Status 9-25-15*

Tiger and Gracie keep watch as my furry nurses while I recover. Aren’t they cute?

Yesterday

Went in for the full GI work up. Despite having to wait due to some technical snafus at the hospital (even THEY aren’t immune from software update woes), everything went smoothly and Angel Doc is positive with no immediate blockages or concerns. Now we wait on the other tests. Was in and out of things all day due to sedation, but can finally eat again. Mark was my other angel and made me tapioca pudding. My FAV and the warm pudding felt so good on my throat and was easy on my tummy. Having fun watching all of the past seasons of America’s Next Top Model on Hulu and also watching a ton of anime (new to me, except for Speed Racer, I never really watched it before) and animated movies and shows for voice acting homework. In order to understand different trends and styles of animated voice work, you need to be familiar with the influential titles in genres you want to voice. How about that? I NEED to watch animation for my job. Hahaha!

Today

Up really early, and chilling out with my two nurse cats. They take turns giving me massage and cat kisses. More “Homework and naps”. Can’t speak yet, but throat is a little less sore. Yay!

Hope you’re having fun today BCs!

xoxoxoxoxox

How about you?

Please feel free to comment on MY statuses or add YOUR OWN thoughts, feelings, challenges, rants and raves on these pages too. That was one of the original purposes of why I posted on FB. I thought BCs might like to share about THEIR days. So if you have thoughts and feelings you’d like to share with the group, go ahead and put them here with your comments.

*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.

The Bravery Coach

TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:

Daily Bravery Tweets via TheBraveryCoach on Twitter

Status 9-13-15*

First time I’ve been hiking since recording day 120. Had to get an EARLY start since it was so hot. Feeling happy to be on the mountain, but I’m not even close to feeling like myself.

Yesterday

If you’d like an update on my tummy, read my last blog post. I actually hesitated very much over publicly posting that one as I figured it wasn’t really very encouraging and probably TMI. But then I decided to go ahead as it was how I felt.

I’m still not even close to 100% and starting to get the blues over it. It does wear you down to have health issues with your body. In a weird way it gives me comfort to still be my fluffy self as unexplained weight loss is a bad symptom.

Went to my voice acting coaching session with David yesterday and was impressed with myself. I truly felt terrible physically and kind of went to take my mind off of it. I didn’t think we would record anything usable. Surprise! I made some really great progress and left encouraged. Hooray! (Maybe it made me less self conscious of my acting since I was so focused on how my body was feeling).

Today

I got up super early to go hiking.

Here’s view of the side trail I usually use on the downwards trip. It’s about 7:30 am and I’m still on the way up.

Mark and I were going bike riding, but the temps were too high for the time we’d wanted to ride, and since I was up so early I modified and went hiking. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how far I’d get. You can lose hiking tone if you don’t use it. But slow and sure, I got all the way up to the upper Zen place and back. I enjoyed being out in the fresh air, even though it got very hot, even by 8:00 am on the way down.

Then I wrote a silly commercial for a wonder eraser (homework from David). By writing an ad about something I understand in the same vein as the actual scientific spot we’re working on, it helps me to get a better handle on my delivery. The scientific spot is FILLED with words that are hard to say and hard to understand, so I needed to practice how someone who WOULD understand it would deliver a spot like that.

It was fun to write such a silly thing. Here it is!

A New Approach to Multi-use Erasers*

Frampton Brother’s sea-gummy eraser technology is based on the duel action ability of two natural enzymes inherent in Scandinavian sea lettuce: one which keys perfectly with the molecules of pencil graphite, the other with the molecules of carbon black commonly found in ink pens. When lightly rubbed over any form of pencil or pen mark, these sea-gummy duel molecules effectively lift the pencil or pen mark cleanly away without affecting the paper. Each molecule bonds with over 50 times its own weight in graphite and/or carbon black making every eraser’s capacity for removal more than 10,000 marks. Duel action technology is utilized in every eraser in Frampton Brother’s sea-gummy line for a broad range of stand-alone and writing utensil options.

*Any relation to ANY product living or dead is a wildly unlikely coincidence.

Now I’m ping ponging between reruns of Survivor and America’s Next Top Model.

In a bit I’ll go record my science piece to practice and do my vocal exercises.

Hope you’re having fun today BCs!

xoxoxoxoxox

How about you?

