Month: February 2010

bookmark_borderThis and That

Posted on by PaulaO

Let’s see….

Simple Sarah, Book One of the (insert something witty and catchy here) Series is currently over 46K words. Not quite halfway but close enough. I’m writing roughly between 500-1500 words a day on it. Some days I get over 2000, other days I don’t get anything. I hit my writing peak at around 7pm, right when Precious wants me to watch television with her. She has a point, though. Our DVR is full right now! I need to sit down one day and watch a ton of Ellen DeGeneres shows.

Joella is doing well. Not happy with the restrictions. She can’t go out back down the cool dog ramp yet. We may try it tomorrow because she’s driving us nuts. The splint has moved and we go tomorrow to get them to change it.

My blood glucose charts look like log ride. Up and down. I have built in “cheats” to my diet to help stave off the frustration. Usually, they don’t make that big a difference in the numbers. I’m slowly learning what makes the blood glucose go up and what doesn’t.

It got over 50F here today! The big pile of ice between our two cars actually melted today. We were picking up some of the sticks that have fallen but there were a lot still frozen to the ground or had snow or ice on them. We could see where frost had uplifted and left things displaced. We got a used chipper the other week and finally were able to crank it up and use it some. We’ve got piles of sticks everywhere and now we can get rid of them without burning! Yay!

That’s it for now. How are y’all doing?

bookmark_borderHard at Work

Posted on by PaulaO

Honest, I am. Simple Sarah, the novel I’ve been working on (and finished twice) is over 43,000 words. I am still on track to get it done by the end of March, editing in April, and submitted in May. That is my goal. I want to finish it with no less than 90K but hopefully over 100K.

I like this version the best. I think it has finally come together. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of the side-threads and just concentrated on the MC, Sarah. This also feels so much more like a Fantasy rather than a Romance which was my goal.

Once Simple Sarah is submitted, I will pound out another Butch Girl book. Either Harri’s or Nikki’s story. They are so intertwined, I am tempted to do just one book. But I don’t think that would be fair to the reader. Harri’s book has to take place in the summer. No choice there. Nikki’s can take place at any time.

(thinking, so there will be smoke….)

Perhaps do Harri’s and end it in the Fall then do Nikki’s immediately after. It would mean, however, that Harri’s book would have to be read first. There’s a Great Something that links them together that is solved in Harri’s book. So to read Nikki’s first….I dunno. Hell, gotta finish Sarah’s story before I even get to theirs!

So, if you have been following along, that means I have a goal to finish and submit three books this year. Sarah’s will be submitted in May. One or the other of the BG books will be submitted in July/August and the other November. By then, the editing process (that is assuming Regal Crest will buy it) for Sarah should start shortly after that.

bookmark_borderUpdate on Princess Joella

Posted on by PaulaO

Got a call from our vet today. The ortho vet said that maybe perhaps there might kinda sorta be an itty bitty fracture on her foot. But compared to the inflammation and that small bone out of place, it would not make the treatment any different. Because this is Jo’s good leg, we are going to be keeping it in a splint for SIX weeks. She is not going to be happy.

Because of the snow and the mud and her falling into both every day, we’ll be taking her in later this week to have the splint changed. It is rather dirty and if it is getting overly wet, that moisture is on the inside, irritating her skin. We briefly discussed an actual cast but decided the weight would be too much.

It is a really simple splint covered with gauze and vet-wrap.

This was her other bandage after her surgery a year or so ago. Much larger.

bookmark_borderJoella

Posted on by PaulaO

Joella, my retired Service Dog, had surgery on one of her back legs a while back. Nearly a year ago I think. Anyway, she’s been doing fine from that but this weird winter weather we’re having is making both of us feel the pain. Then last week she started walking funny with her back legs and started falling down. So since Lorna was taking today (Friday) off, I made an appt. for Jo at the vet’s.

