The Sequel

Like many movie sequels and sophomore albums the second month on my self improvement journey had its good points but was not quite as impressive as month one.  So, let’s run the highlight reel.

Reading: 

In August I read 2027 pages. Phew. That’s about 500 pages more than last month. I made sure to mix it up and incorporate lots of different writing styles and read multiple books simultaneously. Doing this keeps my hyperactive mind from getting too bored.

Books completed in August:

A Clash of Kings George RR Martin

Circle of Magic (books 1-3) Tamora Pierce

Slapstick Kurt Vonnegut

Cesar’s Way Cesar Millan

Fitness:

I’ve had a very low energy month plagued with illness and injury. I was sick once at the beginning of the month and again this past week (all this time on my butt is probably why my reading totals are so high) . The first time I fell ill I had a small head cold and just felt really tired. In the last few days I’ve had flu symptoms including a fever and a hacking cough and a runny nose and all that other stuff that they advertise on the NyQuil bottle.

In addition to all this I’ve had some bad foot cramping that has further stymied my exercise efforts. I would probably blame the foot cramping on pounding up and down the steep hills in my neighborhood, trying to keep up with my pup and tire him out, and then going home and doing intense circuit training. I kept this up six days a week for the first two weeks of August after I felt I recovered from the first bout of illness. It’s obvious that I overdid it a bit. So for the last two weeks of this month most of my exercise has been walking with the dog peppered with very occasional running intervals.

I’m a little disappointed with my inconsistency this month and my stubbornness. I pushed myself when my body was obviously screaming for a break. I suppose that I felt supercharged from my accomplishments last month and forgot that I needed to build on my exercise base and not go galloping from a level five to a level ten.

Writing:

With all the ups and downs in my health this month I’ve been struggling to keep my spirits high. For a long time I have battled depression and anxiety, as a lot of writers do, and I simply cannot write when I have the blues. Therefore, in the month of August I did not achieve my goal of writing every day.

On the days I was able to write I wrote briefly, maybe accomplishing a paragraph per writing session. I’m currently working on two very different stories neither of which I finished this month. So for my August submission I pulled another old story out of my desk drawers, a flash fiction piece that I rather like called Count Out. The piece has been submitted to  http://www.flash-fiction-world.com/ where it will appear online if accepted for publication and will be entered in a contest to possibly win a whopping $40. If the piece is accepted for online publication I will post a link to it on the blog.

Nutrition:

Overall I would say my nutrition has been unbalanced. My diet has been all soup and crackers when I was ill and emotional junk food binges when I was not. Regardless, I’ve managed to lose one pound this month bringing my weight down to 165.

I suppose I’m glad I didn’t gain weight through all this but really the weight loss is not the important part. What’s important is health and proper nutrition. On this front I have been quite lax. I need more veggies and less sugar, more lean protein and less cheese, more control and less “how much food can I shove in my mouth before bed time.”

Honestly, I partly blame my injuries and illness on my out of whack eating.

Crafting:

In one of his angry pee fits my cat Chewbacca ruined the bag my husband used to carry his gear to softball practice so for my craft of the month I attempted to make him a new one. The bag was one of those drawstring sack backpacks made out of that  sort of nylon fabric that looks like a football jersey (I’m blanking on what it’s called and I’m too lazy to google it). I didn’t have a pattern so I sort of made it up and the bag turned out pretty okay. The only real issue was getting the drawstring to pull right. For that kind of bag you should be able to pull the drawstring on either side and it will cinch closed without having to tie the string. Eventually, after I completed the bag of course, I figured out that to accomplish this you had to loop the drawstring around. So, the first bag doesn’t exactly cinch right but I know how to fix it for the next bag.

Here’s my awesome husband modeling the bag.

This month I also managed to pull out my oil paints again. I haven’t painted in a very long time. I decided to just work on some abstract free form painting while listening to music. I don’t really want to post my unfinished painting so here is a picture of the fire hazard I created outside while working on the piece in the whirl of mosquitoes that live in our backyard.

Notice the lit citronella candle next to the turpentine and the can of bug spray.