"My foot feels better but I don't think it's 100%. I'm paranoid that if I start running too soon I'll mess it up again and have to be out even longer."
"You need to go back to the doctor."
"I don't want to go back to that doctor. If I was going to see a doctor I think I want to see a sports injury doctor but not that doctor I went to before."
"Then go to a sports injury doctor."
"I don't know who to go to. I'll have to talk to some people and see if anyone knows of someone I could go see."
"Let me call you back."
"Here, write down this phone number."
"What for."
"So you can call and set up an appointment to see this sports doctor."
"You found a sports doctor?"
"Yes, it wasn't very hard. You just needed to look. Are you ready?"
"I've got a lot of things going on right now."
"Take down the number and call them. Are you ready?"
"Okay, yes, okay...what it is."
"What's that sticky note on your phone?"
"Jay made me write down a number to a sports doctor."
"Why is it stuck to your phone?"
"I'm supposed to call and make an appointment."
"So why is it still stuck to your phone?"
"I haven't called yet."
"What are you waiting for?"
"I've been busy."
"Okay, I'm walking back to my desk so you can call...I'm walking...I don't here you dialing."
My appointment to have my foot - torn achilles stuff that has been keeping me from running - was this morning. Yes, I finally dialed the number and set up the appointment. I was getting a little harried to say the least. It's been four weeks since I've run and I was not all that hopeful. I made the appointment and went in to see the sports doctor this morning.
So get this...the doctor says I have a perfectly healthy foot. Yes. He said I have a strain and needed to take care of the inflammation and he gave me two anti-inflammatory prescriptions. One is a weeks dose of a fast acting anti-inflammatory and the other I take simultaneously with the fast acting but for 30 days. But then he wants me to come back in a week to see him again. My next appointment is for next Wednesday.
But the doctor said my foot was healthy and he pretty much said the rest is mental. He didn't mean I am a hypochondriac. He said I was pushing too hard. My foot was sore and tired but my brain was ignoring it. He used the example of a person practicing throwing a baseball for long periods of time. He would eventually stop and realize his arm was sore but would start up again without allowing himself to rest and re-coup. There wasn't anything medically wrong with his arm but it was still sore from going at it so long and hard.
So I was pushing too hard yet my brain was telling me I could keep going when my foot was trying to tell me it needed a break. So the fatigue finally caught up to my brain and registered the foot pain. I had been ignoring it for a long time. That foot was pissed - inflammed to be exact.
I took my pills today and will see the doctor again in a week. I think he's going to talk me through some start up training that I should be looking at realistically.
Um. Am I supposed to feel stupid that my foot is okay? No, probably not, but I could use that as a diversionary tactic to avoid feeling stupid that my brain doesn't listen too well. It doesn't listen too well when my body needs a break or when someone tries to tell me what's good for me. I wonder where it got that?
TT
Monday, August 30, 2010
PC & MAC
I finally made a test batch of my two new concept cookies I've been thinking about. I will be bringing them into work to share and let others taste to see what they think of the flavor combinations. I discovered when I tested batch after batch of my Turtle cookies I had stumbled across a good base for the chocolate cookie dough. It was a smoother flavor than the chocolate I used in the five chocolate cookie which has more of a brownie flavor. When I realized I wanted to use the new chocolate dough I felt like I needed to add another ingredient. That's when a dear friend suggested I use pecans. Well, yeah. Good idea! So that was the beginnings of the idea of the PC cookie - Pecan Chocolate.
It was a good idea but once I thought of it as PC, I knew I had to come up with the other half - MAC. PC & MAC - I mean one or the other. I had to come up with a companion cookie. I had to think of something. I just had to and couldn't seem to bring myself to test the PC cookies until I had the idea for the MAC. I went through different ingredients until finally I thought - Macadamia nut, Apricot and Coconut!
That seemed like a good flavor profile. It was kind of tropical and different from the standard Pecan and Chocolate. That might work.
The MAC ingredients tasted good when I mixed them together. The color was bright and had the right tang from the apricot combined with the sweet of the coconut and crunch of the nut. The chocolate in the PC cookie was melted down from semi-sweet chips with butter and added to the dough.
So - we shall see. Two new concept cookies tested. They might need some tweeks or upgrades but I will let the taste testers take over for now.
Then I can ask...What's your preference - PC or MAC?
TT
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thanks blog
I am using my quiet time now to forge ahead on my story. I am in a good spot though to come back here and appreciate the work I have done. It truly has pushed me ahead and hasn't been a waste of time. I'm always afraid of wasting time whether it be my own or if I am taking someone else's.
