Tooting My Own Horn

You all know, who have read me for a while, that I love having imaginary interviews.  In my mind, I have sat on the couch of Oprah, matched wits with Jon Stewart, and answered James Lipton's list of questions.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to have a real interview.  With a real journalist.  It really happened.  And it was everything I hoped it would be!

No, I wasn't on television, it was a phone interview, but it has been published.  Read it here:

Galveston Daily News

And if you are here from that article, welcome!  There will be a quiz over all past entries next week.  Begin.

Overachieving

It is, of course, November, which means one thing: the thirty day orgy of creativity known as NaNoWriMo.  Of course, I know all of my faithful readers have the entire month marked in red on their calendars, but to those who might be new, I will explain.

The goal of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writer's Month) is to produce a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.  Beginning at midnight on November 1 and ending on November 30, those who choose to participate in this activity forswear friends, family, and proper nutrition for the duration.  In order to complete your book on time, a daily goal of 1,667 words is the minimum to be completed.  Editing is discouraged; NaNoWriMo is not about quality, it is about quantity.  (December, however, is NaNoFiMo, or National Novel Finishing Month, in which one's NaNoWriMo work can, hopefully, be edited into something semi-coherent.)

Last year I began participating in NaNoWriMo early in November, as soon as I heard about it.  I had no plot, no ideas, and had to start over more than once.  I got my 50,000 words, though, meaning I "won" the contest.  Unfortunately, that book was terrible.  Seriously, completely terrible.  Easily the worst thing I have ever written, and I include the companion book to "The Outsiders" I wrote in eighth grade in that statement.  We will never speak of it again.

This year I started thinking about NaNoWriMo in August.  I knew what I wanted to write: an account of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, told from the perspective of a young woman who lived through it.  The twist?  Those who have been reading my blog for a while have probably guessed: she lives through it by becoming a vampire.  Yes, another vampire tome has fallen from my pen like drifting autumn leaves, and I couldn't be happier.  I began researching with enthusiasm.  (Just a note: I never research anything beyond a quick Google search, so this is very uncharacteristic behavior for me.)  I drove to Galveston several times and looked at buildings that had survived the storm.  I went to the Rosenberg Library and visited the archives, where original documents from that time period are stored.  I read books, including the superb "Isaac's Storm" by Erik Larson.  I knew who my heroine was and what she was doing, I knew how she was going to get caught in the storm and where she was going to shelter.  I even knew who the vampire who attacked her was and his back story.  (He's a Karankawa Indian, by the way, another bit of obscure coastal Texas lore I was happy to include.)

The problem?  When November 1 hit, I wrote almost 10,000 words in the first 24 hours.  By the end of the first week I was at 25,000.  I hit 50,000 words on November 15.  I finished the book, at 56,000 words, on November 15.  Now what?

Start a second one.

Here's my reasoning: if I finished a 50,000 word book in the first 15 days, I could do another one in the second 15 days, right?  I neglected to think about the two months of research and thought that had gone into the first one (for the record, "Immortal Isle").  What was I thinking?

This new one, tentatively titled "Magic Number," is awful.  Truly, tremendously awful.  It may, in fact, be worse in many respects than last year's.  If I had any artistic integrity, I would junk it and start over and really challenge myself (as I write this, it's November 21, so 9 days to go) but no matter how bad this one is, I'm 37,000 words into it and have an actual shot at finishing the thing.

I love young adult literature.  "Magic Number" was intended as an homage to one of my favorite YA authors, Norma Johnston, the queen (in my opinion) of teenage angst.  Unfortunately, I seem to be incapable of writing a simple, biographical novel.  Halfway through this one, we discover that one corner of our love triangle is the child of secret agents who is being recruited to join the agency herself, and adventure ensues.

Really?  Really, Deb?  A teenage love story drama turns into a suspense thing about secret agents?  Nice.  I just hope I can finish the thing in time to go back and fix some things.  Like take out the whole "secret agent" thing.  I wish I could do it now, but I can't go back and erase 100 pages with only nine days to go.

Or can I?  More later...

Blast from the Past

Recently, I was privileged to attend my 4th grade class reunion.

What?  4th grade class reunions aren't that common?  Well, my 4th grade class was never common to begin  with.

Here's a picture of me with my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Awesome-O.

(Note that I was the only member of Awesome-O Class of '85 to attend.  I'm looking in your direction, everyone else.)

