Things that need repairing on my 2001 Honda Civic:

Transmission/cat converter (this model year has a particular design problem with it; dealership is charging me "only" 25% of the retail price)
Cracked Exhaust Manifold (ALSO a design flaw with this and other sister model years)
Engine Mount--front one is broken. Yay.
Front Struts leaking.
Front suspension "rubber" bushing is broken on both sides.
Broken stabilizer links, also in the front.

Total quoted? Not including the Transmission, $2,944.00

What am I going to pay in the meantime for a minor tune-up, and the transmission? $1200 plus or minus. Can't wait to hear the final total on THAT.  I won't be getting MY car back until perhaps Thursday, and in the meantime I'm driving a loaner car from the dealership. I am so farked.

Thank you, Honda, for producing a car that was wonderful--up until NOW.  It has only 87,000 miles on it. And all this crap is happening?

It's 9:30am this morning, and I was baffled: how could I suddenly be 3 pounds lighter than I was yesterday morning? So I went on a Google-Mystery-Tour and looked around for articles about water weight--it was the only thing I could think of that could cause such a huge difference between one day and the next (aside from, you know, lightening up the load, so to speak).

I found this article, about daily loss and gain.  It's fascinating. We all know that ingesting salt will increase water weight, but did you know that "When additional protein is deposited inside muscle cells (as in muscle building) the cells absorb four times the amount of water to hold it. On eating lots of complex carbs the muscles store it as glycogen and this retains three times its weight in water."?

I  didn't realize that complex carbs would increase water weight, but then, carbs are sugar, and sugar, like salt, increases water in your body. Try reading this article, too.

Yay! I finally ordered the second part of the As the World Dies trilogy!  

It'll be fun to read that, once it comes up in my TBR list pile. Right now I have to read The Stolen One, but I've been busy with doctors', dentists' and vets' appointments, and so on that I haven't had a chance to devote the time I need to really read through it.

I've printed out a few how-to articles on how to review a book, but they seem mostly angled for kids in college turning a paper in to a professor. But the principles are the same, at least.

In the meantime, I dragged my copy of Sink Reflections off of the bookshelf to review the principles in that book (I am a born messy, and drive the Guy NUTS because I just don't see the same mess he does when he comes home.)

I also reread a Jack McDevitt book that I can't seem to shake, mostly because of its perspective and because the main mover and shaker in the novel is a woman explorer/silversmith. The book is Eternity Road. It's a lot of fun.

Hmm, should I go ahead and get the flash on my Canon A620 repaired/replaced, or just go and buy a new camera? The estimate over the phone was between $35-90 for a fix.  Canon doesn't make these swing view-finder models anymore, except in very expensive models, and I haven't had ANY complaints about the quality of the pictures I've been getting from this one. I'd rather keep it, get it cleaned and have the flash working again.

WOW, who knew? I really did not know about the supercomplex novels that Barker wrote. All I knew about were his iconic horror movies, full of horrible and horrific images, like Pinhead, and people sinking into steaming ground, and so forth. 

To clarify: I'm a compulsive reader of the end of novels in order to see if the writer packs ALL of their endings in one big package at the end. I can't help it. I *usually* prefer books that are a little more complex, unless I'm feeling particularly brain-dead.

In the Great and Secret Show, for instance, I read ahead, hadn't heard of ANY of the characters (they weren't there in the first ten chapters of the book, and had to plow on ahead into the book proper in order to find out what was going on. In TGaSS, Barker actually introduces the heroine of the story 125 pages into the book!  And the last character you hear from in the novel, he's a character from Barker's other short stories (and was played by Scott Backula in The Master of Illusions) but I didn't know who he was, exactly.

Of course, this book is the first in a trilogy (only two books of it have been written). Barker writes about stepped evil. Some characters are evil, but some or more evil than others, and the good characters, well, they're not always going to survive, and if they do, not in the way you think they will. ANYthing seems to go in a Barker novel. Also, like Stephen King, Barker references Christianity in his books. It's something that seems intimately connected with modern horror; braiding it with Christianity. However, Barker's version of it in his stories is distinctly different from King's. His characters are also everyman/everywoman type characters, but not quite to the same type of depth that King likes to take his.

Where Straub is cerebral, where King is character driven, Barker is pulled by mysticism and the mysteries of the afterlife and hell.

