Personal Digest Saturday (but posted on Sunday!): November 21 – November 27

Life news this week:

• Saturday involved plotting stuff for my podcast in between taking walks and doing my blogging. I also got a chance to watch more of the 2020 Animaniacs reboot before sitting down to do the podcast with Daria. And as usual it was a great podcast. I managed to get in one more walk and more cartoons before bedtime.
  
  
• Sunday was laundry and cleaning up, plus some rambling about Animaniacs nostalgia online and critiquing some annoying online quizzes. Jeaux took me out for shopping since we wouldn't be able to do it Wednesday and we didn't want it to get too close to Thanksgiving shopping. Then I got a BUNCH of typing done on Cat's video transcript. Finally I finished off watching the Animaniacs reboot season 1.
  
  
• Monday wasn't too busy at work. We got some good news though: we were selected on a DOT contract and we're pretty pumped. I worked on some other stuff for letters and played games with my friends after work. Katelyn didn't join us because she had a bad headache.
  
  
• Tuesday we had a meeting about the new project and dealt with some marketing stuff. I did all my entries for the new data entry order I got. In the evening I put up my canvases on the wall. Also talked to Mom and she said she was up for Thanksgiving even though yesterday she wasn't sure she could pull it off. Meg's family was feeling crappy and Katelyn still hadn't improved so she took her to urgent care and tested her for Covid. But Meg and Brendon had begun coming down with something too. Li'l Benny was fine.
  
  
• Wednesday work was pretty slow again so I just did some updates on organization and downloading info for people. I got more subtitling done for Cat's video and tried to make a dent in some built up e-mails. Not very successful. I finally finished the video but processing was taking forever. I took some pictures of my new SU blankets! And I made pumpkin pies--very small ones. Meg's family decided not to do Thanksgiving because they were feeling bad.
  
  
• Thursday was pretty good. Day off work. I got up early to bake rolls but they didn't rise properly. (Later I assumed it was probably the fault of the milk I used.) They were okay even though they were dense. Jeaux took me to my mom's and I had assumed she would need a lot of help but she had already managed everything spectacularly! And even made me an egg/cheese soufflé type thing so I could have a main course that wasn't chicken or ham. And there were also potatoes and THREE kinds of vegetables. Good food! The bad thing was that my mom was so exhausted afterwards that she went in her room with her plate and literally didn't wake up for the rest of the night. So Jeaux and I just . . . ate our food, watched some comedy, cleaned up the kitchen and put away her food, and delivered some to Victor before going home. Poor Mom missed the whole night.
  
  
• Friday I got up late--it's another day off work. Touched base with Mom who was feeling sad about missing everything but it's not her fault she's chronically ill. I ate Thanksgiving leftovers all day long. Katelyn's test results came back and she has Covid-19. They figured probably everyone else had it too since they had symptoms. Meg went for a rapid test and it came back positive. Spent the day pacing around and talking to her and worrying and trying to get other things done but mostly being distracted by worrying about her family. I did manage to get my Negative One comic done but it was a squeeze.

New Reviews of My Book:

• Lucy gave it a three-star review on Goodreads.
  
• Katie Guttenberg gave it a two-star review on Goodreads.

Food Plan Update:

• Thanksgiving was always gonna make a dent in this, but that's natural! I had a "scale got stuck" week until after Thanksgiving when it went up a little bit, and that's no big deal--I'm not upset about it. I'm still feeling really good health-wise and food-wise, satisfied with the options I'm choosing and not going too overboard in either direction.
• Here are this week's charts.

Reading progress:

• Finished Reading: Nothing new this week.

• Currently reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm on page 271.

New singing performances:

This week's karaoke song is "Do You Remember" by Phil Collins. I tried the site's new beta recorder if you notice something different.



Stuff Drawn:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0811: "Influential."






New videos: 

My video with Cat hasn't been approved by them yet, sorry, can't post it! That's the reason I didn't post on Saturday--was hoping Cat would have time to review and I would be able to include the video in my roundup, but it didn't happen. Hopefully next week!

New photos:

Got the canvas up! Now the guestroom is more Steveny

SU Blankets!

My tiny pie for Thanksgiving

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,295 for swankivy (lost 3), 667 for JulieSondra (lost 2), 17 for v & V Vids (no change), 106 for Not-So-Giant Women (no change). Twitter followers: 943 for swankivy (no change), 1,365 for JulieSondra (3 new). Facebook: 299 friends for swankivy (no change), 631 likes for JulieSondra (lost 1), 73 likes for Negative One (no change), 225 likes for So You Write (no change), 85 likes for Not-So-Giant-Women (1 new). Tumblr followers: 2,476 (lost 3). Instagram followers: 209 (no change).