Please feel free to comment on MY statuses or add YOUR OWN thoughts, feelings, challenges, rants and raves on these pages too. That was one of the original purposes of why I posted on FB. I thought BCs might like to share about THEIR days. So if you have thoughts and feelings you’d like to share with the group, go ahead and put them here with your comments.

*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.

The Bravery Coach

TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:

Daily Bravery Tweets via TheBraveryCoach on Twitter

Status 9-07-15*

At least the view was nice at 7:00 am. Hot! Dry! Hot!

Yesterday

Well I wrote a blog post Yahoo!. But the topic of it continued to plague me a bit. It’s gotten so that food is no longer pleasurable AT ALL, and everything is about how it feels in my tummy. I’m also surprised that I seem to be putting on fat even though I’m not eating much at the moment. But I’m thinking my metabolism is at a screeching halt and so I need to gently do what I can. It would be very easy to throw in the towel, but I’m not. I continue to follow medical advice and to also track what/when/how I’ve eaten/slept/exercised etc. Wow, sounds like a weight loss diet, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t trigger me at all as I could give a rat’s ass about what I look like anymore. All I want is to feel good again.

Today

Went for an early morning walk down to the park. Something I’ve done for over 20 years. In fact, day 1 was exactly this route. If you listen to this first episode you will hear the dogs/cars/plane noise that hear on a regular basis. Walking is one of the BEST things to do to gently get things moving digestively. I felt pretty good, UNTIL I stopped to take a selfie.

You can see the drop of sweat that seemed to temp the thirsty ants in hot weather. Who knew?

Now this isn’t my best photo, and you can tell I don’t feel the best, but the BIG PAIN is somehow my sweating body attracted a stream of unknown visitors. In the few seconds it took to take this photo, dozens of biting (drinking?) ants were up my pant legs, up my t-shirt and even in my hair.

I felt the first bite on my leg and brushed the bugger away. Then another, then another, then I realized, like a movie scream queen, that I was indeed invaded! Ants were teaming over me. Bite, bite, bite. OH EM GEE! Off with my shirt (I’m sure the other walkers were very entertained at this point), brush them off, shake the shirt, use the shirt like a towel to try and get them off of my back. Shit! They are in my hair!Undo the band, elastic off, head over, shake, shake, shake. Fingers combing. Dang, I wished I had used conditioner last shampoo. Tangled early morning curls full of ants aren’t my idea of style. All of these contortions gave “Shake your booty” an entirely new meaning.

Sigh.

Head to the restroom at the park. Can go in a stall and disrobe completely and brush myself down.

ARGH! The guy whose job it is to open all of the restrooms must be having extra coffee this am. Not one of them were unlocked.

More prancing all the way home. More inside out shirt whipping off and dancing. Lucky for me I no longer give a fig what I look like, truly. Got home (FINALLY), now over 80 degrees before 7:30 am. I’m sweaty, anty and ready to scream. But acting deliberately I disrobe in the garage tossing the ant infested clothing directly into the washer. Then I run upstairs into the shower. Mark, not usually surprised by ANYTHING I do, was actually curious.

“How could this HAPPEN?” I demanded.

“Must have stopped for a moment”. He shrugged and went back to sleep.

Damn selfies! Damn IG!

Next time, I’ll be moving briskly, one way or another.

Hope you’re having fun today BCs!

xoxoxoxoxox

How about you?

Please feel free to comment on MY statuses or add YOUR OWN thoughts, feelings, challenges, rants and raves on these pages too. That was one of the original purposes of why I posted on FB. I thought BCs might like to share about THEIR days. So if you have thoughts and feelings you’d like to share with the group, go ahead and put them here with your comments.

*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.

The Bravery Coach

TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:

Daily Bravery Tweets via TheBraveryCoach on Twitter

Status 8-18-15*

Here I am – my life for the next several days. Editing takes quite a while and I have a ton of it to do before I can firm up writing the show order and all the parts that go between segments. Nothing seems to be easy. Self sabotage? Perfectionism? Or just loads of material?

Yesterday

All I did was edit, edit, edit! But don’t get to hopeful for show 120 to be up any time soon. This was just trying to get all of the individual segments that will make up the show done so I can put them in some kind of order and write the transitions. Transitions are all of the things I say in between segments to make them understandable for the audience. So I was REALLY overly optimistic when I thought I could get this editing AND the writing complete in time to hike today.

