11:30 pm - Contact information

If you need to reach me tomorrow, I’ll be available here:

AIM: renrig210
Yahoo IM: ne_today
Gtalk: a.renee@gmail.com

08:52 am

Day of Blogs is around the corner

Posted on July 25, 2008

We’re just a bit over 24 hours away from the start of Day of Blogs, 2008.  In honor of this, I am making one final plea for support on this day.  If you can take a moment to stop by and comment on Saturday at 9am through Sunday 9am, even just once, this will be of great assistance (and I’ll know y’all love me!!)

For a quick reminder, I am blogging for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, and will heavily link the donation page during the day of the event.  If you’d like to check out the charity itself, you can find it at www.dbsalliance.org

I am looking forward to this year, I think the entries will be strong.  I hope to help many people.

I hope you all are well, let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see me discuss.

See me at www.genreimpaired.com

08:30 pm - In a funk

I'm in a funk tonight, and can't quite figure out why.  There's so much to choose from.

08:42 pm - Repeat after me

It's just food, if it goes bad, it can be replaced.

It's just the gutters, the house isn't going to fall down.

11:38 am - Genre Impaired Changes

I changed up my Genre Impaired site with a new look, (check it out at www.genreimpaired.com if you like) and it killed the previous rss feed in the process.

The new direct feed link is http://genreimpaired.com/?feed=rss2 ; if you would like to add that to your google reader or whatever you use.  This will be convenient if you wish to read my entries on day of blogs (dayofblogs.org) because I may get too tired to crosspost later in the night/early morning.

Love to everyone.


EDIT:  Now it's saying THAT is an invalid feed template, but if you copy/paste it into google reader it works.

07:04 am - Another plea (I promise I won't do too many more)

I will be blogging.

Okay, yes, I blog almost every day, but this is a special, magical type of blogging. This is blogging for charity.

As many of you know, I am a proud owner of my bipolar disorder, and I am seeking to destigmatize mental illness through my writings. This year, as last year on a different site, I am blogging for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.

The DBSA does a lot for the community of those who live with depression and bipolar disorder, and once a year, I like to give back however I can. I would prefer to give back more often, and one day I hope to, but on this particular day (July 26th, if you weren’t listening) you can help me give.

There are three ways to give.

1. You can donate your money to them here. If you do this, please email me at a.renee (at) gmail (dot) com so that I can record this and send you my thanks.

2. You can donate a small amount of your time by commenting or emailing me at the above address.

3. You can email me at the above address with anything you’d like me to discuss on this day about living with bipolar disorder or depression. You will remain 100% anonymous, but your story might help people around the world.

Okay, I’ll end this plea now (for now) but I have to say first two thing.

If you are living with a mental illness, be kind to yourself. You will be okay.

If you know someone with a mental illness, be kind to yourself, and to them. Your friendship and support mean everything

06:27 am - Happy Birthday Amelia

I wish you could be around to celebrate turning three.  Everyone misses you terribly.  Please send love to your mother today.

Current Mood: still devastated.

05:46 am - The KSPCC is born

09:13 pm - Warning: Blogging ahead

This year I am writing for Day of Blogs in support of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, I did this last year, and was motivated and inspired by your pledges and comment support.

This year I will be blogging at www.genreimpaired.com and would love to have  your support there as well.  I intend to crosspost my entries to LJ, but I might get tired near the end.

This year, it works differently.  If you would like to pledge, just email me at a.renee@gmail.com with your pledge amount, then it works completely on the honor system that you go to the DBSA site and donate.

Of course, as always, just your support from reading my entries (for as long as you can stand) will be enough for me, but it is a great organization and deserves support if you've got a spare few bucks to throw around.

10:15 am - My new cleaning system.

I have a shameful dirty secret:

I buy organizing books. Lots of them. Pretty much every time a new book on organizing comes out, I buy it. I am the queen of (ownership of books about) organizing.