I tried reading Barker a while back, but couldn't get into his style at the time. But now, it's much easier to get into his stories and characters. I can't wait to get into Imagica, his magnum opus. It's HUGE. But I've got a ton of reading to do before I hit that brick of a book.

I appear to have magically lost about 3.5 pounds overnight (or over two nights). Perhaps the pizza finally flushed out of my system?

Not going to weigh myself until Thursday. I think this is overdoing it.

In the meantime, it is NOT easy to fulfill those munchy urges when you have very little in the house to munch on except your nemesis of peanut butter and jelly (on whole wheat flour bread, of course).  So tonight I'm making the kids their favorite fancy "macaroni and cheese" variation called "Creamy Pasta with Peas". Only this time, heh heh heh, I'm sneaking in some whole wheat pasta and some endamimes (which they don't particularly like) but I figure constant exposure will eventually win them over to the healthy side of dinner.

See my review on Hathor here. Wonderful little book.

Good gracious. The wedding we went to yesterday really did me in. It was really the culmination of all the travel, and wardrobe-buying (none of us had the right clothes to wear to an outdoor "casual elegance" dressy wedding). And there was the "barbecue" party the night before, so, mix in all the travel and pizzas and too much food and alcohol over that past two weeks...and I got me some weight gain.

It could be salt, and insta-calories from the champagne and wine and pizzas.

This morning: 167.

It's a gain, alright. I appeared to weigh less yesterday by about two pounds, so, we'll see what it evens out to after I go back on Phase One of the SBD. And stick to eating *less*. Overindulgence isn't my friend.

My 50 pound fat dog was a much slimmer and trimmer 38 pounds when Mermaid and I picked him up yesterday! And he looks MUCH more comfortable than he was before. He barely coughs at all (he's getting his medication), which makes me wonder how much the weight was bothering him.  He was so so so happy to see us, and me, he was beside himself and just did not know who to decided to hang around with.

I told the vet's people to feed him twice a day on a total of 3 cups of dogfood--he didn't get any snacks, no peanut butter when they gave him his pills (only in pill pockets, which I bought some of today at the pet store) and he lost all that weight!  He still has some more pounds to lose, I'd say about 5 pounds, but if we keep him on the amount of food he got at the vet's, he should be rid of that by the end of next week, if not before!

He's still ecstatic to be home.

As far as problems in the world go, dyed hair is a very small one--unless you're the one suffering from hair that isn't behaving. My hair turns into a congealed mass of chemical treated stuff, hard to comb, even with tons of conditioner in it. Finally I found some Pantene shampoo and conditioner *designed* for colored/chemical treated hair, and it works great!  I've got very fine hair, too, so if this stuff works for my texture/weight hair, then it's heavy duty shampoo and conditioner. Awesome!

I've got a new book review up on Hathor-not to worry, Charlaine Harris' first three books get an overall thumbs up from me (with a couple of exceptions). They were fun!

What is this? I go away for a measly 10 days, and Hollywood falls apart? What the hell?

Ed McMann, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays and one or two others?

I know I know...there's not really a correlation. I'll be home tomorrow evening. Hopefully no one else will die!

Alright!

Today is the Ninth Week anniversary of the start of my personal weight loss goal.

So far, I feel better overall. The padding under my breasts has gone way down, as has the baby-padding on my abdomen I acquired when I had, yes, that's right, my two babies. It only goes away when I stay under a certain weight. My pants have started to fit again, and that's a big score.

The numbers:

April 16 -- 174 lbs (YMCA scale)
June 18 - 162.6 lbs (WW home digital scale)
Pounds lost:  11.4

Not bad!  I'm about on track with where I wanted to be. I have a lot of family visits this summer, and I was tired of feeling flubby and not myself. That might also explain the semi-mid-life crisis I found myself in earlier this week. I colored my hair. For the first time ever! OMG! (oh, and then there's the friend's wedding on the Fourth of July)

It's been 18 days since I started the South Beach Diet, and even though I "cheated" a few times here and there--passing up grapes and veggie pizza is *hard*, dammit!--and didn't lose the 8-12 pounds average claimed by the writer of the diet, I have gone down at a faster rate than I had before I started it.  Now, I'm not touting the SBD as a miracle diet; all it does it try and change eating habits by cutting out many trigger foods, and get your body on an even keel, diatetically speaking.  It helps that so many of the recipes included in the book are so good that it really doesn't feel like you're denying yourself taste and variety. If anything, it *increases* the number of textures and tastes your mouth receives. I dunno about other moms and busy people in the USA and elsewhere, but pasta and rice are *easy* fixes when you're hungry, and for me it was easy to just keep eating that stuff and cut out more complex fixings. Even my hard to please daughter (Mermaid) has exclaimed about how much she's liked the various recipes I've made from that book. She LOVES it.