Personal Digest Saturday: November 14 – November 20

Life news this week:

• Got up and made oatmeal cookies for my mom, cleaned the kitchen, and got Jeaux to drop me off at Mom's house. Hung out for a few hours and chilled for no real reason. She drove me home. Also I got to send some material out for publishing stuff so that's exciting! When I got home I took a walk and a shower, organized my blog stuff, and made a "Giant Woman" ukulele video.
  
  
• Sunday I did laundry and talked to my dad in a pretty epic phone conversation. Nice to get caught up with him again. Then I got another ukulele song in (I performed "Strong in the Real Way" and did both parts, dressed up in costumes!). And I made a funny Poop School video for my nephew as well. He loves those things. Talked to Jeaux on the phone while taking walks too. I had a huge ridiculous step count because of all the pacing around I did.
  
  
• Monday was a madhouse--the office got broken into so the police being there interrupted part of the day and we had a submittal to get out. Lovely. (Weirdly, they didn't take or damage anything of ours, but we got water damage.) I worked with my boss to get a proposal out and also edited a letter. After work I took a walk and made a talky video for my sister. Then I played games with my friends online and had a nice catch-up text chat with Steve. And one of my music covers got featured on Amino.
  
  
• Tuesday I was pretty busy with utility stuff and other business. Had a lot of proposal stuff to gather. Made some more videos for my sister and incorporated some missing stuff into my website. After work I conducted an interview with an asexual person named Eric who was great to interview. Also managed to send out an e-mail message I'd been working on for a while.
  
  
• Wednesday I had to get up early for some work stuff. Did some letter stuff, normal administrative stuff, reports, business development, etc. Talked to Tony outside after work until Jeaux got in. We went shopping and hung out. Just watched some Colbert and silly stuff and talked to each other.
  
  
• Thursday I didn't want to get up because it was cold. Spent the day organizing documents and revamping a letter. After work I made a quiz for Amino and talked to Victor on the phone while drawing.
  
  
• Friday was kind of frustrating at work but I got through everything I needed to do. Then after work I drew the rest of my comic and spent the evening watching the reboot of Animaniacs. Yes, they rebooted the show for 2020. I was incredibly obsessed with that show when I was in high school and I can't believe it's back, so of course I have to watch all of it.

Food Plan Update:

• Doing about the same. I had a few days where I was really hungry and avoided the temptation to eat easy/less healthy stuff really well, so I was disappointed that I didn't really see any movement on the scale. (It went up and down, and I ended up in the same exact place I've been for a week.)
• Here are this week's charts.

Reading progress:

• Finished Reading: Nothing new this week.

• Currently reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm on page 167.

New singing performances:

This week's karaoke song is "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. I tried the site's new beta recorder if you notice something different.



Stuff Drawn:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0810: "Outside."






New videos: 

"Giant Woman" on ukulele:

"Strong in the Real Way" on ukulele:

New photos:

See you in Poop School

Watching Animaniacs 2020

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,298 for swankivy (1 new), 669 for JulieSondra (no change), 17 for v & V Vids (no change), 106 for Not-So-Giant Women (no change). Twitter followers: 943 for swankivy (lost 1), 1,362 for JulieSondra (lost 1). Facebook: 299 friends for swankivy (no change), 632 likes for JulieSondra (1 new), 73 likes for Negative One (no change), 225 likes for So You Write (lost 1), 84 likes for Not-So-Giant-Women (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,479 (lost 1). Instagram followers: 209 (no change).

Personal Digest Saturday: November 7 – November 13

Life news this week:

• Ended up putting off my blogging stuff most of the day despite my best intentions because I was pretty distracted by election news. Seems like the election has been called and Joe Biden is President-Elect. Besides paying attention to all kinds of fallout from this and doing my walking and talking to people through text and telephone, I did some fun collages of my Steven Universe food and posted them online.
  
  
• Sunday I got laundry done and did some really fun karaoke. Also did some budget stuff and took a walk and got whistled at by a dork in a truck. And I read and watched election-related stuff because how can you not.
  