But no more. I now have a method I can live with, and it isn’t in any book out there.

Tentatively, I call it the laundry method.

Back-saving Laundry method:

1. Acquire a smallish laundry basket. If the one you have is large, use it, but be careful as it is easy for it to get overwhelming.

2. Acquire two trash sacks or largish boxes. One will be for giving items away, the other will be for things to toss.

3. For a very messy room, address a small section. Sit on the floor (if possible) and fill the small basket (or half-fill the large basket) with items from that vicinity. Doesn’t matter if it’s something you aren’t planning on keeping, just put the proverbial lotion in the basket.

4. Put the basket on a flat surface high enough that you don’t have to bend much to reach it. Be careful when you do this, because the basket can get heavy.

5. This bit is obvious, but the rules behind it are important. Sort all the items into a keep pile, and fill the sacks or boxes with trash and giveaways. Put away the keep pile.

THE RULE: DURING THIS TIME YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LOOK AT ANY OTHER PART OF THE ROOM. WHEN YOU FINISH PUTTING AWAY YOUR KEEPS IS THE ONLY TIME YOU MAY LOOK ELSEWHERE.

6. Wash, rinse, repeat until the entire room is clean.

I’m thinking that this will also work as a maintenance method, wherein I go around an entire room and collect everything that is out of place. We’ll see.

Today? The basement. Tomorrow? The world.

08:29 pm - I cleaned my bedroom.

10:42 am - Loving myself with useful movement

06:54 pm - I got my new backpack today

 New things are always very exciting at Chez Ne.  

Current Mood: ecstatic

08:12 am - Still trucking, just not the way I expected

08:44 am - Feeling strong, feeling ready

Last night I had dreams about screwing up my detox diet before it even began, because that's how I roll.  Hardcore, right?

It's easy for me to think I am psychic, and thusly able to predict what the outcome will be of any of my given attempts at finding greater health.  My predictions have been so accurate in the past that I no longer think I might possibly fail, but rather know beyond a reasonable doubt that I will fail.  Call it a self-perpetuating cycle, or call it "stinkin' thinkin',"  it's what I've tended to do in the past.

Well, screw that.

Not anymore.

I'm not a psychic, I'm just a health-pessimist.  I tend to focus on my shortcomings and forget my many strengths.  For example, I am extremely competitive, if only with myself.  This is a benefit to me because with the ways I am attempting health this time, there are measurable numbers I can track to see how I am doing, and what I can do better.

Yesterday, I bought My Weight Loss Coach for the Nintendo DS.  It comes with a pedometer that plugs into the handheld game system, and tracks your steps taken each day, in addition to food intake and other activities that you can log.  It gives me some good feedback about how I can increase my activity level and nutrition through simple daily challenges.  My challenge for today is to run for 10 minutes, which I will have to do in place, as I am not going to have time to get out on the road and run.  Plus, it's going to be hot today, and I am a weenie.

When I woke up, I realized it would probably be best to wait a couple of days before cutting out the coffee, so I am allowing myself that cup of coffee to get moving, but cutting out everything else that was supposed to go.  Forgoing an evening cocktail, any dairy (after my morning coffee), excess salt, and processed sugars will be a great start, and I refuse to minimize the accomplishments I am making simply by doing this.

Goals for the day are to follow the detox diet (minus the coffee I couldn't give up yet) and to work out for at least 10 minutes on the DS, run in place for 10 minutes, do one minute of jumping jacks, and one minute of stationary lunges.  My step count for the day is supposed to be 6000, but I'm not sure if I can physically do that yet, we'll have to see how it goes.

Stats for Day 3, July 2, 2008:

Weight: 266.3 (down by 0.2lbs)
BMI:  38.13 (down by 0.3)

12:27 pm - Detoxification, body edition.

