Thursday, January 14, 2010

New to Me, New to You, Old Concept -- BTPTh

So a few nights ago, think it was Sunday, I had a very strange dream. I was being shown an x-ray of my own skull and the doctor or whoever it was pointed out a small spot on the film. I was squinting to see it so they further explained that they would be removing it and this is how…and then this crazy machine with an enormous drywall screw attached to the end bored a hole into the forehead of a dummy across the room and as I was fainting in the office, I woke up in my bed with my heart racing.

I didn’t look this one up in my dream book because there is no entry for lobotomy. At least I don’t think there is, I’m really not sure and frankly I just don’t want to know. I know that to dream about a brain is roughly translated into the actual act of thinking so perhaps I was trying to convince myself to turn off my brain for a while or something.

Regardless it freaked me the fuck out.

I guess this is what comes from releasing toxins from my body. The new treadmill is here and let me just say it is my favorite thing to do, despite the wacky night visions. I pull up a good short Netflix movie, something in the ballpark of 75 - 90 minutes, hop on the old spinning belt to nowhere and walk my literal and figurative ass off. With all the water I’m drinking on top of the exercise I’ll be back into my usual size in no time.

Not only that but eating healthier again has been such good motivation. I have not consumed as much beef in the past five years as I did while we were in California, oddly enough. Prime rib for Christmas dinner, burgers and everything in between it was no wonder I felt like a slug for a week after getting back home. Only one meal with meat in the past ten days has made a huge difference in my energy level, its weird.

In the spirit of even more newness, I also ordered us up two new phones. Our old flip phones were dying -- not holding battery life and the buttons were literally beginning to peel off mine not to mention I had painted mine more times than I care to mention while working -- so since Verizon does that whole ‘new every 2’ thing I explored our options and picked up a couple snazzy new LG enV3 devices in a shiny blue. Aren’t they pretty? As a heavy texter it is going to be so much nicer to have a QWERTY keyboard too.

Learned a little jazz in my drum lesson today. That was fun but, oh, how can I put it? Awkward. I can already tell I’ll be more comfortable as a rock drummer but it was super cool to play the tat-ta-tat-ta-tat-ta-tat-ta, albeit very slowly. I love listening to jazz so it was nice to try, and I’ll keep trying because my homework is to work on playing a few measures over & over so I can speed up. I seriously can’t wait to pick up some equipment for real, it will be so much more fun to practice when I’m playing an actual instrument as opposed to an electronic kit.

I’ve managed to get a little over a third of the first round of edits of my novel complete so far which I’m very happy with. Figuring by the end of this week I should be halfway done, if not further. My goal is to have the hand written edits done by the 25th and then complete typing them up by the end of the month. That way I can make it through the second and third round by the end of February. It likely won’t be perfect to the critical eye of an Editor but it will at least be to my personal standards and I’m thinking that’s where an agent will come in.

An opportunity to pursue a job as a Social Media Marketing and PR Rep has cropped up and I’m seriously considering doing it. Because I will be able to still work from home and the company is offering me the flexibility to select my client load it allows me the opportunity to make some money at something I’m already good at, but to still have plenty of time for the book and blogs. It’s a big step because I haven’t worked for a company in almost five years so I really want to weigh the pros and cons before agreeing to an eight week training and management of a real life client.

After getting back from the west coast and seeing photos of myself with this drawn look I realized it was time to cut my hair off again. My new hair dresser was recommended to me by S and she could not be more awesome. She gave me the last cut too and though the cut itself was fantastic, I had to admit to myself that I’m just a short hair kind of chic. This time around she did two and a half inch layers all over my head which is more girly length than I’ve had it in the past and with the slight curl I have it creates these cute little flippy bits that I really like.

Sadly our little Green Group died out. With only about 5-6 of us showing up every month and about half of us being from out of town, Melissa decided it was no longer environmentally a sound option to cook all the food, buy the wine and run her electricity (not to mention our car!) every month, so for now we’re getting updates in a newsletter and its nice to read the latest even if I don’t belong to her community. Perhaps it is something we’ll start in our own to bounce ideas around come the spring. We shall see.

Created a couple new recipes this past week, some with very positive results, others, yeah not so much. The sundried tomato and basil hummus from soaked garbanzo beans came out amazing. The fried tofu with avocado, walnuts and grapes in whole wheat wraps with lettuce? Well let’s just say that meal will from now on be referred to as ‘tubular shaped bland goo’. Won’t be trying that one again. Sometimes tofu just is not a good substitute for chicken. So to make myself feel better I made some chocomole. And feel better I did. Especially right now as I eat it before I have my dinner. I'm a rebel so I can.

OK that’s enough now. Later friends.

6 comments:

Karen said...

My Verizon contract is up in February and I was looking at one of those LG NV3's too. I've had tofu several times, several different ways, but it still always tastes the same to me... blah. I have the weirdest dreams, too... some of them are scary!

pastrywitch said...

Tell me more about this hummus. Good job on the editing - so far I have not done much. That's about to change, because I really want it presentable by the end of March so I can do Script Frenzy.

Almost Precious said...

Wow,what a strange dream ! Did you have fried jalapeno peppers for dinner ?

Yeah, it's hard to eat healthy while on vacation...at least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. But my kudos to you for getting back on track with a healthy diet and exercise.

Oh, and congratulations on the job opportunity, sounds, ideal, hope it all works out to your advantage. :)

ginger said...

ew...the tofy thing got me feeling all icky inside. if you want to make tofu into chicken try freezing it first (extra firm, water packed), then thaw it, press it, cut it or crumble it and marinate it in the chicken spices before pan frying it. freezing it makes it meatier and marinating it makes it not taste like bean water.

i hope you love your new phones and wow! 3 book edits already? you are a busy, busy girl!

Jenn Flynn-Shon said...

Karen I'm in love with my new phone, I text often and the full keyboard was vital.

Hope you got tyhe hummus recipe Kate, I sent via email :-) I edit in waves, some days I'm into it & do multiple chapters others it sits and gathers dust lol You're working on it now though!

Interesting question Anna, nope, no jalapenos for dinner lol. This is just my brain hard at work. It scares even me sometimes haha. Thanks on the job, hasn't really materialized yet but I suspect soon!

Ginger you rock, thanks so much for the tip! I'm a new tofu user and I have a feeling this will be the best advice ever. My mom also suggested drying on towels first. I mean we ate it but it needed a LOT of pepper lol. Oh no, not up to 3 edits just yet, that's just where I'm headed by March!

Bridgete said...

Jazz rhythms are tough, so it's great that you've started working on them! =)

Totally freaky dream, by the way.