  
• Monday work wasn't busy like I thought it would be--had a pretty slow day and just had to make an organizational chart for a proposal. After work I decided it is time to start querying agents again. (It's been a while. But I have multiple finished books that I think are good enough and why sit on them any longer?) I know it's a little bit strange but I had a GREAT time researching and pitching some agents. I find it fun even though most authors hate this part. I also took a look at some website stuff to make my author site more accurate for the present. We did not do our usual game night because Meggie was sick.
  
  
• Tuesday I got caught in the rain trying to walk. :D Talked to my sister on Polo and did more website updates. One of my writer friends volunteered to refer me to her agent after she found out I was querying and I decided that was a cool idea! (I'm not gonna post the details of the querying adventure on my blog though.) For some reason I had a lot of incidents today where people were talking to me like I'm incompetent and don't know what I'm talking about, even though there was no good reason for that. Oh and my coworker asked me to start taking training on Final Estimates, so I started the training.
  
  
• Wednesday I had to spend all day on the training. It was already long but it became even longer because I'm not good at math and there was a lot of math. (I'm not talking arithmetic. I'm talking like "In constructing a circular curve for a driveway as outlined, the center line radius is 125 feet, the delta of the curve is 11.5917 degrees and the roadway width is 30 feet. With these dimensions, what is the length of the centerline to the nearest foot?" Good lord. Not a good day for someone who got a D in College Algebra. Anyway, we also got hit by a hurricane. (The math was a way worse part of my day.) Hurricane Eta was a tropical storm by the time it dumped a bunch of rain and wind on me but despite all the loud noises of stuff falling on my house, I don't think anything got busted. I elected not to go shopping with Jeaux so I talked to Victor instead and switched Jeaux day to Thursday.
  
  
• Thursday I was super busy at work dealing with resumes for a proposal and for a submittal to another team. I kept getting new stuff to do and it was just go-go-go all day. Jeaux came over and we went to the store, and dinner was stir-fry that wasn't very good sadly. We hung out and went on a walk after eating. We didn't watch anything except some silly videos and Colbert news.
  
  
• Friday was also busy with the same stuff as the day before. After work I had to get all my drawing done for the comic and when I had a little time at the end of the night I got some materials together for agent stuff. I'm happy with how the adventure is going so far!

New Reviews of My Book:

• Reixel Soy Yo gave it a five-star review on Goodreads.

Food Plan Update:

• I'm going to try to look more into the "micronutrients" and the breakdown of the vitamins to make sure I am getting the nutrients I should. The new app thing I'm using gives me all this data if I look for it, and it looks like I'm consistently low in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, Potassium, and Iron. I also usually have high sodium. I feel like if I just add a salad or green vegetable and one serving of fruit each day, I will have less trouble with this.
  
  
• I had a weirdly consistent week. The scale went down half a pound and then stayed there all week, didn't go up or down.
  
  
• Here are this week's charts.

Reading progress:

• Finished Reading: Asexual Erotics by Ela Przybylo. Four-star review.

• Currently reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm on page 19.

New singing performances:

This week's karaoke song is "Ghost" by Indigo Girls.



Stuff Drawn:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0809: "He Wants."






New videos: 

None this week.

New photos:

Peace y'all

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,297 for swankivy (no change), 669 for JulieSondra (no change), 17 for v & V Vids (no change), 106 for Not-So-Giant Women (1 new). Twitter followers: 944 for swankivy (3 new), 1,363 for JulieSondra (2 new). Facebook: 299 friends for swankivy (1 new, accepted a friend request from a friend's daughter), 631 likes for JulieSondra (3 new), 73 likes for Negative One (no change), 226 likes for So You Write (3 new), 84 likes for Not-So-Giant-Women (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,480 (no change). Instagram followers: 209 (no change).

Personal Digest Saturday: October 31 – November 6

Life news this week:

• What a week! Saturday was HALLOWEEN. But it was a little disappointing since I didn't get to have a party this year due to Covid and then I suspected there would not be many kids trick-or-treating to cheer me up. Nevertheless, I baked some really delicious pumpkin muffins and dressed up as Pearl from Steven Universe (the last of the main Crystal Gems I have not cosplayed as), and later I set myself up in the garage with my computer to hang out and watch for trick-or-treaters (with candy placed a safe distance from my desk). I got ONE trick-or-treater, but I had fun with my costume and got a bunch of stuff done sitting out there. I got my writing webcomic done too.
  
