Got past that tough post, thought I would post more…and then I wandered off. So. Hmm.
Have some general News of Me.
Journey to Rivendell Lothlorien Mordor? Back? The Undying Lands?
Not sure where I left off, and no time to check right now (I’m writing before work and that’s a tight and immovable deadline) but I’m hovering at about 28 pounds lost. I would like to blame a plateau, but the truth is I’d broken through that plateau, and then I had a couple days when I made less-than-good food choices… This is the part that causes me to despair. Did I make not-great choices? Yes. Did I do it three days in a row? Yes. But on only one of those days did I eat over maintenance (the amount of calories you need to stay where you are) and the other two days were far enough under maintenance that the math comes out to a calorie deficit! So sometimes I despair, that I’m going to have to be perfect every day for the rest of my life.
But that’s just not so. Whoopty-doo, I have to break the plateau again. As a certain super hero says, I can do this all day.
This is a thing I’ll be doing all my life. Hopefully the good choices will get easier (I have every reason to expect that will happen) and the prepping will certainly get easier as I learn to plan better. I will learn that no, I should not take advantage of that sale on my favorite cereal, I will eat the entire box (almost) in one day.
I just have to learn these things. And sometimes, I’ll have to test them, to see if they are still true. Whoopsy-daisy.
Even if I ate exactly to plan every single day, I know that weight loss is not linear. If the bumps along the way make me give up, then I have no hope at all. So I won’t give up. I will press on!
Now if I could get the rest of the family to eat enough food to make room in the fridge for the salads I need to prep for the week…
Book!
I’ve gotten general edit notes and the first half of the novel back from my editor, the marvelously talented and simply marvelous Siri Paulson. I ask you–are there any more glorious words to read than nice job on the pacing? Any? In the universe? I very much like the nice job on the description as well, and how much fun the book is to read, and that I’ve made the characters distinct enough they are never confused for another, but that pacing thing, gang.
That pacing thing. And the heavens opened and an angel chorus sang, proclaiming Hallelujah.
Good pacing means I don’t have to rearrange scenes, and make everything fit again. Good pacing means I (probably) won’t be banging my head on the desk (much) through this edit.
Garden
I’m trying. That’s what I have there. This bleeping huge horn worm was hanging off my tomato plant yesterday! I drowned him with malice and forethought (because I thought about how to kill him that wasn’t stepping on him EW.)
Tomatoes are trying, but that damn caterpillar and probably more…
Zucchini are trying, but the bugs are eating faster than the poor things can grow leaves, so I don’t have a lot of hope.
Something ate all my mint! Every last leaf! And mint is the thing you’re supposed to plant so that bugs leave your other stuff alone!
I think I’ve decided that I won’t do this again next year, though. I want to go for walks in the morning, not garden. And I spend a lot for not much vegetables, but I don’t want to commit and go all in, either.
Which means I bought a wheelbarrow for mostly nothing. Oops.