In elementary school, I participated in something called GATE: Gifted And Talented Education.  Those of us in GATE fell under many categories:

• Brilliant but quiet
• Brilliant but loud
• Too hyperactive to be in a regular classroom
• Too weird to be in a regular classroom
• Smart but socially clueless
• Several of the above

GATE students were identified by a complicated series of tests, including IQ tests.  We were together all day, every day, from third through fifth grade.  Thinking about it now, I realize how extraordinary that was.  Most kids get shuffled from class to class between grades, and switch between different teachers during the day.  We didn't.  Our teacher was OUR TEACHER, who taught us reading, language, math, social studies, and science every day.

At the reunion, I realized I remembered the people who were there better than I remembered people in my graduating class at high school.  It was amazing!  What was even more amazing was how, in a room full of our peers, we all immediately reverted to our Inner Nerd.  The quiet ones were still quiet, the loud ones unbelievably loud, but you could almost see guards dropping as we realized we were among our peers.  The class clowns began entertaining, the sarcastic ones were dripping with well-placed stings, and the nice ones were just exuding good nature.

There were a wide variety of careers represented.  Several of us are in education.  There was a neurosurgeon and stay-at-home moms, small business owners and IT experts.  Above all, we were still GATE kids: smart, kind of goofy, and not traditional at all.

At the reunion, I was given the honor of witnessing what has to be one of the greatest "You're busted!" moments of all time.  Allow me to set the scene:  Sven and I were sitting there with Siegfried, a friend of ours who happens to be Awesome-O class of '84.  We were discussing how we ended up with different 5th grade teachers, because Siegfried's teacher left in the summer between his fifth grade year and mine.

Not to drag the story out, but I told Siegfried about my 5th grade teacher, who had never taught elementary school or GATE before, and how inappropriate her reading assignments were.  We read Johnny Tremain and Island of the Blue Dolphins, which were great, and then The Hobbit, which was okay but a little dense for 10-year-olds, then Animal Farm, which I did not understand at all.  I thought it was about talking animals until I was 18.

"What came next?" asked Siegfried.

"Lord of the Flies," I said.  After the laughter subsided, I recalled how my mother, along with several others, protested, which resulted in an "opt-out" assignment: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.  Siegfried and I then imagined how we would teach a class in which half of the kids were discussing the pig-hunting scene from LOTF while the rest were debating whether or not Farmer Fitzsimmon's rose bush was really the best place for those darned rats.

"Why stop there?" Siegfried asked, and we began suggesting increasingly inappropriate reading material for 10-year-olds.

"How about The World According to Garp?" I suggested.  Siegfried got that wicked twinkle in his eye and began to intone, in a teacherly voice:

"Class, please regard the [expletive descriptive word] scene and-"

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" intoned Mrs. Awesome-O, descending upon us.

Busted.  We had to explain it all to her, which fortunately, she found hilarious, though whether it was because we were funny or she was on her second glass of wine, I can't say.  What I can say is that Mrs. Awesome-O is still awesome.  As we were leaving, she gave me a hug and said to Sven, "Take care of her, she's one of my good ones."

Right back at you, Mrs. Awesome-O.

Battle for the Bed

At the Folksy house, we are currently at war.  At stake in this war is the most valuable piece of real estate around: Deb and Sven's king-sized bed.

It began almost five years ago, when Princess was born.  From the very beginning, she would not be alone quietly.  When I think of the money we spent before she arrived on things like cribs and bassinets, I can't help but laugh bitterly.  The crib wasn't a total loss; it converted to the full-size bed she now refuses to sleep in, but the $200 convertible bassinet was a total waste of money unless you consider having an extra place for our late cat (Hambone) to pee is a wise investment.

Princess slept with us for the first year on purpose.  We called it co-sleeping.  Everyone else kept silent, but I knew what they were thinking: how will you ever stop?  Answer: I don't know.  I'll tell you when it happens.  When we decided to have her sleep with us, it was from necessity: I hadn't planned on having a C-section, Sven's brother died the day after we brought her home from the hospital, so we had to find a way I could feed her without getting out of bed every 2-3 hours.  We did what we had to do.

When we found out we were pregnant with Dexy, I said, "We need to get his room all ready."  Sven replied, "I just thought he'd sleep with us the way Princess did."  Bear in mind that, at this point, Princess was almost two years old and it was a nightly struggle to get her to sleep in her room.  I goggled at Sven, but, muddled by the hormones of pregnancy, I shrugged and just went along with it and ate another wedge of cheese the size of a mature hamster.  (That was a strange pregnancy.)

So now, here we are: Dexy, nearly three, who cannot go to sleep without a thumb in his mouth and a hank of my hair in his hand, and Princess, nearly five, who lays down in her bed for thirty seconds before proclaiming, "I had a bad dream, I can't sleep by myself tonight."  My nights are spent curled up in the fetal position on the edge of my once-luxurious bed, waking up every half hour to dislodge a child-sized foot from some part of my person.