11:33 am - Acknowledging the divide (crosspost)

I was having a conversation with my good friend K the other day about our eating habits and difficulties in losing weight. We both expressed that some of the problem with losing weight has been that we feel quite good about how we look when we look in the mirror, and that takes away from the motivation to eat properly for weight loss. This is the setting, acknowledge it, lol.

Just at that moment, a thought occurred to me. I do feel great about myself when I look in the mirror. In fact, I walk around thinking I am some hot stuff, and generally express this sentiment out loud at least a billion and three times a day. That’s great. That’s awesome. Everyone should feel good about themselves at least 95% of the time.

However . . . and this is a big one. Life shattering big. My ass big (kidding). If I am going to feel so good about myself, then why do I treat myself so poorly? It doesn’t make a lick of sense. I can’t go around talking about how awesome I feel and then cram cheeseburgers and cupcakes down my throat like I’m partying like it’s 1999. It just doesn’t work that way. In 1999, I was 19 years old and had the metabolism of a person on speed. It’s 2008 now, and I’ve got the metabolism of a slug on marijuana. No jokes. I gain weight by looking at a cookbook.

So I have a new resolution. I am going to treat my body in the way that this hotness deserves. I am a present-thinker, not a future-thinker, so worrying about my future-health ain’t gonna do me any good at all. I have to think about reconciling the divide between my mind and how I treat my body. This involves eating (more) sensibly, getting good physical activity, and behaving as though I’m not the unholy slothly glutton I tend to be.

Does this mean I’ll be quitting smoking? Not quite yet. I’m not yet ready for that hurtle for mental reasons I’ll discuss in another entry. But I can at least feed my body the things it needs as opposed to what my sick lil brain wants, and get the exercise it needs rather than the nap it desires.

We’ll see. I’ll be updating.

Day 1: June 30, 2008.
Weight: About 266.5
BMI: 38 somethingth.

Let the games begin.

10:20 pm - 7 hours and counting

In seven hours, I will be just about on the road to go see dslwc.  I am excited, but in a way nervous.  It's always this way with me with people I haven't seen in awhile.

Mostly, I'm worried I won't get to see enough of her to carry me through another year, because I don't forsee her getting to come up again this December.

Life intervenes, and that is a bitch.

05:54 am

Books meme
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read (strikethrough ones you hate!)
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ

05:54 pm - I want to make this:

Periodically, I forget that I hate everything about peyote stitch, especialy tubular peyote stitch, and then I try to make something like this.  http://beadwork.about.com/library/weekly/blmfieldsringinst.htm

So then I cuss and I scream for about, oh, four hours, tangling my thread beyond repair numerous times, breaking thread, breaking needles, and generally have a bad time of it. Peyote stitch is the devil, I tell you. And at the end of these four hours, what do I have to show you? Nada.

I am after all that time only eight rows into the base ring, and that just really ain’t much to show off. I do have some very tender carpals in my right hand right now, so that’s like something awesome, right? Right?

Lessons I have learned from this project:

1. When using size 14 seed beads, you can get size D thread through it no more than three times. On the fourth attempt you will either break your needle (one time) or break the bead (three times).

2. When you break a bead in the middle of peyote stitch on the first round, you can easily conceal this by pulling the circle snug again. Just don’t be stupid enough to break the bead on another round.

3. When black thread tangles, you can spend about forty-five minutes attempting to untangle it before dimensia sets in, carrying you off to the land of murderous cotton candy happy foot time. When you return from your journey, your thread will still be tangled, and you will most likely just have to break it and attach a new piece anyway.

4. On the first row of tubular peyote stitch, you’ve already gone through the circle of beads twice, which with size 14 beads, leaves you but one more chance to go through said beads. This is a bitch if you need to secure a new thread.

5. Renee is not smart enough to modify a pattern to use 14/0 beads instead of 11/0 beads, because she did not realize the above thread limits. Bad ne.

Nonetheless, this project shall not beat me. I am determined, and when I get determined, I am a force to be reckoned with.

Now, to ice my hand, rest up, and wait for the energy to try again.