I've lost a Dark Angel series that was being written on Livejournal an eon ago. It's set post series and it centers on governing terminal city. It's eventual Mac/Alec it's got bunches of either chapters or individual stories strung together. I seem to remember the author called in the Max/Alec something something of Doom.

Help? I've tried the usual suspects.

Holy cow, I've not posted since December 2018. That's hard to believe and as I wonder what I've done instead of posting here, it must be my "Girls" group on facebook. I've got fandom and real life friends there and it's closed/invite only so people (meaning me) feel "safe" there. Or some such.

Anyway I just did a five day fast and I feel like I should document it.

Fasting day one: it’s fine. It’s okay. I really hope this works. I mean, I’ve been suffering from a bad gut for about 6 years now. I’ve tried everything, even had a colonoscopy. Fasting was always one of the things suggested to help re-set your gut bacteria when I was researching but I had no interest. Insert Ivar. He’s been asking me to fast with him for a while and I kept just knee-jerking No, No, not gonna do that. So here I am, doing that. My normal state of burping has increased about 15% so I’m burping 3 minutes of every awake hour or so

Fasting day two: Morning: down 2.5 pounds Where is all the poop? I mean, that’s one of the things you’re told is that you just explode poop and you feel so much better for it. I pooped like a normal human being (something I only do about 5 times a year) and ??? Okay. Post “lunch”: Not gonna lie, I was sort of hallucinating. I kept seeing trails and I felt fucked up as hell. Not a full trip, but Something. Was. Not. Right. Teaching yoga was a hoot. I’m not burping any longer, I’m officially belching. The volume has increased dramatically

Fasting day three: Morning: no weight loss still down 2.5 pounds no, really, where is all the poop? Day one and two I actually pooped less than I normally do. I’ve drank eight shakes full of psyllium husks, drank all the water, and the weird turmeric tea. WHERE IS THE POOP? Afternoon: oh look! I found all my tucked away irritation, anger, frustration, and general helplessness AND I’M FUCKING HUNGRY.

AND I CAN’T STOP BELCHING

My mom thinks I’m hysterical and that I should film myself and put it on Youtube. She asked me what I wanted from all of this. And I said I wanted my poop to come out of my body in one piece 3 times a week. I’d take not pooping the other days. No more explosive liquid diarrhea (ELD), no more mush, no more rocks, no more 35 minute sessions and still feeling like I have to go more. No more days and days of not going at all. I just want to poop solid turds without straining! What’s so funny about that? I drink a bowl of broth, eh whatever, I’m good.

Fast day four: Morning down 5 pounds. I’ve not had food in three damn days and I’ve only lost five pounds and I still haven’t pooped? THIS SUCKS. My gut looks huge despite having lost five pounds, it must be all those psyllium husks hanging around. I have broth for breakfast and suddenly all is bright and shiny in the world.

Except for THE BELCHING. It’s like I’m belching without stopping for 10-15 minutes at a time with a ten minute reprieve between sessions It’s awful.

Afternoon comes and so with it “lunch” and my mom gets all over my nerves again. I’m due to start my period tomorrow, I’ll just blame that. Evening rolls around and I have my third bowl of broth since all of this started. I sip it slowly and watch a ton of tv with Sally. She’s the best roomie she’s only eaten in front of me once during all of this. Ivar said I could have an occasional alcoholic beverage and he had his last night so I get a Ginger Beer (Mule Kicker) out of the fridge. I manage to drink half of it over the course of about 3 hours. And if I thought I had bad belching before, I was naive as to how far things like that could go. I belched without stopping for two fucking hours. Not the little burps I normally have, full on BELCHING it will Not STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 5: No period, but plenty of cramps. I’ve lost 5.5 pounds now. And the Pooping has finally begun! Woo Hoo! The bloating is going down as well!! Poop out, bloating down, period due in about 8 hours. Yay. You should hear the sounds in my gut. They don’t really stop. I hope the bacteria in there is building up properly. Tomorrow, I will start some heavy duty gut supplements and I’m planning to start eating again. Was going to go for 7 days but I have to take my Aunt for a doctor’s appointment Monday and I’d rather not try to break the fast when I’m not at home.

