Entertain Yourself

It's been a while since I've written about what I'm watching movie and television wise. I think it's about time I start that again.

Psych season 3 - The more I watch this show, the more I love it. Shawn is such a moron but in a loveable, hilarious way. I love all the characters. I still can't figure out how I've missed it on tv.

Game of Thrones season 1 - I'm torn about this one. The show did help me become more interested in the characters' fates than I was when I read the book. But I could do without all the sexposition. Call me a prude if you want but I don't read sex scenes in books and I don't watch sex scenes in movies, I fast-forward through them. But I can't do that with this show because there's a lot of important information that comes out during the sex scenes.

Iron Man - With the exception of Batman, I've never really been a huge superhero person.  They just have never really appealed to me. So I added this to my queue mostly because it has Robert Downey Jr. in it and I like him.  I ended up really liking the movie. He's not Batman, but Iron Man is kinda cool.

Bend It Like Beckham - I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to watch this. It's pretty good. And even though I can't stand soccer, I liked it. And the guy that plays Joey is hot.

Naughty or Nice - Caught this on the Hallmark Channel. Super cute. It's got the girl that plays Sara on White Collar, which is what drew my attention.

The Wishing Tree - Also from Hallmark. Not as cute as Naughty or Nice but worth the two hours if you've got nothing to watch.

Matchmaking Santa - Another really cute movie from Hallmark. I really liked it all the way till the end. And then I felt like that wasn't the place to end it at all. I would have liked to see Melanie and Dean a few months later, or even the next Christmas.

And now for the current television season...

Bones - Sweets living with Booth and Brennan is freaking hilarious. But I hate that Cam is having an affair with Arastoo. I'm anti-workplace romances in real life and very rarely do I find them interesting on tv. I don't like the Cam/Arastoo pairing at all.

Hawaii Five-O - I want to be Kono when I grow up. She's awesome. But I can't stand McGarrett's mother and that whole story line. She's killing that show for me.

Malibu Country - The absolute best parts are Jai Rodriguez and Lily Tomlin. Reba, Sara Rue and the kids are funny too, but Jai and Lily are the the gems of this show.

Well Hm...

Since I'm procrastinating working on my NaNoWriMo novel, I thought I'd pop in and let you know what's going on with me writing wise.

I'm behind the schedule that I set for myself but I am making progress on my stories for the 2013 Blogging From A to Z Challenge. I've got A and B written, edited and scheduled to post. I got C and D written today. I'll probably have them edited and scheduled to post at some point in the next couple days. So far I'm really happy with the pieces that I've written. The A and C stories don't stray from my usual routine. But D does. It's a fantasy piece from the viewpoint of the magical creatures rather than the humans in the story. And B is an excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel.

Which...

Is not going well. I'm having issues. I have just over 7500 words written. And am stalled there. At first I was bouncing around in the plot, writing the scenes and I thought of them. But then I got stuck in one view point and I don't want it to be told from just one POV, so I told myself I needed to start designating chapters and plotting them out at least partially. I wrote one more scene and a partial scene and I'm stuck. I can't even get myself to finish the scene.

I'm getting discouraged and coming down hard on myself because of it. I start doubting my ability to write. It's been years since I've written anything and even when I was writing fan-fic all the time, I could never bring myself to finish the long ones. So I begin telling myself that I bit off more than I can chew and that I shouldn't be even attempting this. And there starts a vicious cycle of self-doubt that just results in the desire to slam my head against the wall repeatedly.

There you have it. That's where I'm at writing wise.

Yeah, I Weighed Myself On Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Nothing exciting going on here. Just my parents and I.

Started off the morning by weighing myself. It was just a fluke but I think that around Thanksgiving it's ideal to weigh on Thursdays. That way you weigh right before you eat and then there's six days to work it off before the next weigh in. Anyways...

Weight: 254.4 lbs
Change: 2.4 lb loss
Pounds to Goal: 29.4

I decided to ease myself into the process of losing weight in small steps. So this last week I concentrated on doing cardio every other day and logging my food regardless of calories. I should have done the cardio four times and ended up doing three sessions on the elliptical. Skipped one time because of laundry day. The food logging didn't go as planned. I did it a couple days but then crapped out.