We are trying.  This week I've been up every night until 2:00 or 3:00 with Princess, insisting that she sleep in her own bed.  I'm on to her tricks: she will wait until I'm asleep, then creep in and sneak into my room and fall asleep next to her daddy.  (Usually because Dexy is already asleep next to me.)  Some nights, Dexy actually stays in his bed when we carry him down, but Princess is like The Terminator.  She doesn't sleep.  She can go days on two hours of sleep a night with almost no signs of ill effects.

She's ruthless, I tell you.  But she hadn't reckoned on dealing with me.  I'll beat her yet.

The Wrath of Mom

On Monday, I got home and I was so tired, I just couldn't wait to sit down, put my feet up, open up the computer, and write for a while.  When I got home, I was confronted by a grave reality: the dishes had piled up in the sink, there were loads of clothes waiting to be washed, dried, and folded, and the garbage can was full to the point that Sven and I were actively competing to see who would be the sucker that had to actually change the bag, meaning we were precariously balancing mountains of garbage on top of the already full can.

I looked around my house and got mad.  No, not mad.  I was furious.  I put my things down and began to attack the garbage, then the dishes.  I rattled and banged and generally let everyone know that I. Was. Not. Happy.

"I love you, Mommy," Princess said, patting me.

"I love you, too," I snarled.

"I can take care of supper," Sven offered from the recliner.

"Great," I snapped.  "You do that."

"I want chicken nuggets, Daddy," said Dexy.

"Chick-Fil-A!  Chick-Fil-A!" chanted Princess.

"Okay, I'll be right back," said Sven.  When I turned around, they were all gone.  I ran out and caught them, hearing that Sven was taking the children with him.  I knew then that I would not be seeing them for a long time.  "I'm just going through the drive-thru," Sven said.  I cackled bitterly, wiping dish soap from my eyebrows.

Two hours later, when they returned home, I got the scoop.  Here's what happened:

Sven: Now, kids, we're just going through the drive-thru and going home.

Princess: Well, Daddy, since Mommy's not eating, we don't really need to bring the food home.

Sven: I suppose we can see how crowded it is, and if it isn't too crowded we might be able to eat there.

Princess: I think Mommy wants to be alone.  We should eat there to help Mommy.

Sven: We'll see.

Princess: And then we can play on the playground for just a minute.

Sven: All right, we'll see.

Princess: Thank you, Daddy.

They came home after the dishwasher had been run and I had all of the laundry folded, and I was much, much calmer.  Sven had that wry expression that told me he knew he had been suckered by a tiny little girl with dimples and pigtails.

Maybe I need to "Hulk out" on the housework more often...

Update

It has been 11 weeks and 3 days since my surgery, or 80 days.

I have lost 51 pounds since that date.  That is an average of 0.6375 pounds per day.  I know this is good, but I'm still struggling with patience.  I want to see it come off much faster.

To put that in more perspective, the last time I was at this weight was around the time I got married, in 1999.  I've lost 11 years worth of weight in 80 days.

I have lost a shoe size.

I have lost two and a half ring sizes.  Many of my favorite pieces do not fit me at all anymore.

I have lost four pants sizes (depending on how you count those things) and four or five shirt sizes.

Highlight to read for female information: I have lost a cup size and two band sizes in my bust.


In personal developments, I can no longer wrestle with Sven, because I no longer outweigh him.  I learned this painfully (emotionally painfully) the other day when I refused to get off of the couch for something and he pulled me up.  Easily.  Then sicced the kids on me.

My hands no longer sweat.  Not as much, anyway.

I still don't eat much.  I drink a mixture of whey protein and water during the day and generally try for something solid at night.  Right now I'm hooked on egg whites.  A couple of minutes in a pan with some trans-fat-free-butter-like-spread, sprinkle on some cheese (I use real cheese, in your face, fake cheese!) and I can eat as much as six or seven bites.  During the day, I munch on the occasional almond and chewable fiber tablets (the size of baby hockey pucks).

The holidays are coming up, and people are starting to ask (in tones of horror), "What are you going to DO?"  Not only Thanksgiving and Christmas, but Princess and Dexy's birthdays are all happening within the same 1-month period.  My answer: enjoy it.  It will be hard without the food, but it's not like I'm on a diet.  I couldn't splurge if I wanted to, and I'm not sure I want to.  I'm never hungry.  Most food has started to look unappealing to me.  When I see a restaurant meal now, I'm actually horrified at the size of the portions.  I can remember the days (really, only a couple of months ago!) when I would have looked at the same meal and thought, "I hope that will fill me up!"  In other words, my entire attitude toward food and eating are different.  It hasn't been easy, but going through all of this has made the weight loss possible for me in a way it would never have been before.


