a steady diet of faith & fancy with some mischief thrown in here and there

1. I need to get back to posting on a regular basis -- we're 8 days into the year and I've only posted maybe once or twice. There's been lots of good things to write, I just haven't made the time to sit down and do them. In part because I'm trying not to let sitting at the laptop suck up my whole day. Fucked up, I know, but there you go.

2. Getting up a mere 1/2 hour earlier makes me way more productive. I managed to get tea, breakfast and laptop time in before getting the kids/husband up and ready for the day. I may try to do this more often. However, seriously made me want to take a mid-morning nap at 10am. Got all my running around done before noon - post office, video store, supermarket. Now I have time to walk on the treadmill and start dinner early -- Baked Rigatoni.

3. Being sick has made me cut down on the smoking. 4 for yesterday -- didn't have my first one today until after 11am. Yes, yes, I know -- just quit, but that hasn't worked well in the past, and this seems to be working -- so positive encouragement is welcome, other stuff .. not so much.

4. Decided not to make any resolutions for this year -- I have one that is important to me that I made late last year. 40 lbs down by my birthday this year (or my newest motto - 40 by 40). To whit I have made some minor changes to start -- brown rice, whole wheat pasta, meatless at least once a week and working on portions. No effect yet, but I'm also not expecting to be fitter by tomorrow. Also -- walking on the treadmill - both myself and lapsedagnostic - it's a start ... maybe in a couple weeks I'll add some weights in. Right now, I'm all about starting somewhere ... and wouldn't you know it, here looks like a fine place.

5. Artistically I've accepted a challenge with the encouragement of my girlfriend and Laurel wilfulcait. Cait thinks it would be a good idea for me to enter the Kingdom Arts and Sciences Festival the beginning of March. It's a Pentathalon - I'd link it, but the info isn't there -- essentially I need to pick a persona (not necessarily the one I already have) and do 5 things related to that persona - the list is long, but so far I think I am going to do at least these 3 - blackwork cuffs on a chemise, a pomegranate drink and I'm going to make a paternoster by lampworking my own beads -- I still need two more things from the list. The thought of this scares me witless, but I have encouragement and support from everyone in the clan -- so I'm going to try. There will probably be updates on this, I may even make a filter for it -- or I'll just put it behind lj cuts marked "Pentathalon" - so if your interested in it, feel free to comment or follow the posts. By the way - I have not yet started, but I'm planning on it this weekend.