Cooked for eating: baked some sweet potatoes, peeled them and mashed them with a pat of butter. Turmeric (and other spices) rice. Salad with romaine, peeled carrots, peeled cucumbers, and radishes. Chicken soup lots of onion, garlic, celery, and carrots. Sliced some pineapple, plucked and washed grapes. Ivar comes with lobster broth. We have it for dinner. It’s so rich I can’t finish my cup. We drank some very yummy mead. My gut is happy.

Recovery Day 1: I wake up and I’m not one bit hungry. Coffee with cream, coming right up. Belching: coming right up. These sweet potatoes are the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. I drink some of the broth from the soup I made. So good. I’m not eating anything out of it, just drinking the broth.

HOLY GOD THE BELCHING IS WORSE THAN IT WAS BEFORE. I didn’t think that was possible. It will not stop. I get an occasional 10 minute reprieve, but all day belching. Bought honeycrisp apples from Brushy Mountain and made applesauce (peeled apples, cinnamon, and nutmeg). Fingers crossed I can eat this, apples are on the do not eat IBS list but applesauce is on the safe list so I’m taking a chance. Plus it’s apple season and when else can you get 5 pounds of honeycrisps for $5?

Dinner time more homemade broth, more sweet potato, some applesauce. THE BELCHING WILL NOT STOP. I have taken two gas-x at this point and I am beyond miserable.

Recovery Day 2: One black chai tea bag and hot water coming up. Sweet potatoes for breakfast. Everything is good. No burping or belching. The doctor’s appointment does not yield good results. More sweet potato for lunch and some scrambled eggs. No belching. This is good. I have applesauce for a snack, no belching. I try some of the salad with a balsamic vinaigrette from Panera. Wait a couple hours. No belching. Turmeric rice, same.

There are foods I can eat! I don’t feel bad!

Recovery Day 3: One black chai tea bag and hot water + my fasting shake.

I have pooped like a normal human being! This was my ultimate goal. The on-going plan is to slowly add foods back in to determine what I truly can and cannot eat. And then abide by those lessons. I feel better eating less, so for now intermittent fasting (I’ll only eat from 10 am to 7 pm) eating only foods from the good list.

( fasting process )

Monday: Maybe by next week I'll be including the weekend. Started period

Food intake: Breakfast: almonds Lunch: grilled chicken salad, orange. dinner: chicken thigh, lettuce, salad dressing, strawberries, peanut butter

Tuesday: Zoe had to be at vet early. Got up great. Good sleep. Worried about my baby girl, she's in a lot of pain. Skin has cleared up.

Food intake: peanut butter, grilled chicken salad, orange, chicken thigh, lettuce, salad dressing, apple, peanut butter. One cider

Bristol 5-6
Wednesday: Got up good. Picked up Zoe. She has to have ACL surgery. Or be lame forever yays

Bristol 4-5

foot intake: peanut butter. lunch grilled chicken salad, kiwi. dinner with andi. salad with 6 fried shrimp, cocktail.

Thursday: Bristol: PERFECT
Woke up great. Four day weekend coming up

Food intake: nabs, salad with ham and kiwi,

I've been struggling for so long. After the breakup and the subsequent tossing of the birth control pills, I felt 100,000 times better. Especially with depression. But heartbreak has been wearing on me, sucking all the fun and color out of life. I hate everyone who is happy. Which makes it especially difficult to be excited about doing the whole Maid of Honor thing in August. ARRRRRGGGGGHHHH

Status:

Five weeks I have made all 10000 steps every day

My yard and my home have been kept up properly for four weeks. I doubled my prozac right around four weeks ago

For three weeks I've managed to get up on time and SHOWER before work. EVEN WITHOUT HOT WATER!!!

Two weeks running, I have purchase and prepared healthy food. I've even gone so far as to eat it.

I haven't had a french fry or fast food in one week.

Today, I'm going to do some yoga. It won't kill me. It will make these other things better.

Mom told me to keep on with my home improvements post-breakup and that she and money from Memaw's estate would help me pay for it. THANK YOU MEMAW. Or mom for making something up to make me happy. I've scaled down the designs to a one-person household/income but I still need help paying for it. Four doors to be installed, some ceiling fans and light fixtures, finish the back deck, and put a roof on the front deck. Another 10k or so. JFC, that's a lot of money. THANK YOU MOM AND MEMAW.