I am not sure why I stopped to check the properties on my documents for my story when I got to a writing stopping point this morning. I guess I know statistics are facts you can't really argue about too much and when the idea came into my head I thought why not check. They are what they state and good for some good reality checks - at least for me when I have that temptation to wander down Doubt Street which forks into Underconfidence Lane. I think I also knew it might prove that this blog is working the way I had intended. I didn't know it would and I now have this concrete proof that it is. I am not holding myself back from adding words to my pages by constantly going back to edit the few words I have written. They don't have to be perfect before going on any further. I will have time to go back and fix them once they are there.
But as far as the statistics, here is what I just found.
I started my initial prologue to my story on 4/16/2008 at 7:13:00 pm. It has 948 words and here is the kicker...51 revisions for 207 minutes since that time.
The chapter I last worked on was on 6/17/2010 (I know - lot's of lost time) at 7:09:00 am. It has 2569 words and...wait for it...8 revisions for 92 minutes.
Let me see..51 revisions for 948 words...8 revisions for 2569 words. Hmmm...something is working. Could it possibly be the commitment to this blog actually might be working?
So in my mind the simple summary is: more words, less revisions, and taking less time to complete. Tell me this isn't my tool. Tell me this crazy idea of tricking myself and making myself responsible for writing every day won't work. I can try to tell myself that but then I have to just look at the statistics. Then I have to take a moment to pause and appreciate the time I've spent on this blog and recognize it as not being wasted time and to actually have a value I wasn't sure it really had.
But now you will need to excuse me, please. My main character is talking to her father right now and they want me in on the conversation.
TT
-----------------------------
I didn't realize until much later today (it's 8:06 pm now) that this is the 200th post this year. It's not on line with one post a day since today is the 241th day of the year but since this is all about stats...well.
I am not sure why I stopped to check the properties on my documents for my story when I got to a writing stopping point this morning. I guess I know statistics are facts you can't really argue about too much and when the idea came into my head I thought why not check. They are what they state and good for some good reality checks - at least for me when I have that temptation to wander down Doubt Street which forks into Underconfidence Lane. I think I also knew it might prove that this blog is working the way I had intended. I didn't know it would and I now have this concrete proof that it is. I am not holding myself back from adding words to my pages by constantly going back to edit the few words I have written. They don't have to be perfect before going on any further. I will have time to go back and fix them once they are there.
But as far as the statistics, here is what I just found.
I started my initial prologue to my story on 4/16/2008 at 7:13:00 pm. It has 948 words and here is the kicker...51 revisions for 207 minutes since that time.
The chapter I last worked on was on 6/17/2010 (I know - lot's of lost time) at 7:09:00 am. It has 2569 words and...wait for it...8 revisions for 92 minutes.
Let me see..51 revisions for 948 words...8 revisions for 2569 words. Hmmm...something is working. Could it possibly be the commitment to this blog actually might be working?
So in my mind the simple summary is: more words, less revisions, and taking less time to complete. Tell me this isn't my tool. Tell me this crazy idea of tricking myself and making myself responsible for writing every day won't work. I can try to tell myself that but then I have to just look at the statistics. Then I have to take a moment to pause and appreciate the time I've spent on this blog and recognize it as not being wasted time and to actually have a value I wasn't sure it really had.
But now you will need to excuse me, please. My main character is talking to her father right now and they want me in on the conversation.
TT
-----------------------------
I didn't realize until much later today (it's 8:06 pm now) that this is the 200th post this year. It's not on line with one post a day since today is the 241th day of the year but since this is all about stats...well.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Stop the writing
I saved a draft that I wrote yesterday morning even though I knew I would never post it. It definitely was one of those that - thank goodness - I had the sense to know it was utter garbage. Why I even saved it I am not sure but I knew the discipline of writing was good even if the content was a pity party with me as the only attendee. Like I said - thank goodness - I had some sense to know I wasn't posting it...as I said yesterday...I am not ever posting this but have to get some words written because somehow I can't seem to stop the writing no matter how bad I am at it. I'm better than the bad I was before, but so bad I can't...
Egads (or should that be eGads)! Either way I was feeling miserable and it went on for a good 250 words and I thankfully ran out of time and stopped. The feeling lingered with me that morning but not as it has done in the past. Somehow I was able to flip my own switch to cut it out and stop the negativity very quickly. Truth be told, I have been re-reading some of my pieces and am realizing there is something there. I can try to dump on myself but I am proving that to be a harder debate with myself than it used to be. I have no real reason not to forge ahead and continue. Why not? I can try to complain but why? And complain about what and to whom?
