Spirit, Word and Truth

Shining the light of God's word into our confused world.

Month: September 2014

Multiple Blogger Personality Disorder

September 28, 2014 / / 1 Comment

When I wrote my last post here way back in March, I didn’t intend for it to actually be my last post here.  But it was shortly after that post was written that my freelance writing business started to pick up, and between paid blogging projects and keeping up with my author blog and my freelance content writer blog, I was feeling stretched way too thin in the blogging department. Something had to give, and it ended up being this blog.

One of the reasons I started this blog in the first place was because I felt it didn’t mesh well with my quote-unquote “author brand.” I was following advice I’d received ages ago about not mixing my personal stuff with my author persona, combined with online marketing advice I’d picked up over the years about how blogs have to have a specific niche to succeed.

I realize now that that was all bad advice, at least in my case. For one thing, I’m not an online marketer. I mean, sure, I’d hoped to earn some extra income here from time to time from the occasional affiliate link, but it’s not like that was the primary purpose. I’ve also come to realize that, as a fiction writer, my personality and personal interests are as much a part of my “brand” as my books. The sort of stuff I post here has every business existing on my primary blog alongside posts about zombies and romance and knitting and writing progress.

Therefore, I’m gong to officially put this blog on permanent hiatus and merge the content here with JeanMarieBauhaus.com, where alongside author-type posts I’ll be sure to include posts from time to time on health and food and DIY and crafting and being prepared for whatever life throws at you. If you’re a subscriber here or have been following this blog, I hope you’ll join me over there.

Goal Setting and an A-ha Moment

September 24, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Since my last post, I’ve cut back some on bread and dairy, and I’m already feeling quite a bit better. Today I picked up some almond milk to see how I like it. We’ve still got bread and cheese in the house that we need to eat up so it doesn’t go to waste, then I’m going to do my very best to limit that stuff to the odd weekend cheat night and special occasions.

I’ve been working my way through Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World by Kristen Lamb — a book I HIGHLY recommend to any authors — any creatives, for that matter — in need of an effective audience-building platform. The first exercise is to take the time to write out your goals — 6-month goals, 1 year goals, 5 year, 10 year, etc. When you do this, you are encouraged to dream big and be specific. I found it to be an incredibly helpful exercise, not only for helping me to clarify what I want, what needs to happen with my career, and what I need to do to get there, but also for helping me realize that it’s not too late to achieve my biggest dreams. There’s still plenty of time, as long as I can stay focused and not let myself get sidetracked.

It also showed me how closely my dream of motherhood is linked to my dream of being a successful novelist. That might sound strange, but in my mind, our best bet for being able to afford the necessary medical treatments (and/or adoption fees, if it ever comes to that) — not to mention being able to afford to provide for a growing kid, letting me stay home and be a full-time mom, being able to home school and all that jazz — is me selling lots and lots of books.

This brings us back around to the dietary changes. And last night I had an epiphany. It dawned on me that I’m never going to achieve either dream if I don’t want it more than I want the temporary satisfaction of a cookie or a slice of pizza, or the convenience of a slice of toast. I have to want to succeed more than I want delicious food. If I don’t, my health issues will never improve and I’ll never be able to sustain the energy I need to accomplish my goals. This might seem like a no-brainer, but the realization that I’ve been giving food a higher priority than not only my health, but also my biggest lifelong dreams, was kind of astonishing to me. And also shaming.

I guess this is what some people might call one of those “A-ha moments.”

So tomorrow I’m going to make time to sit down and make a menu plan for the following week that doesn’t include any dairy, gluten or high-glycemic food. The biggest thing I’m stumbling over right now is a replacement for the toast I usually eat with my tuna or egg salad for lunch during the week. I checked out crackers at the health food store today, but couldn’t find any that were both gluten free AND low glycemic. I may compromise and try some rye bread. I think when it comes down to either/or, low-glycemic should probably win out. At any rate, maybe Pinterest will show me some decent alternatives. If you have any recommendations, I’d love it if you shared them in the comments!

PCOS, goal interference, and reluctant diet changes

September 22, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Last week was just a bad week. I have those from time to time, and I’m growing more accepting of that fact — and better at extending grace to myself — now that I’m past 40. Still, it’s really annoying to have stuff that needs to get done and lack the energy or mental clarity to do it. On the bright side, spending last week feeling vaguely ill has finally helped to convince/motivate me to get my diet back under control, since probably at least 99% of what was wrong with me could be traced to not eating healthy enough.

Seriously, I’ve been doing some research on my various chronic ailments and diet, and basically I’m not supposed to be eating any of the stuff I’ve been living on lately. I already knew that PCOS causes issues with insulin resistance and that I should be eating a low glycemic-index diet and not nearly so much bread (I’ve been eating a ton of bread, y’all) or sugar (hello, Halloween candy!). But apparently the fact that I have both PCOS and hypothyroid means it’s highly likely that I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune disease that’s been linked to gluten intolerance. Yet more reasons for me to avoid bread. Excuse me while I cry into my pumpkin spice flavored English muffin.

And then this short podcast offered compelling reasons why dairy is also horrible for anyone with PCOS. The gist of it is that any animal-based milk contains natural growth hormones that stimulate androgen production and make PCOS symptoms worse. Also, despite the fact that dairy is considered a low-glycemic source of protein, it actually causes blood sugar to spike about as much as bread or sugar.

So lately, this is what my diet has looked like: for breakfast, an English muffin with peanut butter and a glass of milk; for lunch, tuna salad with cottage cheese mixed in on two slices of toast; a cup of yogurt in the afternoon; and something involving meat, veggies and some form of cheese for dinner.

Can you see a few problems there? No wonder I feel like crap half the time.

