I'm Alive!

So it's been about a year since I started this blog and about 9 months since I last posted. Yep, I was on top of it for a record 3 months and then just stopped one day, about the same time I started a new project at work and lost touch with most of the hobbies I had :/


So, today I've decided to give this another shot, partly because maintaining this blog has helped me tremendously as a writer. Putting myself out there and forcing myself to write things completely out of my comfort zone (and I mean SO FAR out of my comfort zone that I thought I had almost lost it), has made me not only a more well-rounded writer (still amateur, let's not get ahead of ourselves), but a stronger person in general. But I think my favorite part about having the blog is that it really is just a glorified journal for me. I've been able to look at a 3 month span of my life and remember so many little things that I otherwise would have lost. My adventures in reading, writing, gardening, traveling, cooking, and blogging are all documented. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a thousand words are worth...ok, well, a thousand words. But you get the picture.


So here goes my effort to re-energize my blog for myself!


When I last posted, I had set down my novel for the obligatory waiting period suggested by absolutely every author/editor/publicist that I've researched. The thing about that waiting period though, is that it absolutely killed my writing fervor. I consider myself a pretty disciplined person, I told myself I had to write a certain number of words every week and write a certain number of blog posts every week, and I did it! When I had to put it down, I lost interest in it. I've still yet to gain that momentum back. When I stopped writing the book, I had less to write about in the weekly blogs. When I started my work project I had even less time to not only write the blogs, but do the activities I was writing about.


Life has calmed a little bit for me now, and I now feel like I am able to pick some of these interests back up. Some of the things I expect to write about over the next couple months include writing (more short stories and potentially a new novel), books that I'm reading, board games I'm playing - I'm going to review these as an exercise for myself as well as to provide a reference for board gamers, and potentially my journey of starting a small business. This last one may or may not make the blog. I'm getting really interested in it, but I'm going to hazard to say that tax laws and business licenses do not make for the most interesting subject matter.


Regardless of the blog's value, I'm looking forward to jumping back in to the adrenaline rush that is writing and letting myself grow in all sorts of different directions. Here's to a very exciting next couple of months!

What's up Wednesday: Weight Watchers and Chopped!

I have two big goals coming up in the near-ish future.

1. Lose 20 pounds by September 23
2. Become the 2nd Annual Chopped Champion!!!!

Don't worry, I'll explain...

I lost about twenty pounds a little over two years ago, and over the course of the last two years, I have put 21 pounds back on. When I did it the first time, I counted calories and worked out. I ate only 2,000 calories per day and worked out at least 4 or 5 times a week. It MELTED off!! But maybe it wasn't super healthy.

I'm a big coffee drinker, almost 1/4 of my calories was going to my coffee (because I put sugar and creamer in it) and I couldn't eat as many other things because my cap was 2,000 calories per day. Yes I lost the weight, but  don't feel my that my overall health improved as much as it could have.

NOW, I am doing weight watchers plus. I have a daily allotted amount of points and 35 extra points per week that can be used whenever. Daily points don't roll over, but your weekly points are there all week. The best thing about this program is that most fruits and vegetables are 0 points! The points are calculated based on fat, carbs, fiber, and protein, so the healthier the food, the fewer the points.

Also, you can earn points back! Say I plan on eating a lot this weekend, I can work out every day this week to build up activity points to cover it! And one week into it, I have lost 5 pounds (I need to average 1.5 pounds a week to hit my goal)!

And I actually DO feel like I'm healthier and have a little more energy. I've been eating more fruits and vegetables and working out everyday!

Now for the most serious of the two topics...Chopped!

My little sister , Eric, and I started this competition last year after my sister and I watched tons of "Chopped!" over the summer. Sadly, I did not win. Eric won and he rubbed it in all year long with the prestigious t-shirt declaring him the First Annual Chopped Champion.

What we do, is we go to the store and pick 3 ingredients for the meal we are judging (appetizer, entrée, dessert). Then we blitz the store, taking bout thirty minutes to come up with a plan and buy the ingredients for the two meals we will cook.

We define a time limit (in the show they have 30 minutes for each round, but we are nowhere good enough to do that), and cook! Then the judge tastes the food and decided who won the round. Whoever wins the majority of the rounds is the champion. In the even of a tie, the chef's must prepare a meal out of only the ingredients lying around in the house (this hasn't happened to us yet).

Anyway, I have been doing my research this year. I know how to make a basic soup without a recipe, lots of different smoothies, different ways to treat meat, and ways to cook root vegetables that scare me away because they look ugly.

I'm READY!!!!! Cue Rocky montage

What's up Wednesday: 4 things I learned this week

This is the first post in a series of posts called What's Up Wednesday. WUW will be exactly what it sounds like. What's up with me, my writing, the world if there's something particularly interesting going on.

For this week's What's Up Wednesday my topic is 4 things I learned this week.

1. How do I shut off water to my house?

We've been growing a garden. It's been real. It's been fun. It's been real fun. BUT, there are tons of things that just keep popping up for us to deal with in the yard work department. Lowes has quickly grown to be one of my favorite stores, all they need is a grocery department and we'd be all set.

Anyways, we've had a problem with the hose spigot, it leaks everywhere! We can fill up a 10 gallon bucket of leaked water just in the 10 minutes it takes us to water our garden! We've (and be we, I mean mostly Eric), have spent the last three weeks trying to fix it. It was leaking through the handle and we needed to remove the handle to see what was wrong...but you can't remove the handle without dousing yourself with cold water. So obviously we need to figure out how to shut water off to the house.