My ability was positively reinforced when I got a reaction from a very short piece I let someone read yesterday. I had to go back to that person and thank them before I left work. I am particularly proud of it because I think I was able to capture an important element in writing. This particular element is to be able to conjure a picture of what I am relaying on the page in the readers head and that was exactly what my reader said happened while they were reading it. "It was like a short movie in my head."
I knew that one was a good piece. Yesterdays draft was utter garbage and I knew that too but I wrote anyway and was able to build something here from the garbage. That's the way it works. Keep writing. Good pieces and utter garbage. I call it work. I call it discipline. I call it writing.
...somehow I can't seem to stop the writing...
TT
Egads (or should that be eGads)! Either way I was feeling miserable and it went on for a good 250 words and I thankfully ran out of time and stopped. The feeling lingered with me that morning but not as it has done in the past. Somehow I was able to flip my own switch to cut it out and stop the negativity very quickly. Truth be told, I have been re-reading some of my pieces and am realizing there is something there. I can try to dump on myself but I am proving that to be a harder debate with myself than it used to be. I have no real reason not to forge ahead and continue. Why not? I can try to complain but why? And complain about what and to whom?
My ability was positively reinforced when I got a reaction from a very short piece I let someone read yesterday. I had to go back to that person and thank them before I left work. I am particularly proud of it because I think I was able to capture an important element in writing. This particular element is to be able to conjure a picture of what I am relaying on the page in the readers head and that was exactly what my reader said happened while they were reading it. "It was like a short movie in my head."
I knew that one was a good piece. Yesterdays draft was utter garbage and I knew that too but I wrote anyway and was able to build something here from the garbage. That's the way it works. Keep writing. Good pieces and utter garbage. I call it work. I call it discipline. I call it writing.
...somehow I can't seem to stop the writing...
TT
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
CRD
It turns out McDonald's really does have free wi-fi. Go in, sit at a table, power up, find the attwifi and connect. It will take you to a McDonalds window that asks if you agree to the terms and conditions, click yes, then click continue and you're there. Internet...go for it. It was Monday afternoon when we were out of town and I didn't even do anything except get it set up and turned the laptop over to Jay. He placed his order and I don't know what else from the angle I was sitting but he was wise and kept me pre-occupied by buying me an ice cream cone to keep me busy and distracted. It worked. I didn't even get a chance to check anything of my own but I didn't really mind. I hadn't had a soft-serve vanilla cone in ages! I've been on the internet very recently. It was a good trade off.
The weather while I was gone was beautiful, not too breezy by the water but just enough. I had nothing to do but relax and I finished the book I brought the first day. I bought another and finished that one too but it was another quick read...I mean the name is Finger lickin' Fifteen...and yes...book #fifteen in that particular series. I went on to my writing magazines and took those down and finished them like the two books. I am beginning to realize how well I can procrastinate my own writing at this stage by reading too much about writing. I am beginning to see where I know some of the stuff they are telling me in these articles and how I don't really need to keep relying on knowing more about writing but just keep doing what I should be doing which is writing.
I spent some time reading the last 2500 words I had written to my story and was more than pleasantly surprised that it didn't sound too bad. I usually read something back to myself after a period of time and can sometimes get that feeling of knowing it's off - but not this time. That feeling is called Creeping Rot Disease. At least that is what it was called in the article from my magazine and it says that every writer is stricken. "CRD begins as a dark feeling that takes over your mind and heart when you least expect it. You look at your manuscript and the feeling creeps over you that all you've done is foul a perfectly good stack of paper. It's lousy. It's not original....I'm wasting my life, you think."
Well, I can't deny that I haven't had that feeling before! I just didn't know it was CRD. It had a solution to take a break and turn off your computer because the problem was not with your manuscript but with you. I liked the idea that it also had a few bullet pointed options to solve it including: get some good coffee or phone a friend and spill your guts. I can do the coffee...but I'm afraid I don't have a friend left that I could call and spill to. Hopefully that won't make my CRD get any worse. I don't think so, I hope not.
I guess if I really needed I could always go to McDonalds and get myself an ice cream cone. Then after I had distracted myself and I felt better I could log into the Internet and start writing again.
TT
----------------------------
CRD excerpt taken from Writer's Digest September 2010 issue - article by Elizabeth Sims - 10 minute fixes to 10 common plot problems (#10!).
The weather while I was gone was beautiful, not too breezy by the water but just enough. I had nothing to do but relax and I finished the book I brought the first day. I bought another and finished that one too but it was another quick read...I mean the name is Finger lickin' Fifteen...and yes...book #fifteen in that particular series. I went on to my writing magazines and took those down and finished them like the two books. I am beginning to realize how well I can procrastinate my own writing at this stage by reading too much about writing. I am beginning to see where I know some of the stuff they are telling me in these articles and how I don't really need to keep relying on knowing more about writing but just keep doing what I should be doing which is writing.