Of course, this is the worst time of year to try and start a new healthy eating regimen, with Halloween and the holidays right around the corner. And I’m actually dealing somewhat better with the idea of cutting out bread and sugar than I am with giving up cheese. But I’m really tired of not feeling well and it would be nice to actually have the energy to go after my goals.

I like that the podcast I linked above pointed out that it’s not like I have celiac disease or anything, so the occasional indulgence won’t kill me. That’s good to remember, because so many of my favorite things have either gluten or dairy or both. Off the top of my head, that list includes pizza, egg rolls, cookies, breakfast toast, beer, grilled cheese sandwiches and ice cream. Sure, there are gluten-free alternatives to all that stuff, but it tends to cost twice as much and often tastes half as good as the real thing.

At any rate, I’m going to need to do some more researching and planning on all of this. If you follow me on Pinterest, don’t be surprised to see an influx of PCOS and health food related pins showing up on your home page.

I think I’m having a thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s a thought. Now I’m having a plan…

September 17, 2014 / / 0 Comments

This has been a terribly off week. Despite a lovely, restful, craft-filled weekend, on Monday I woke up with a stomach ache and barely any energy, and my condition didn’t improve much throughout the day. Yesterday I felt better, but we needed to make a Target run in the morning, which threw off my routine, and by 4 PM my wrist was throbbing from tendonitis and I had to log off to let it rest.

I went to bed early last night, hoping for a good night’s sleep that would let me hit the ground running today and make up for the lost productivity of the last two days, but then I woke up around three o’clock this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep until almost six, only to be woken up again shortly after seven by my dog, who didn’t care about my sleep deprivation nearly as much as he cared about being fed and let out to pee.

So I’m a little on the zombified side today, and will most certainly require a nap before I even attempt any of my freelance work. Needless to say, it hasn’t been a good week for making progress on my fiction, although I did at least add quite a bit to the PANIC outline on Saturday.

One good thing, though — after I shut everything down yesterday afternoon, I decided to go for a walk. That isn’t the good part, although I did need the exercise.

I had a lot more written here about my freelancing journey over the years, but I was getting into overshare and way too much thinking out loud, so here’s the TL;DR version: I’ve been doing some soul-searching about what I really want to be doing for a day job (until my writing can become my day job), as opposed to basing my whole business model on “what can I do that people will give me money for?”

At the end of the day, the answer to that is that I want to take all of the knowledge and experience in writing and editing, web & graphic design, social media, marketing and branding, etc. that I’ve accumulated over the last several years and focus it all on helping other self-published authors succeed.

So the good thing that happened is that during yesterday’s walk I came up with some good ideas on how to go about doing that, as well as some inspiration for branding and promoting this new venture. So that’s going to add a whole lot of stuff to my To Do list that will probably take a while to bring to fruition, but even so, it’s nice to have a goal and a direction for my freelance biz beyond “what can I get people to pay me to do for them this week?”

And that, to me, is very exciting. Or at least it will be after I have my nap.

The craft room is finished! And the RESTLESS SPIRITS sequel is begun! Sort of.

September 8, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Well, my friends, the cat room is a craft room once again.

I spent yesterday first sorting through my yarn and then emptying out the walk-in closet. The good news re: the yarn is that I had it stored in four different bags, only one of which got peed on, so the majority of my stash was just fine. The tee-shirt stash fared worse, but it still wasn’t as bad as I expected. Everything pee-scented went into the washer to soak overnight in vinegar and laundry soap (the yarn first went into pillow cases), and then this morning I ran that cycle, then ran it again with baking soda. After that, the shirts went in the dryer and the yarn went out on the back lawn to dry in the sun. The yarn is still drying outside, but the shirts passed the sniff-test, and are now folded and put away where those jerks sweet kitties can’t get to them.

As for the kitties, they’re much happier, and reluctant to leave the room, which is kind of nice. I fixed up the closet for them with their litter boxes and crates and plenty of places to hide and sleep and climb. Nibblet’s loving it, but so far Boudica prefers the top of what’s now the yarn and tee-shirt cabinet, a.k.a. my only work surface. I laid a fleece blanket up there for her to collect cat hair and protect the surface from her claws, and I can just move the blanket (and her) when I’m ready to get my craft on, so no big.

The only thing that’s missing in there is a good work surface. There’s a small table, but that’s wobbly, and the previously mentioned cabinet, but that’s not a large surface and it’s tall enough that I’ll have to stand. It’ll do for now, but some day I’d like to get a dedicated sewing table. A comfy chair for sitting and knitting would also be great. We’ve got an old rocking chair in there, but it’s not that comfortable, and I’d like to consign it to the back porch eventually.

I’m terrible about remembering to take pictures. If you want to see some, I’ll post some to my Instagram later.

I was hoping to be able to include a word count on the new novel in this post, but I’ve been kind of distracted all morning and couldn’t get my head in the right place for it. I guess I need to spend some time cleaning something else to give my brain a chance to develop the scene. Good thing I’m ready to straighten up the living room and bring out the fall decorations. Yes, I know it’s not technically fall yet, but the weather’s supposed to cool off later this week, and that’s good enough for me.

One thing I did do, though, writing-wise, is jotted down some notes on a proper sequel to Restless Spirits.  People have been bugging me (in the good way) about a sequel for years now, but I just haven’t been able to come up with the right story to justify one. But yesterday I streamed a few episodes of My Ghost Story while sorting through and detangling my yarn stash, and apparently these true haunting and paranormal investigator shows are my muse when it comes to this series (I guess it’s a series now), because something finally clicked. Now it’s going to be hard to make my brain focus on the Satanic Panic story instead of this. I wonder how insane I’d have to be to attempt writing two novels at once. We might be about to find out.

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