I don't want to make this into a weight-loss blog, but it's hard to write about what's happening in my life without this weight loss.  It's become a big deal every day.  Getting dressed is even harder now than it used to be, because my pants now literally fall off my body.  (Today's project: moving the buttons on a few pairs so the waist will be smaller.)

So it doesn't look like I'll be meeting my goal of 80 pounds lost by my 3-month checkup (in 4 weeks; 29 pounds in 4 weeks is at least a pound a day) but I should be close.  After I lose those 29 pounds, I have at least another 50 to lose.

I'll see you when I get there.

New Recipe: Homemade Chicken Nuggets

Since my little procedure about two months ago, I have had to drastically change the way I eat.  As in, I can't anymore.  Eat, I mean.  Really, I eat almost nothing.  Unfortunately, for several weeks the only things that seem to want to stay in my stomach without making me sick are really bad foods: pizza, lasagna, quesadillas, macaroni and cheese...you get the idea.  I would rather not eat anything than eat those foods, so there have been a lot of 200-calorie days lately.

So I splurged and bought a couple of cookbooks, and I tried a recipe tonight that went over very well with me and my family.  I am sharing the recipe here because I changed it enough to make it my own.

A serving (about 5 nuggets) equals around 150 calories, 25 grams of protein (about), low carbs, some fiber.

Ingredients:
Boneless skinless chicken breasts or tenderloins
Egg whites
Reduced fat Pringles potato chips
Fiber One cereal (original)
Seasoning to taste (I used Lawry's Seasoning Salt, but any seasoning you like would work.)

Preheat oven to 375.  Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray.

Cut chicken into desired size pieces.  Coat with egg whites.

In a blender or food processor, combine Fiber One cereal (about 1/2 cup for 1 pound chicken), seasoning, and potato chips (16-24 chips).  Pulse until you achieve a bread crumb like texture.  Place this mixture in a gallon-size plastic bag.

Place chicken in the bag and shake to coat.  You can do this in batches or all at once.

Put coated chicken on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.  Turn over and bake another 10 minutes, or until crispy and cooked through.  Excellent with ketchup.

I used about 1 pound of chicken and it was enough to feed me, Sven, Princess, and Dexy with leftovers.

I ate two.  Yay!

My Grandparents

My mother's parents were really special.

I was thinking today about what I was going to do this year for Thanksgiving, and it has reminded me of a couple of stories I remember about my grandparents.

My grandpa had a bad heart.  It runs in the family, unfortunately.  Of course, his doctors put him on a salt-free diet and, since it was the 1980's, salt substitutes were horrible, bitter things.  Well, my grandmother found a great one that tasted just like salt.  It was amazing!

After Grandpa died, Grandma went on using the salt substitute.  Eventually she had to go and replace it.  Imagine her shock when the salt substitute tasted terrible!  It was bitter and awful and she was just so confused!

Until she found the big container of REAL salt hidden in the kitchen.  Grandpa had been quietly replacing the salt substitute with real salt for years.  Grandma had to laugh.

My second story is about Grandma.  Grandma lived until 2005, passing away just a few weeks before Princess was born.  She remained vital and healthy for years after Grandpa died, but of course, as time went on she could do less and less.

We always went to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.  Grandma made the same dishes every year, and assigned each of us to bring the same things, so it was a menu you could really count on.  One dish Grandma made sure never to forget was the corn-and-oysters.

Made with canned oysters and creamed corn, this dish truly had to be seen (and smelled) to be believed.  Yet, year after year, the dish was completely clean at the end of the feast, thanks to the combined efforts of my father and my Uncle Pat.  Grandma never really knew that Dad and Pat were the only two eating it.  She thought we all loved it, that it was the dish without which our family Thanksgiving could not be complete.

I remember the year she told me that she just didn't feel up to making the corn and oysters.  "Deb, I know the family will be so disappointed," she said earnestly.  "I just don't think I can make the corn and oysters this year."  "Grandma," I said sincerely, "we'll manage."  Only my father complained.

It's been 5 years since Grandma died, and 23 years since Grandpa died.  Even though I miss them every day, thinking about them makes me happy.  Hopefully one day Princess will have children (she currently plans on having eight) who will tell stories about their kooky Grandma Deb, who wore knee-socks and danced the Futterwagon on the living-room sofa.

Obviously, I plan for an active, lightly medicated old age.