  
• Sunday I woke up disoriented because of Daylight Saving's and made pretty good use of the day. Did my late blogging, did my laundry and trash, and started an eating experiment to see if it would make a difference. I cleaned up a bunch of my outdated writing-related places on the Internet so I could add in the fact that MY SHORT STORY GOT PUBLISHED TODAY. My story "Everyone's Gay in Space" went out to subscribers, with a later release being scheduled. I also was reading a novel I wrote a while back and I finished rereading what was written. I want to write more of it. Got a terribly silly message on OKCupid.
  
  
• Monday I got up early and had only a few things to do--did some corrections on data entry and filled out some forms for a proposal. Did some more updates for my pages to reflect my story publishing. Posted some recipes. Hung out with my friends after work on Discord and played games with them. Mom also came over with some food and gave me a bunch of tomatoes. She stayed for a little while but not that long. I gave her some of my muffins and candy. And my short story was released as its own e-book with its own cover! Never had a cover done for a short story before, wow. And it'll be in an anthology that comes out February 2021.
  
  
• Tuesday was ELECTION DAY! I had already voted by mail but my mom had to take her ballot in and drop it off because she procrastinated returning it. Had a lot of small fires to put out at work. I figured there was nothing really to worry about with the election since there'd be no news for days, but I didn't want Trump to win so the early slant in his favor made me a little nervous. I used some of the tomatoes my mom gave me to make tomato soup from scratch for the first time! It came out a little thin but yummy.
  
  
• Wednesday I awoke early again and several states with an early Trump lead had given way to the Democrats. Throughout the day it seemed like it became settled that Biden was expected to overtake Trump, and that kinda dominated the day. I spent the work day working on utility stuff, updates on a client list, and a report. After work I got to catch up with Tony (my yard maintenance person) and then Jeaux took me to the store. We ate burgers and fries and watched the last three episodes of the second season of Umbrella Academy. We were both kinda looking at election news throughout the night.
  
  
• Thursday there weren't any huge tasks at the office so I got to spend the whole time working on my client list. Then in the evening I took some walks, played a Steven Universe music game I haven't played with in a while called Soundtrack Attack, and talked to Victor on the phone. (He fell asleep so I hung up.) I did some more drawing and election checking, but nothing had been called. The Internet broke late at night because of some bizarre clash of fandom news and world news. I think Tumblr basically melted. It's funny.
  
  
• Friday I expected a busy day at work but it wasn't that busy because my plans weren't ready to go out to utilities so I just focused on reports and timesheets and tweaking some resumes. Talked to Meggie after work while taking walks and drawing my comic. I went to sleep after posting my stuff and we still didn't have decisive news about the President.

Interviews, Articles, Mentions:

• My short story "Everyone's Gay in Space" is listed as a new title on the LGBT New Releases on Rainbow Crate.

New Reviews of My Book:

• Charlotte gave it a five-star review on Goodreads.

Food Plan Update:

• My plan asked me to try an experiment (didn't matter what) where I change something about my diet and make a prediction as to how it will go, and then supposedly I will develop skills to be able to refine my understanding of what works for me. I decided to try three meals a day instead of smaller meals with snacks, and anticipated that doing so might help me cut out late-night snacking and lose pounds faster. Weirdly a) I hated it because I like snacks and don't like feeling out of sorts with what my body wants (don't really want larger meals, really like noshing in between), but b) I DID actually lose more weight this week than I ever have in a single week before (1.5 pounds). Not sure if that's good? But I didn't like the process so I won't keep doing it. I'm back to smaller meals and snacks. :)
  
  
• I changed my pedometer thingie and it turned out I'd been working way harder than I needed to to get to 10,000 steps a day (the old one registered steps with less consistency than it should have), so now that I'm using a different tracking app, the stats might look better here. I guess I'll just post them and see if it's worth doing?

Click it to blow up if it expands into the sidebar.

Reading progress:

• Finished Reading: Nothing this week.

• Currently reading: Asexual Erotics by Ela Przybylo. I'm on page 138.

New singing performances:

This week's karaoke song is "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. A duet with Joseph1974!



Stuff Drawn:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0808: "Something Bad."






New videos: 

None this week.

New photos:

My favorite images from Halloween featuring my Pearl costume, pumpkin muffins, and my trick-or-treat setup:

Me looking determined on Election Day

: 

My homemade tomato soup with basil!