Hungry Girl has an interesting take on food and has a readable page on dieting myths. There are more if you click on the link at the bottom of that page. A warning: I find Hungry Girl's webpage hard to figure out and confusing--I have a hard time finding the same thing twice there. So, if you like what you find (and the site makes no sense to you, either) remember to bookmark it!  She does have some good ideas and recipes there. It's just a question of *finding* them that's the pisser. Print it out if you find something you like.

Sugar is not good for me.

I had a lousy food day today--had a cup of coffee with half-and-half, then didn't eat *anything* until about 1:30. And when I did eat, I dove into the last of the Frosted Miniwheats and devoured it. I'm not that sorry about it (I love the stuff) but it really wasn't as good as I thought it was, and not too long after I got a little sleepy and crashed out on the couch for a few minutes.

Gar.

I've been hovering around 163/164 for the past few days, and I think it's more because I've been starting to overeat (half a thin crust large veggie pizza, yo people) more than diving back into the carbs.  I might just have to go back to writing down everything I eat, but OMG, I get so tired of that so fast I can't tell you. My brain can only keep up that sort of detail for so long before it gets distracted and bored and wanders off, no matter HOW dedicated I am at first.

Here's the Dear Abby article, and here's the first letter of today's letter:

DEAR ABBY: My live-in boyfriend, "Travis," and I are having a disagreement. When I get home around 5 p.m. I lock the door behind me, especially when I'm home alone. Travis gets home between 4:40 and 8 p.m.

If I arrive first, he gets upset that he must unlock the door because he often takes his laptop and other things to and from work. I told him I don't feel comfortable leaving my door unlocked when I'm here by myself. I try to get to the door to let him in if I hear him outside, but I'm usually too slow.

Travis believes I am just insecure and think the worst of the world. He says I am choosing my irrational feelings over upsetting him. I told him if the alternative was for me to be robbed, raped or murdered, then I would hope his having to use his key every day would be worth it. I know it's unlikely that anything will happen, but it only takes one time.

Abby, am I paranoid or can you help me convince Travis of the importance of locking the door, especially when I am home alone?

Safety Conscious in San Jose, Calif.

DEAR SAFETY CONSCIOUS: I wish I could count the times I have turned on the evening news and heard someone say after a bloody tragedy: "But we live in a safe neighborhood. These kinds of things never happen here!" And how many times have we all heard the police issue a warning to keep your doors and windows locked?

Of course you're not paranoid. You are acting responsibly. Unfortunately, your boyfriend is so self-centered he would rather jeopardize your safety than have his key ready when he gets out of his car. Bottom line: Either he adjusts his attitude or you should consider upgrading the quality of the men in your life.
 

***
Abby was right on with this answer. Did this "Travis" grow up on a farm in Iowa where no one locked their doors, or is he really an entitled jerk who doesn't think anyone else really counts except himself? Since he argues over this issue, which really is NOT an issue, he can reach into his pants and fondle his keys--and his dick, because if this woman were sensible, she'd ditch the piker and move out or kick him out, depending on who is on the lease.

"If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal."

Dear Flist, you ALL make the world a better place for being in it. I would not know where I'd be now without all of you here, you who have helped expand my horizons, my thinking, my world in general.

You are all fantastic.

Love,
Me

This is unbelievable, but I think I'm finally over my Stephen King obsession. OMG. It's been years now. Oh, I still love some of his books, but my almost-complete collection of his novels? I looked through them, and decided to send the ones I loved the least off into the postal regions of Paperback Book Swap.

I've broken out of the one-writer thing I had going, and branched out enough now to where I'm comfortable reading other writers. That sounds really strange, I know, and I'm probably not saying it clearly. Whatever it was I needed out of his books, I've finally gotten it, and I don't need it any more. Other writers are stepping in-not as obsessions: I guess I needed more voices to listen to and see how they puzzle out plotting and story and character.

