Making a commitment.

This week has been all about building steam. I think. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. Over all, I think things are going well from where I was last Wednesday.

How am I feeling?

Not so hot today, but my over all recovery is going well. I still have some swelling above my belly button, but most people wouldn’t notice. You can kinda tell in the picture left, but whatever. Monday I met with my surgeon and he poked and prodded my stomach. I got a big grin when I told him about becoming "that person" in a group when you go to a restaurant who requests the nutritional guide. Currently my goal is to eat foods that contain 12 grams of fat or less per meal. It’s a little strict, but I’m going with this for two reasons:

1. I still want to lose weight, and consuming fatty foods doesn’t help.
2. My intestines now have to process food without the help of the gallbladder and eating low fat foods makes the transition easier on the rest of the digestive system.

So far the only thing that means I can’t eat yet is Chick-Fil-A, and honestly that’s probably good for me. I don’t eat fast foods normally, but when I do Chick-Fil-A and Taco Cabana are my drugs of choice. This last weekend my restricted diet made for some awkward moments trying to figure out where to eat, but everyone’s been really great about going with the flow and making it work.

Monday I ran by Kohls to do a little gift shopping and decided to try on something for me. I’m realizing as I go through my closet a lot of things are way too big for me now or else still too small. It’s a little hard to get dressed into something that makes me feel good about myself when those are my two options, but I’m going to make it work. I don’t want to buy a mid-weight-loss wardrobe only to have to scrap it all when I keep going down. But I did buy this red sweater, and a few other things.

Guys, this paragraph is a little TMI, so feel free to skip it. I did try on a smaller bra, as in a smaller cup size. While the rest of me has been shrinking by multiple inches, my bust line hardly goes down, and most of that has been everywhere but my boobs, which I’d like to go down some. This last week I realized my bras were a tad roomy and I tried on one of my old, slightly smaller bras. I almost fit it. Almost, as in I can wear it with a tight undershirt and everything stays where it’s supposed to. I’m actually really excited by the prospect of smaller boobs!!!

All in all, I’m doing well if you don’t count yesterday and today. The muscles around my incisions are cramping and fluttering. After a quick phone call to my surgeon, he says I’m probably trying to do too much, so it’s probably a good thing I wimped out of going to my burlesque class last night, which majorly bums me out, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it.

The plan for the next week is to take a step back, take it easy and try to get in some good stretching. I might do one of those trial yoga club memberships for a week so I can figure out a good way to keep the healing muscles limber. A lot of people lose mobility after surgery because they don’t stretch and the muscles heal all tight like. So far I’m good, but I’d like to actively prevent that from happening.

How’s the writing going?

I’m slowly building steam. Or at least I think I am, and I’m ready to say that my Strippers in Space idea is gaining traction.

I sat back and thought about the projects on my plate. Some business news came across the lines this last week that have me evaluating my plans and tweaking what I thought I was doing next year. Basically, I might be doing something different than my initial 2013 plan. It makes me a little sad, but with the Strippers in Space idea, it’s shaping up to be just as full regardless of the decisions that are out of my control.

Now that I’ve been all vague and crap, how about I talk about the actual writing?

Initially, I assumed that a story built around the silly, pain pill induced idea of strippers in space would be an easy novella to crank out in November as my NaNoWriMo project. Um, don’t I know myself?

1. I’m not good at writing short.
2. I’m not good at writing simple plots.

What’s started as a fairly simple idea has grown into something of a complex plot dependent on space economics and making some questionable science work. I’m okay with both of these, but it also means I’m looking at a book which will probably be no less than 50K, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it tops out more around 65K. I of course say this when I’m only 10K into the book, but I’m evaluating what I’ve written and what I have left to write. I will undoubtedly add scenes, but by and large I know what’s going to happen and that it’s going to take an awful lot of words to accomplish some of my plot points.

This does push my time table for other projects back, but at this point my schedule is a bit messed up anyways, so I’m not too worried. I will have the second Inked book to my editor by the end of the year, and if all goes well I’ll finish the rough draft on this and a short story I promised to write before the clock rolls over to 2013. I count that as a good push regardless.

I had a chat with an author friend of mine and her advise was to enjoy writing what I felt like writing while I can, before deadlines and obligations and contracts take that freedom away from me, so I’m going to run with it. See what happens and where it all goes. Can’t hurt, right?

What about that upcoming holiday?

Oh right, Thanksgiving is tomorrow, isn’t it?

Initially my surgery was supposed to have been today. The family plan was to do a meal in a box and watch me recover. Thrilling huh? But since my surgery was moved up so quickly, we now had to make real Thanksgiving plans.

Great.

But what should we do?

Last year my dad’s mother passed away and we had Thanksgiving at my apartment both for a change in what was normal and a venue that was more central for everyone involved. This year, my parents decided while I was in surgery that we’d just have it at my place again. Fantastic… Since I clearly cannot do the kind of cooking and lifting of foods I did last year, this year we would have everyone bring something and the whole meal will be pieced together at my place tomorrow. I’m not entirely sure how this will go down, but there’s only four of us and it’s all more about getting together than anything else.

I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but my grandmother, my mom’s mom, lost her boyfriend the week before my surgery, and the funeral was the day after. We’re all just wanting a little low key time before Christmas ramps up and family comes in from out of town and we do the big production song and dance.

So tonight I need to clean and make everything look nicer. The cats will hate me, but oh well. They need a little sprucing up themselves!

What’s your plan for Thanksgiving?