And check out these images the artists for After Dinner Conversation made for the magazine I'm in, the anthology I'll be in when it comes out next year, and the story I wrote:

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,297 for swankivy (4 new), 669 for JulieSondra (no change), 17 for v & V Vids (no change), 105 for Not-So-Giant Women (no change). Twitter followers: 941 for swankivy (lost 3), 1,361 for JulieSondra (2 new). Facebook: 298 friends for swankivy (no change, wow I didn't lose anyone during the election stuff), 628 likes for JulieSondra (lost 2), 73 likes for Negative One (2 new), 223 likes for So You Write (3 new), 84 likes for Not-So-Giant-Women (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,480 (lost 1). Instagram followers: 209 (2 new).

Personal Digest Saturday (but posted on Sunday!): October 24 – October 30

Life news this week:

• Saturday I got some walking in and finally got to watch Hamilton with Victor long-distance. He really enjoyed it and kept saying "this is so good!" Also got my blogging done early. Made some videos for my sister and unboxed some packages for her. Then I did my podcast with Daria and we watched "Say Uncle," and then I interviewed her for the ace interviews series! Great day!
  
  
• Sunday I got up super late. Got walking in, got laundry done, worked on a transcript for Cat's video and listened to the new Steven Universe Future soundtrack that just got released. (I wrote up a review.) Updated some apps and posted some recipe stuff. I wrote a song about poop to put in a video for my nephew.
  
  
• Monday I had a couple work meetings and had to work on various proposals--one for a county and one for a city. Had to play around with timeheets and resumes too. I made my Poop School video for my nephew but didn't get to finish processing it because I was playing games with my friends online. We kept getting kicked out though, but we still had fun.
  
  
• Tuesday I got my sink fixed in the morning. Worked on some data entry at work, did some transcript stuff, and did some walking. Then I got dressed up a little so I could do a fun livestream for my asexual week event. It was a live event that went on for three hours and I talked about books and then other random stuff from the live chatters who kept sending in messages. After it was over I made my bed with freshly washed sheets and went to bed early.
  
  
• Wednesday I mostly worked on data entry stuff and then I did a four-mile bike ride to a radiology place. Made a new friend in the waiting room. :D Then another four miles back. I was wiped out and had to take a shower. Jeaux came over and we got gas and groceries, and we ate burritos while watching Colbert and Umbrella Academy.
  
  
• Thursday I was busy with a proposal and data entry. I got all my roads entered except one. Did some more walking and stayed late to finish. I worked on my comic while talking to Victor as well and then fell asleep early.
  
  
• Friday was an early day to finish our proposal. We got it turned in without much drama. Then I knocked out the rest of the data entry project and I'm done with that too. Did more walks and finished Negative One. Started rereading one of my unfinished books. I think I used to be a better writer than I am now.

Interviews, Articles, Mentions:

• In Angela Chen's interview with Reading Women Podcast, my book is recommended as a resource.
  
• Tumblr user extra-magichours made a post about loving my book.

New Reviews of My Book:

• Chris White gave it a five-star review on Goodreads.
  
• Morgan gave it a four-star review on Goodreads.
  
• Delfina gave it a four-star review on Audible (in Spanish).

Food Plan Update:

• Going well but I keep undereating because I'm busy. It's not making any difference in whether or how fast I'm losing weight either, and I really need to do better about not letting it get too long between meals. I'm also recognizing the need to do better with my hydration. I gotta drink more water. I'll share some stats on exercise and whatnot next time.

Reading progress:

• Finished Reading: Nothing this week.

• Currently reading: Asexual Erotics by Ela Przybylo. I'm on page 95.

New singing performances:

This week's karaoke song is "All the Things She Said" by t.A.T.u. I realized when I tried to sing it that I'm more familiar with this song in Russian than in English.



Stuff Drawn:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0807: "What Love Does."






New videos: 

My three-hour Ace Week Livestream may be a bit much for some people but we talk about ace literature and then I do discussion and Q&A from the chat.

New photos:

New canvases from SU!

Blue eyeliner experiment.

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 5,293 for swankivy (3 new), 669 for JulieSondra (no change), 17 for v & V Vids (no change), 105 for Not-So-Giant Women (no change). Twitter followers: 944 for swankivy (2 new), 1,359 for JulieSondra (3 new). Facebook: 298 friends for swankivy (no change), 630 likes for JulieSondra (no change), 71 likes for Negative One (1 new), 220 likes for So You Write (no change), 84 likes for Not-So-Giant-Women (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,481 (1 new). Instagram followers: 207 (3 new).