But thanks and BIG smooches to you BCs who put supportive comments on my blog rant about my lack of progress and hot weather. It really helped me to get grounded again. This last show is a labor of love, not self-punishment.

Today

More of the same. It’s cooler, thank God! But still plenty warm, so today my play is to continue through the edits and see how far I get.

FYI, here’s the process for any of my non-bonus shows.

1. Review audio submissions and comments for inclusion in next show.
2. Get some idea about the themes for the show.
3. Edit any audio segments (usually this is pretty light, as the segments are usually pretty short)
4. Figure out the order of segments (usually not bad, as the regular show has a pretty standard format)
5. Write all of the material needed to go between segments (everything except Stéfanie’s Secret Topic response and my Letting Go pondering – these are both done on the fly)
6. Edit my writing and send to my phone.
7. Format on my phone’s note app so I can read these (remember I’m blind as a bat and so my font needs to be big with space)
8. Hike or walk somewhere, preferably early in the day so I can find a shady Zen spot to record in.
9. Record all of the segments, hopefully with few mistakes or retakes.
10. Listen to my recordings on the way down the mountain or walking back from the park, mentally noting what needs fixing or retakes.
11. Transfer the recorded files to my computer
12. Edit all of these pieces together, adding in any SFX or extra music. Make sure the levels are consistent so you won’t be blasted or lose too much volume in your earbuds or over the speakers when you listen.
13. Initial export of main file.
14. Listen AGAIN (man I get sick of my voice by now)
15. Good, or not good and edit and export again, or move on.
16. Add XML tags to the file and upload to my media provider’s server.
17. Write all of the show notes and links and test them.
18. Make sure the podcast file is working on the site.
19. Double check the technical parts that make the publicity blasts work (as much as I can)
20. DEEP BREATH and click “Publish”.

So, as you can see, I’m not TOO far in my list at the moment. Partially because I have SO MUCH MORE material than usual, and partially because I want everyone to shine as much as I can for this last appearance. One thing is for sure, I have LEARNED so much besides what I’ve learned about my eating disorder. I’ve learned many professional skills when it comes to producing a podcast. It’s a ton of work on the best of days, but since my work right now is making me sad as well as happy, it’s just a bit harder to get through.

Bottom line, I’ll just keep moving and when I get there, I do. Hmmm, kind of like my conclusion with Intuitive Eating?

Hope you’re having fun today BCs!

xoxoxoxoxox

How about you?

Please feel free to comment on MY statuses or add YOUR OWN thoughts, feelings, challenges, rants and raves on these pages too. That was one of the original purposes of why I posted on FB. I thought BCs might like to share about THEIR days. So if you have thoughts and feelings you’d like to share with the group, go ahead and put them here with your comments.

*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.

The Bravery Coach

TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:

Daily Bravery Tweets via TheBraveryCoach on Twitter

Status 8-09-15*

Here’s a photo from the LAST before even the dang roosters wake up bike ride Mark and I took. We’re off early again today to beat the heat and move our bodies along the river.

Yesterday

Well I was happy to get some very nice audio good-byes under the wire. Smooches to you BCs who took the time to be in the last show. Not only do I appreciate it (and I admit some of the messages made me cry), but I KNOW the listening BCs will appreciate it too. So many have come to know us through the show, that they will miss YOU the participating BCs as much as me. And for those, who for whatever reason, didn’t make the deadline but have participated in the past, thanks from the bottom of my heart for all of your comments, features and participation that took Compulsive Overeating Diary to the level of community and support it was.

It was a happy day and a sad day all at once.

Today

Coffee and off to the river to ride. Then a brief nap and back to work editing features for the last show and writing all of the transitions etc. I’m estimating it will be about a week before I can get this ready to record and start the long edit. I’ll give you all a shoutout here when I’m getting close to releasing day 120. I’ll take my time, it’s my last gift to you, and I really, really care about it 🙂

Hope you’re having fun today BCs!

xoxoxoxoxox

How about you?

Please feel free to comment on MY statuses or add YOUR OWN thoughts, feelings, challenges, rants and raves on these pages too. That was one of the original purposes of why I posted on FB. I thought BCs might like to share about THEIR days. So if you have thoughts and feelings you’d like to share with the group, go ahead and put them here with your comments.

*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.

The Bravery Coach

TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:

Daily Bravery Tweets via TheBraveryCoach on Twitter