They changed the appt. back an hour but with everything else we had to do, the extra hour gave us a chance to rest. Just as we were getting ready to go, it started snowing. Nothing new and different around here (and most of the nation it seems!) but when it started to actually lay, we opted to take Lorna’s Subaru instead of My Truck. Besides, it was lower to the ground and easier to get Jo up into it. We had no trouble going there, some white spots but not bad. Poor Lorna’s been driving so much in it lately! But by the time we were done and leaving, it was pretty nasty out.

But I’m ahead of myself. We love our vet. Dr. Knepshield at Charlotte Street Animal Hospital and all the gang there are, like, the best. Dr. K got down on the floor with Jo and started messing with her legs and…we wound up muzzling Jo. It hurt that much. That and she wasn’t happy, didn’t want to be there, and she hates to have her feet messed with. Hates it. So on went the muzzle. What Dr. K found was that Jo had a toe that was up really high and the entire foot was odd. Because of the first round of x-rays that showed something but we weren’t sure what (Rotties are prone to bone cancer), they knocked Jo out and x-rayed her again.

There’s these tiny little bones in dogs’ feet called sesamoids. We humans have them too and, actually, the kneecap is one. Anyway, one of these tiny bones was out of place. She sent the x-rays off to the ortho vet (the same one who did Jo’s surgery) for consult but we won’t hear back until Tuesday. These bones can come out of place because of a fracture (which she didn’t see) or from an injury that inflamed the foot and the bone becomes displaced because of the swelling. If this had happened to Jo’s bad leg, we would have noticed it immediately because she would not put weight on it. But because she cannot stand on just the bad back leg, she was forced to walk on both back legs. And because they both hurt and she was constantly dancing to not walk on either one, that’s why she was falling down a lot. I can sooooo relate.

The good news is that Jo’s hips look fine for a dog her age! No change at all from the previous x-rays. Her bad leg (the ankle) looks the same, no better no worse, so that’s good. And other than the foot, her other leg looks the same too. So this is excellent news.

The bad news is that Jo has a cast on her foot. They put on a special cast that allows her to put full weight on it and it is rounded to help her walk. But a stoned Jo with a cast does not a walking dog make. They gave her the anesthesia to knock her out plus a heavy duty pain killer to deal with the pain she’d have from them manipulating that foot so much and from the extreme tenderness she’s having with the bad leg. She was so stoned, they had to carry her out to the car on a stretcher!

Now back to the weather. The roads were bad. Mostly slush but some icy places and, of course, all the people getting out of work and trying to go home. What normally takes 20-30 minutes tops took an hour and 45 minutes! The traffic was unbelievable. We finally got out of the traffic near our last turn (at Leicester’s only red light) when the minivan in front of us also turns. We give him plenty of room to make the hill (it’s a horrid hill in this kind of weather) and…he doesn’t make it. We sit and watch him sit and spin. Finally, with me hungry, Jo whining, Lorna’s patience at a minimal, we go around. That little Subaru just went right by him, not a single spin or slip. We hated to leave them like that but, well…. Anyway, we made it home, got Jo and me in the house, and all is well.

I’ll have pics of the girl tomorrow. She wasn’t at her best tonight (she was so freakin’ stoned).

bookmark_borderSugar

Posted on by PaulaO

My great-grandmother, Viola Sizemore Rayfield Maples, grew up in a hollow in east Tennessee. The same hollow that Dolly Parton grew up in. Ted Rayfield was Dolly’s uncle (which means her grandmother and my great-grandfather were siblings). Anyway, Granny Maples used to say that everyone was fine and dandy and healthy as horses. Until one day the guvmint shows up with their health folks. Turns out, diabetes was running amok. She says “We were all healthy until they told us we had sugar. Then we were all sick!”

Granny Maples didn’t have “sugar” but her daughter (Iva Rayfield Reno) did. And Mamaw Reno passed that gene down to her two kids. And Mommy Dearest had the gall to pass it on to all three of her kids. Nice of these women, ain’t it?

It may sound weird, but I was laughing when my bro said he was diagnosed with diabetes a few years ago. Finally! Someone besides me has a genetic problem! One I don’t have! Then I heard through the twisted grapevine that my older sibling was diagnosed last year. While I don’t have the diagnosis of actual diabetes, I do have pre-diabetes. Whoo freakin’ hoo.