I have painters at the house today (another huge investment even though I get it cheap through my company it's still expensive). In the next couple of days, the inside of my house is going to change colors. All the holes where I've changed my mind about where to hang something are gone. The dents and dings from Justin's moving in and out, in and out, in and out, will disappear. By Wednesday, it will be as if I had never had a family of four living in the house.

I realize that making huge changes in appearance or home can't financially happen for most people post break-up, trauma, death, divorce, etc. but it is REALLY therapeutic for me, at least, that things look different. So I'm not constantly reminded of it all.

Saturday, I cut off my hair into an angled bob. I changed the color from black to a medium brown with honey and caramel highlights. I look younger and fresher faced. I guess going lighter as you age really is the thing to do.

I got my steps in all week this week. The house is clean. My food is prepped and cooked.

Home gym clean, prepped, and ready. Wwork out clothing set out ready to go.

Justin is going to give me a get up text. I have felt better this past week than I have in I can remember. It doesn't matter that it's time for my period, that's just being a woman.

I can do this. Day one. I'm staring you in the eye [again] and this time I'm winning.

It's a new year, I want to stand up and shout it's going to be DIFFERENT this time. THIS is the YEAR I'm going to DO IT ALL and all that nonsense but I'm not gonna. Except I kind of am.

The Shady Nook project aka The Embiggening, A Project with Limited Funds (thank you memaw) is coming along. Most of the back deck had to be demo'd due to rot. The new back deck is twice as large as the old one (the old one was postage stamp sized I've got a full envelop now), it will have a roof over half of it, the stairs will have a landing instead of a straight fall to the concrete below. The French door back there needs some work. Some rot in the wood, hopefully that can be replaced instead of a whole new door.

The front deck is getting an 8x8 roof, a new storm door, and a doorbell. The upstairs bath received an exhaust fan.

Actual Shady Nook gets a beam to reinforce its roof.

I plan to "finish" the upstairs bath. This means a new vanity, paint, light fixture, blinds, and shelving in the nook behind the shower. I want to tile all the bath floors and the laundry floor but that will have to wait a while. The Embiggening and the Upstairs bath are the major house projects this year. I'm getting a gas log estimate next week, but an estimate is just that. If it's affordable it goes on this year's list, if it needs saving for it goes on next year's list.

As for ME personally:
I exercised yesterday, a full body strength work out. Then I "went" to my online class. I want to do this everyday. Go home, pick up the house if it needs it, do my work out, "go" to class.

Surely, that's not reaching too far? Surely, with a goal as modest as go to class everyday and move a little every day is something I won't fail at. Surely. As for the exercise plan itself. Last year I bought a home TRX system and promptly put in a drawer and didn't use it. Currently, I'm not fit enough to use the TRX SO I am doing the TRX workout with light weights until I am strong enough to use the system. I'm following the program as it's written. If I manage to maintain a month of daily work, I should be able to use the actual TRX by month two.

Pre-new year, I had implemented a routine at home to make sure I'm doing small chores as needed instead of waiting until the end of the week and cleaning for 12 hours straight. It's a much better way to live. I used to be like this without effort, but that was before depression, thyroid, and the reckoning where-in nearly everyone I know and loved died in an 18 month span. I'm on week three of not being a slob so I'm making progress in at least one avenue of life. YAY!

Turned in my final paper and finished my first semester last night. The first time I went to school, I had a stereotypical all partying all the time freshman/sophomore years. GPA first semester 1.69, this time around a 3 something, depends on my paper. First freshman year I took a seminar class called "Sexual Harassment, Pornography, and the first amendment." It was awesome and tragically topical today. My other English class that year was on romantic literature.

This was my first stab at a "real" English class. We wrote four papers: descriptive narrative (#metoo response), process essay (how to make yogi tea), analysis (Harrison Bergeron), and argumentative (the vacuum paper). In lieu of a final exam, we wrote a final paper from one of the four types. I did a process essay.

It's under the cut

( Read more... )

Instead of a final exam in my English class, I'm to write a short essay 500-700 words that is one of the following types: narrative (descriptive non-fiction), process (how-to do something), or argumentative (research)

I know I don't want to write the argumentative because that was the last style we wrote and I'm burned out on it.

I am seriously struggling on a topic for either narrative or process, some prompts would be AMAZING