I spent some time reading the last 2500 words I had written to my story and was more than pleasantly surprised that it didn't sound too bad. I usually read something back to myself after a period of time and can sometimes get that feeling of knowing it's off - but not this time. That feeling is called Creeping Rot Disease. At least that is what it was called in the article from my magazine and it says that every writer is stricken. "CRD begins as a dark feeling that takes over your mind and heart when you least expect it. You look at your manuscript and the feeling creeps over you that all you've done is foul a perfectly good stack of paper. It's lousy. It's not original....I'm wasting my life, you think."
Well, I can't deny that I haven't had that feeling before! I just didn't know it was CRD. It had a solution to take a break and turn off your computer because the problem was not with your manuscript but with you. I liked the idea that it also had a few bullet pointed options to solve it including: get some good coffee or phone a friend and spill your guts. I can do the coffee...but I'm afraid I don't have a friend left that I could call and spill to. Hopefully that won't make my CRD get any worse. I don't think so, I hope not.
I guess if I really needed I could always go to McDonalds and get myself an ice cream cone. Then after I had distracted myself and I felt better I could log into the Internet and start writing again.
TT
----------------------------
CRD excerpt taken from Writer's Digest September 2010 issue - article by Elizabeth Sims - 10 minute fixes to 10 common plot problems (#10!).
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Are we there yet?
I woke up way too early this morning. It was about 5:30 and I had a good feeling I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. I tried but it wasn't working so I got up. I thought I would sleep much later today given all the things I got done yesterday. I didn't stop when I should have late yesterday but proceeded to make a simple chicken salad from the last of the leftover baked chicken I had. I put it in the fridge and went out to the deck and grabbed a small towel and wiped down the tables and turned on the sprinkler when I was supposed to be sitting still out there.
So I was a little surprised to wake up so early this morning. I guess I am more anxious to get on my way out-of-town than I thought. I'm like a little child filled with nervous excitement about some great adventure. I know I'm ready to go but it's too early so I have managed to keep myself busy (again). I folded the clean towels and vacuumed my office space here upstairs. I cleared off my work table by picking up my running magazines and putting them aside for now. The articles will keep. I will take my writers digest magazines with me. I have flipped through them periodically before but I will be able to give them a more concentrated look now that I have time. They do have some good ideas and it is somehow reassuring to know how neurotic others are about writing and it isn't only me. Or maybe the only bits of articles I've glanced through have coincidentally mentioned the self-doubt that I keep experiencing. They all say to just keep doing it, keep writing, stay focused. I didn't need the magazine to know that I needed to do just that. That is why I have made sure my entire story is saved to my USB flashdrive to take with me. That was one of the first things I did this morning when I got up so early and couldn't sleep any longer thinking about going away and taking my downtime the way I should. It seems the way I should is reading, relaxing, and getting together with some characters that I have neglected. I will be adding more words to their story and not only getting reacquainted with these characters but getting them moving and interacting again. I am actually looking forward to spending some time doing that. I have equipped myself with what I need and maybe this change of scene is the best way to get it all started again.
Did I say I was so looking forward to it? Just in case I didn't ... I am so looking forward to it!
TT
So I was a little surprised to wake up so early this morning. I guess I am more anxious to get on my way out-of-town than I thought. I'm like a little child filled with nervous excitement about some great adventure. I know I'm ready to go but it's too early so I have managed to keep myself busy (again). I folded the clean towels and vacuumed my office space here upstairs. I cleared off my work table by picking up my running magazines and putting them aside for now. The articles will keep. I will take my writers digest magazines with me. I have flipped through them periodically before but I will be able to give them a more concentrated look now that I have time. They do have some good ideas and it is somehow reassuring to know how neurotic others are about writing and it isn't only me. Or maybe the only bits of articles I've glanced through have coincidentally mentioned the self-doubt that I keep experiencing. They all say to just keep doing it, keep writing, stay focused. I didn't need the magazine to know that I needed to do just that. That is why I have made sure my entire story is saved to my USB flashdrive to take with me. That was one of the first things I did this morning when I got up so early and couldn't sleep any longer thinking about going away and taking my downtime the way I should. It seems the way I should is reading, relaxing, and getting together with some characters that I have neglected. I will be adding more words to their story and not only getting reacquainted with these characters but getting them moving and interacting again. I am actually looking forward to spending some time doing that. I have equipped myself with what I need and maybe this change of scene is the best way to get it all started again.
Did I say I was so looking forward to it? Just in case I didn't ... I am so looking forward to it!
TT
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