Pre-diabetes is also called ‘glucose intolerant’ and ‘insulin resistant’. Nearly everyone who has diabetes also had pre-diabetes and had it been caught then, they could have delayed or even prevented getting diabetes. Pre-diabetes can happen ten years or more prior to the body being no longer able to handle it and the damage cannot be repaired.

My goal is to lose weight (I need to lose 90lbs) and start treating my body as if I have diabetes. It’s the best plan of action. I visited a Registered Dietitian today and we got formerly started on that goal. We are starting off small, testing me and my glucose levels and my patience. First, I’m to stay between 1500-1700 calories a day. We may go lower later. I also am to keep carbs (that’s the biggie) to below 175 but not too far below. We decided the first step is to move my meals around. Since I am a night owl, when I first get up, I’m going to have a traditional lunch. Then when Lorna comes home, I’ll have dinner. Then, based on the glucose level 2hr after dinner, I’ll have some sort of “breakfast” no less than 2hrs before bed. We discussed veggies (I can have as much green veggies, except peas, as I can stand) and “starch” veggies (which include peas). Portion control is topmost followed by carbs then calories. The diet I am trying is the typical diabetic diet with exchanges and the like. It seems complicated but I think I understand it.

The dietitian and I liked each other. One, she was registered dietitian which means she is licensed and knows what she is talking about. The last time I saw someone, it was a nutritionist who gave me handouts on the food pyramid and said “eat the stuff on the bottom”. Nutritionists are not licensed so anyone can call themselves one. And she liked me because I had already researched, had bought a meter and was using it, and was ready to get started. Lorna took the day off and went with me. We all three enjoyed the visit and I see her again in March.

I’ve started doing a lot of things–I truly meant this was a wake-up call–and one of them was to join an online group called TuDiabetes. I’m learning a lot there and can talk to others about all this. Nothing like misery and company, eh? I won’t talk about diabetes much here but if you are interested in keeping up with me and this and that, you can check my page out over there.

Linkages:
American Diabetes Association – pre-diabetes info
Wikipedia – Pre-diabetes article
National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse – Insulin Resistance and Pre-diabetes

bookmark_borderShoe to the Pedal

Posted on by PaulaO

My pedal machine thingy came today! Assembly was easy enough despite the lack of information in the short manual. They rattled on and on (even had an extra sheet attached to the outside of the box) about how the pedals seemingly get attached in opposite directions but barely mentioned the odd wrench that came in the box.

I can’t use it in the office chair because the chair has wheels. Duh.

I can’t use it with my wheelchair, at least not without moving the legrests.

I can, however, use it with the horribly uncomfortable wooden chair we have in the kitchen. Figures, don’t it?

I tried it out but not for very long. This cold weather and the storm front coming through has my left hip quite unhappy. The tension adjuster is turned all the way “off” but it is still there. I was concerned it might be too much but it wasn’t.

The little electronic meter is fun to watch. It has speed as a constant display then you can choose 3 others for the second half. You can choose time, distance, and calories or can set it to ‘scan’ to automatically scroll through them. It doesn’t have an alarm or whatever so you’d have to watch the clock or the distance. Gee, gotta use my brain, too?!

I’ll need to spend a while with it, figuring out how long it takes to hurt myself compared to using it long enough for any benefit such as burning calories. In PT I did it just 5 minutes forward and 1 minute backward but that was more of a warm-up than actual exercising. I’ll start out at that and do it 3 times a day then increase it if possible.

Thoughts?

bookmark_borderApps for my Touch

Posted on by PaulaO

As much as I initially disliked the concept of joining the iPod movement, I don’t regret getting my iPod Touch.

I’m always on the lookout for writer apps. Some stink, some rock, some hit the middle. I also have games and other stuff, too.

In the list below, I’m not putting links up. Just enter in the title your own dang self, ya lazy bum.

(and for those of you not in the least bit interested in this, I’ve done the “click here to read more!” thing so you don’t even have to bother loading it. I am so freakin’ nice to you. And yes, I am procrastinating writing.)

Continue reading “Apps for my Touch”