Odds and ends

Captain's Log, Stardate 01.13.2006

I want to start with prayer:

Lord God, I lift up Wintervision to you. Be with all the teens preparing to go to the retreat, and let your spirit move in each of them to draw them closer to you. You've planned every cabin and cabin leader. Give them all a great time and a powerful experience with you.

eHarlequin.com

I am amazed and deliriously happy with Harlequin's customer service. This time, I ordered 7 books from eHarlequin.com but only received 6 books in the box. I called their 888 number and got a busy signal, but then I called again in about 20 minutes and got a live person. After giving her my account number and the missing title, she checked to see if the book was in stock and put in a request to send it to me asap. She also said that if I got an Out of Stock card, to call customer service again. Now is that premium service or what?

Bible in 90 Days: day 5. The Israelites are at Mt. Sinai.

Writing: Yesterday, I got everything done on my Winners List except one thing. Got some characterization done last night, and hope to get more done today. I'm still behind in my Defeating Self-Defeating Behaviors class, but I got another lesson done today.

I've been reading NO PLOT? NO PROBLEM! by Chris Baty, who started NaNoWriMo. It's been very encouraging and inspiring, even though I don't think I'd ever try to do a novel in a month. However, it's very motivating for me to try to write faster.

It takes a writer, on average, about 55 hours to pound out 50,000 words (about 900 words an hour). I should be writing books faster than I do! I think it's a matter of discipline.

Diet: Went to PT today and had a late lunch of fish sticks, 500 calories. During the afternoon, I snacked on celery sticks and peanut butter, about 400 calories. Hopefully, I'll eat a well-proportioned meal at dinner--gotta remember to eat lots of vegetables.

I've been drinking my tea without Splenda, but with soymilk. It's really nice! I still prefer it to be sweet, but without sweetener isn't so bad. Let's see if the absence of artificial sweeteners helps my diet. I heard it increases insulin secretion even though it doesn't add calories.

Update: I'm totally ashamed to confess I had three slices of pizza and half a cinnamon pie. I totally need to get on the exercise bike tomorrow. Good thing I went to PT today--I rode about 10 minutes on the bike and spent 30 minutes doing weights.