Thursday, July 28, 2011

What to do about the bathroom?

This week has been filled with activities. On Monday night D and I went out to celebrate his birthday. We had a wonderful, although very slow, dinner at Red Lobster and then it was off to the Sawyer Brown Concert. I'd been looking forward to this concert since 9th grade when all my friends got to go see them and my parents told me that I was too young to go a concert with just a bunch of friends. (On a whole psychological aspect, she asked if I would let Minchkin go to a concert with friends when she was in 9th grade and the answer was no way as well. Is that because I am older and wiser, or was trained that way by my own mother?) Well we got to the concert (outdoors) found our seats and promptly got poured on. Seeing as D is a weather expert of sorts we realized this downpour wasn't stopping any time to soon and ended up the evening at my favorite place--Barnes and Noble for Italian Cream Sodas and a little book browsing. SO I guess I may have to wait another 20 years to see Sawyer Brown. I told D good thing it wasn't The Killers or he would have been soaked by the end of the night!
On Tuesday the cousins from Germany came and we had dinner at our house, which meant all morning I cleaned the house, and the minute I got home from work went into chef mode preparing Macadamia Crusted Mahi Mahi and Stuffed Zucchini, two primal favorites that are sure to please any hungry family. Squishie was in 7th Heaven to have her cousins here. She and HR played all night, and language was never an issue.Funny how when we get older we learn to be embarrassed that we can't say things right. I know that I hesitate each time before speaking German, unless I am talking to one of the kids.
Last night we had a big family birthday party to celebrate 4 birthdays. The kids loved the Pinata, not something they do in Germany a lot. Food was good, family was great, and good times were had.
In the midst of all this I wrote my first chapter of a new story, one that has been plaguing me for a while. I asked my teenage niece and nephew to read it and see if they liked where I was going. The answer was yes! But the most important advice came from my sister who saw it up on the computer and had a peak. This is not my sister who is an editor mind you. She read it, liked it, and had one major question...If he is trapped in this one small place for a long time where does he go to the bathroom?..And just like that I had some major renovations to do to my location. The verdict is still out with a bunch of ideas. My major concern when I started this idea was how will he eat. That one was easy enough. I never stopped to consider the ramifications of allowing him to eat! Oh well all in a days writing quest. Do to the amount of research I am going through (not all potty related of course) I am not hitting my 1500 word goal, so my new goal is to have two chapters done by next week for writer's group and to have the bathroom dilema solved. Wish me luck!

Write On!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Eating Primal

The best thing about going primal of course is the weight loss, and with the weight loss comes two firsts I have not had in a long time. Last week we took the kids to a local waterpark and I got to wear a cute new swimsuit since my old one was too big for me. That was one bonus, but the biggest bonus was not worrying about looking like a beached whale the whole time. The level of confidence I felt walking around the park was awesome. I looked good, not eensy weensy tiny polka dot bikini good, but lets face it, unless you're Jennifer Gardner on Alis or the likes, there are not many people who can actually pull off that look. But I felt one piece modest swim suit good and that is enough for me.
Today I had another first in the sense that we went and had family pictures taken. I am not sure how they will turn out, but at least the only thing I worried about was keeping the kids clean until it was our turn for individual family pictures. I am 35 pounds less than the last family pictures and I can't wait to see these pictures unlike last time when I didn't even bother printing any of them out.
And while the weight loss is amazing side effect, and the fact that I am not tired all the time is awesome, it is the food that really makes primal great. People ask me how I can give up pasta and bread and the truth was it was hard at first, and every once and awhile I would like a bowl of Alfredo, but luckily with primal I can eat all I want so I am never starving enough to actually need it. Plus tonight we had hamburgers (sans buns) with grilled onion, mushrooms, and salsa (better than ketchup since I can get the natural stuff with no sugar or additives). It was so yummy. I don't even miss the grains, and for dessert I think there is a piece of dark chocolate calling my name. So it looks like I'll be staying primal and you won't hear any complaints from me (until I have to pass up that piece of Pumpkin Pie at Thanksgiving! I guess I have four months to figure out how to make me a primal pie!

Friday, July 22, 2011

Venting

Just a few small vents before I get back to cleaning, child rearing, working, chauffeuring, studying, and so on. So I am super proud of my husband for losing 50 pounds and everyone can notice. He looks hot, if I do say so myself. He is such an inspiration. But I've lost 35 and no one notices! Okay so my mom did, and I obviously do since all my pants now drown me, but no one else noticed on their own. I have to tell people I've lost the weight. And I do look better, and yes I still have 15 to 20 more stubborn pounds to go, but come on people I'm a girl. Can't someone notice that I look a ton better than I did in March? Oh well, I guess the important thing is that I feel good and I have a reason to go buy myself some new jeans.
Now the big vent... I've been using Evernote to do my typing at work on the ipad. I get between 1000 to 2000 words typed each day in between customers and it has been awesome. So I finally figured out where my story takes place and who my characters are (at least for now) and I type 5 pages of brilliant stuff (if I say so myself) and what happens? One wrong push of a button on Evernote and it is all gone. Bye Bye. No more. So now I hope I can remember all the clever things I wrote and go for a retry today. Oh well, at least the downstairs is clean. Until next time. WRITE ON!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Realization

While working on my story the past couple of days I have come to the realization that the super cool idea (the one that must be written) that I started with, does not belong in this story. At first that was discouraging, but then I realized that the story I am writing is in itself super fun and cool. So now I have two story ideas both fun and different. That's great, but which one do I write? They both need some major plotting since one now has a story idea, but I have no clue how to accomplish it, and the other has the super cool idea, but I don't have a story to go with it. One is light and comical which is something I want to write since we don't have enough of those just feel good YA books lately. The other is darker, more dangerous which fits in with what I have been writing and many of the stories that I have planned to write in the future. SO I think my writing goal is going to have to change for the month. I still plan on writing every day, but I think I need to take a week or so separating these two ideas, building each one up and then seeing which one really wants to be written right now. So until then I must remember to WRITE ON!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Restart

Dear Any one who actually reads this,

Life comes at you fast. Going to school full time, working part time, being a complete and total soccer mom, and trying to write takes up a lot of time and blogging falls by the side of the road. I can't promise that is going to change, but I am going to try. I have been posting my dieting success on the blog Pushing Past the Pounds so if your interested in seeing my journey go there. I am 35 pounds down on my 50 pound goal since February, so I am pretty happy with that.
As for the writing, which is the real reason to start blogging again. AND THE SKY FULL OF STARS is written and I have officially begun to send it out to agents and publishers and such. A big shout out to my awesome critique groups and my mom and sister for all their line edits. While I am learning the business side of writing, I have not given up on the fun side. I am 10,000 words into a new endeavor that is entertaining me quite thoroughly.
In fact, I need to go get my word count in for the day. I promise I'll try to restart this whole blogging business, but not at the expense of family or word counts! I guess we will see.

Until then,

Sabine