This upcoming week, I'm continuing the every other day of cardio and adding daily yoga in the morning. Food-wise I'm going to do the logging thing again. Obviously, I got something right this last week. Fingers crossed that I can make it two weeks in a row.

And The Champion Is...

Source: twitter.com/keselowski

Well. The NASCAR season's over. Jeff Gordon managed to behave himself and won the last race. Brad Keselowski is our new champion. And the countdown to the Daytona 500 has begun.

I'm happy for Keselowski. I'm glad that over the last few years I've been able to do a 180 on my opinion of him. Carl Edwards is my second favorite driver so I felt obligated to hate Brad because of the Carl versus Brad crash fest a few years ago. But over the last couple years he's won me over with his interviews. He comes across as intelligent and well-spoken without being stuffy. By the time the Chase started, I solidly liked the guy. And now, at the end of the Chase, I can say that he made the jump into being one of my favorites.

I've been feeling meh this season about NASCAR and was probably going to drop off to being just a casual fan that watches races only once in a while next year. But Brad being the champion has renewed my interest. Time after time, I've watched the drivers that I like lose the championship to drivers that I don't like. And since I'm a relatively new fan, I don't even remember any championships prior to the Jimmie Johnson streak.

I've been feeling like there's a disconnect between me and NASCAR. I don't feel engaged or a part of the action. I know that some people would say that it's because I'm a couch fan, one of the many that has never been to a track and watched a race in person. But it's not just that. If it were, why are there so many empty seats at the races? I'm obviously not the only person feeling a disconnect with NASCAR. It's evidenced by the empty seats and the television ratings. NASCAR and the drivers need to do more to bridge the gap between themselves and the fans, especially when we're bored and disgruntled because the system seems to heavily favor specific drivers.

Keselowski as a champion is the best thing for NASCAR right now. He's fun and interesting. And he bridges the gap to the fans. Last night, watching his tipsy (some say drunk) celebration and interviews, I felt more engaged and more a part of the action than I have all year. I wasn't just some random fan watching from a couch in Colorado. I felt like I was there at the track drinking a beer with Brad. He's renewed my interest in the upcoming season by himself.

He's got it figured out. Now NASCAR just needs to follow suit.

Laziness

As you can tell from the complete lack of updates that I had promised... I'm struggling to get myself on track.

I know what I need to do to lose weight, but I can't seem to make myself do it.

I know what I need to do to get ready for the 2013 A to Z challenge, but I can't seem to make myself do it.

I know what I need to do for NaNoWriMo, but I can't seem to make myself do it.

Sensing a theme here? I'm mostly struggling with my own laziness. But I refuse to allow my flaws to beat me. So over the last few days I've been concentrating on getting caught up. While I'm not 100% caught up to where I should be, I'm close. So I decided to call today Day 1 of losing weight. Yes again. I weighed in at 256.8 pounds and decided to set my first goal at 225 pounds.

Alright, that's it for now. Just wanted to pop in and update you about where I'm at.

Daily Update

NaNoWriMo
Where I Should Be: 1700 words
Where I Actually Am: 1825 words! Hell yeah! It took me about two and a half interruption-full hours to get those written. The strong start reassures me that I'm not fully in the deep end of insanity yet. I can do this. Hopefully the other 29 days of NaNoWriMo go this smoothly.

Weigh Loss
Where I Should Be: Yoga & Strength were on the schedule today
Where I Actually Am: None of the above happened. It was just laziness. I also didn't count my calories or even track my food. But I did manage to inhale a bunch of leftover Halloween candy.

Crafty A to Z
Where I Should Be: A embroidered through line 8
Where I Actually Am: I got behind because of the trick-or-treaters last night so I'm only half way through line 5. Not too concerned about it yet.

Story A to Z
Where I Should Be: full page written for A
Where I Actually Am: Snort. I have not a word written for this. Crap. Just... don't judge me okay? I'm feeling good about my being over on NaNoWriMo and thinking about this will dampen it.