I love Rob Thurman's stuff. I love Alexander McCall's Ladies' Detective series. I've loved The Dresden Files for a long time now. I love that I'm back to having some faith in my old first love of SF/F again, and with some mystery series. I'm starting to like Kelley Armstrong's "Dime Store Magic" (and I usually don't like witch/vampire/werewolf stuff).

I'm not sure what changed, but there it is. Whatever cocoon there was, it's coming off. Yay!

Tall Boy (formerly Little Guy) is a VERY HAPPY boy right now: he had his morning bul-go-gi (a sweetish, seasoned Korean beef dish) for breakfast.

The Guy and I went out on a so-rare-we-can't-remember-the-last time-we-went-out-without-the-kids date to a small Korean restaurant I had only just noticed a few days ago. It was a stripped down version of the full Korean food experience, but that was okay since the bul-go-gi was awesome and the restaurant was quiet (we were the only people there) and we could actually hear each other speaking.

It's 1:20 in the afternoon my time, and I FINALLY remembered that I need to eat.

Last night didn't go so well, because the Guy and I broke down and ordered a Papa John's thin crust Garden Veggie special pizza, large (because that's the smallest size our Papa Johns will make them now) and we each ate half. Easily. Even me. I guess I could have stopped half-way through slice three, but I just...I couldn't. It was so good!

And of course, the rest of the evening was spent farting because the ole gut is NOT into processing processed flours, I guess. It was a pretty immediate thing, so feedback from the body is pretty clear. I really really can't eat those items (breads, pastas, rices, pastries and *sobs* cake) as much as I used to, if at all. Especially if I don't want to contribute to global warming like the rest of the cattle on earth. Moo!

The stalling on the scale wasn't great, either. It wasn't only the pizza, of course, but it's the first morning where my weight has actually *gone up*, and no, am not recording it-or if I do, it's going to be with a note.

Tonight Mermaid goes to a birthday party for one of her friends at a fantastic pizza place that wood-cooks their pizzas, and those pizzas are *amazing*. It's not just the wood stove. Their sauce and their cheese and all the garlic in the crust is heavenly. I don't know if I need to stay (I'll ask the other mom when I get there). But I'd better have some sort of back-up.

*note: I realize you're not "supposed" to weigh yourself everyday, but I can't resist, even though I know it's not a great indicator, and can contribute to ...I dunno, obsession is the word I'm looking for. And it's not all the weight, either. I need to tone up those flabby muscles.

I hope I'm not screwing up with the copyright thing, but I thought I'd share one of our favorite recipes from the Turbocharged SBD book. It's really good! And it's vegetarian!

• 1 tbl olive oil
• 2 bell peppers (I used one large red one, and that was fine)
• 1.5 c of chopped mushrooms (I don't think you need these if you hate mushrooms-substitute something else that's "meaty" or substantial)
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped (here's where I get lazy again: I buy the onion prechopped at the store-saves me a LOT of prep time)
• 3 minced garlic cloves (I use preminced cloves because I hate chopping garlic)
• 1 tbl chili powder
• 1 tbl dried oregano
• 1 tsp gound cumin
• a little salt
• 2 cans of pinto beans (but really, any beans will do)
• 1 (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes with juices

Chop up all the veggies. Add the peppers, mushrooms, onion, celery and garlic with some olive oil into a pan and stir until the veggies are softened.  Then add the chili powder, oregano, cumin and salt, and mix in the pan, and cook for about 5 minutes or so.

Add the beans and tomatoes WITH THEIR JUICES. Bring the pot to a gentle simmer and cook, stirring ocassionally until chili is fragrant and slightly thickened. About 30 minutes, give or take.

This is filling!   Oh, and to top it off, use no-fat sour cream or low-fat Greek Yogurt. I also add some fresh chopped cilantro and a little bit of cheddar cheese for the full chili experience. It doesn't up the calorie count *that* much, and makes me happier.

4-2 cup servings.  229 calories per serving, 35 carbs per serving.

Oh, and I went down another pound (!) this morning from yesterday morning! I dunno how, exactly. I suspect it could be water weight. My boobs certainly haven't gone down any. I think I might be stuck with them at the size they are now. But at least I'm not uncomfortable sitting at the computer and feeling the padding below my breast bone pressing into me as I slouch (which is bad). 

This morning: 162.3.  Down a total of 11.7 pounds since May 16. That's 8 weeks since I started!