this counts as a break. LOL

In the wee hours of the morning, while I was fast asleep, I was awakened by my husband saying, “Get off, get off, get off!” I jumped out of bed, and yelled, “What?!” His reply? “Oh, I was talking to the cat.” I did get a giggle out of that, so I wasn’t mad that he woke me up. Apparently, the cat was standing on his sore leg.

So in the last couple of weeks, my cats have caught two mice. They chase them and smack them around. When they are finally dead, they keep playing with them, batting them into the air. It’s really sad for me because I feel sorry for the mice. I’m just glad my cats aren’t the kind that enjoy tearing them apart and eating parts of them. I couldn’t stand having entrails spread across my house. *shudders*.

Here’s a funny thing. Our puppy, Duke (who is 30.4 lbs. and is only about 5 months old), loves to go grab washcloths or dishcloths out of the bathroom or laundry room and chew on them. The cats hide when he’s in the house because he chases them. But when he goes out, my female cat, Willow, goes to the cloth Duke has been chewing on and rolls around on it and rubs her face in it. It honestly looks like the thing is covered in catnap, the way she acts. Does anyone have a clue why she does this? She’s terrified of the dog, but she acts like she loves rolling in his scent. What’s up with that???

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A Hectic Week

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 17, 2013| 13 Comments »

I got no writing done this past week. None. As most of you know, my husband broke and sprained his ankle 2 1/2 weeks ago. He’s now having some complications that caused us to take a trip to the doctor this morning (ours is open on Sundays). I’ve always known my husband does most of the housework. But now that I’m having to do it, I’m realizing just how much he’s doing. I’m having to do what he usually does, plus wait on him a little since the doctor told him to stay off the foot as much as possible. He was trying to walk on it too soon.

Anyway…I decided to concentrate on the house and on hubby last week. To me, that’s first priority. Between being so busy at work plus the extra work at home, it’s about all I can do. I’m not going to push myself or my writing will suffer. I’m going to try to write at least two or three days this week, but its not set in stone. Part of that will be determined by what hubby’s ultrasound shows tomorrow. We’re hoping it’s not a blood clot.

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Fitness Friday-Not Much to Say

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 15, 2013| 10 Comments »

I don’t have a lot to say today. This is mostly due to having a huge workload (spring is our busy season), so my brain is kind of fried. I didn’t have the results I wanted this week, but it wasn’t too bad. A half pound gain can be anything, even a little bit of extra water weight. To be honest, I was afraid it would be more because I’ve been so busy, it’s been kind of hard to keep up with everything. And I haven’t been able to exercise at lunch because I’ve only taken about 20 minutes for lunch most days this week. One day I didn’t even go to lunch, just wolfed down something here at my desk. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The big orders are slowing down, so it’s mostly small internet orders I’ll be dealing with now. Whew. I’m SO tired.

Stats for this week:
Beginning weight: 193
Today’s weight: 175
This week’s gain: .5 lbs. (notice the decimal-half lb., not 5 lbs. hahahaha)
Total loss: 18 lbs.

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No Dogs Allowed?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 11, 2013| 8 Comments »

Dogs aren’t allowed on the couch at our house. Are they? Bwa ha ha.

duke

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Sunday Update 3/10/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 10, 2013| 14 Comments »

Some of you read my whiny post the other day. I was at the point of giving up because my book sales were so bad right now. My .99 sale in February didn’t do squat. I felt like I was wasting my time. But then, other authors, through my blog and private email, let me know that I was actually doing much better than they were. Which made me feel kind of like a jerk for complaining. It was my early success that made me get so discouraged later. I thought the momentum would keep up, and it didn’t. But I’ve decided to keep writing and see where it goes. $100 a month is still income, right? I just hope it doesn’t go below that. But if it does, I need to keep producing new books for people to buy. Anyway, because of the time of discouragement, I didn’t write all week. And then, Saturday, I buckled down and wrote 1268 words. Not too bad.

I participated in Read an Ebook Week last week on Smashwords. I put all my .99 books on sale as free and all my other books at half price. There was a coupon code on each book page. I had about 300 downloads of my free books. and I actually had three sales of the half-priced ones. I know three sales isn’t much, but I rarely sell books at Smashwords. My sales through Smashwords come from their retail partners, Apple, Sony, Kobo, etc., the most sales coming from Sony. So three sales directly through Smashwords is good. And maybe, just maybe, some of the people who downloaded free books will try a paid book later. Who knows? It certainly didn’t cost me a thing.

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Join “A Heart More Focused” on Fridays!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 9, 2013| 4 Comments »

Who wants to join Erika and the rest of us for #aHeartFitFriday? Here is Erika’s lastest Friday post: A Heart More Focused Every Friday, she posts about her goals and successes (as do I) and she has a linky where you can link your posts, too. Come on, guys, I know there are many of you who want and need to be more fit. A lot of you are writers, and sitting at a computer can be detrimental to fitness. Take the plunge. Post about your fitness goals and successes, then enter your link on Erika’s Friday posts. Let’s do it!

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Fitness Friday-Am I Losing Too Fast?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 8, 2013| 12 Comments »

I’ve been thinking about my weight loss lately and wondering if something is wrong with me. I don’t know why I can’t just be happy I’m losing weight. It just seems like I’m losing weight faster than I should be based on what I’m eating. I’m not counting calories anymore, just trying to eat less. When I first suspected I had diabetes, one of the symptoms was unexplained weight loss. And now I’m feeling like my weight loss is “unexplained” again.

But maybe I’m doing better than I thought. I started thinking about some of the changes I’ve made. A big one is breakfast. A friend of mine at work was bringing me a biscuit (sometimes with sausage, sometimes with egg & cheese) every weekday morning. Now I only allow him to do this on Fridays. So the other four days, I’m eating oatmeal or maybe a couple of slices of cheese. Those biscuits were about 570 calories. So, I’m cutting 2280 from four days of biscuits, and only adding back maybe 650 calories. So I’m saving over 1600 calories per week right there. Also, I’m not eating any snacks at night most of the time. I’m eating practically NO sweets, just a bite or two a week, maybe. So when I look at all that, I guess I’m cutting down more than I thought. See, I’ve talked myself out of worrying about losing too fast. 🙂

Stats for this week:
Beginning weight: 193
Today’s weight: 174.5
This week’s loss: 1.5 lbs.
Total loss: 18.5 lbs.

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