Yasmine Galenorn's MySpace Blog | Life On The Fringe: Yasmine's Mirrored Blog

MySpace.com | rss | sign in

Yasmine Galenorn

Yasmine Galenorn

Last Updated: 11/23/2009

Send Message
Instant Message
Email to a Friend
Subscribe

Gender: Female
Sign: Capricorn

City: Seattle Area
State: Washington
Country: US

Blog Archive

[Older Newer]

/ /

September 9, 2009 - Wednesday

Blogging over at the Fire & Ice Blog today...

About how I motivate myself. Or not. As the case may be. ~grins~

And since it's a blogspot blog and of course, MySpace kills the links, here it is in pieces:

Of course you start with the http://

Then you add: fireandiceauthors

And then the: .blogspot

and lastly: .com

Sorry for the roundabout way but MS won't let me post the addy as a whole.

Yasmine

4:16 PM

1 Comments

(Add Comment) |

5 Kudos

Translate

September 5, 2009 - Saturday

What It Is...Got Some Bloodwork Back

So the preliminary results of my bloodwork are in. The lower carb no-starch diet is working: my AC-1 blood sugar panel is dropping and I’m turning around the pre-diabetes (and no, I’m not giving you my numbers—none of anybody’s business). My thyroid levels are still way off so we’re upping my thyroid medicine. Which is no surprise to me because I’ve been thinking I’m not on enough—skin’s still terribly dry, still get the afternoon slump even though I’m not eating starch now and that always puts me to sleep. Cholesterol, triglycerides, all that are good. Still somewhat B and B12 deficient, and Vitamin D hasn’t come in yet.

What it amounts to is that I’m moving in the right direction but no wonder I still feel under the weather a lot. I’m hoping the new level of thyroid medicine works and I rebound on it.

Whatever the case, the fact that I’m inching back from diabetes—that I’m not edging toward it anymore—gives me strong motivation to stay on this diet and make it work. Yes, I want to lose weight (and am again, starting to see a bit of loss)—I’ve never been ‘thin’ and never will be, don’t expect it, but I’d like to drop about six-seven more sizes. I wouldn’t be ‘thin’ but I’d be comfortable and happy with that. Mostly, I want my body to respond again without chronic pain, without feeling sluggish. Working out with a friend once a week and trying to get in 1-2 more workouts during the week will hopefully help too.

And before anybody offers advice contrary to what my doctor and I’ve been doing: please don’t. I’m not asking for advice. I’m just filling you in on my life at this point. I'm kind of grumpy due to the diet, it's not fun and easy, so just bear with me on Twitter, etc., as I do my best to find my equilibrium in this long-term endeavor.

No new recipes right now, but will be playing with some stevia-sweetened nut-flour recipes soon. So we’ll see where that goes.

Yasmine

12:13 AM

33 Comments

(Add Comment) |

28 Kudos

Translate

August 30, 2009 - Sunday

E-Piracy & How It Hurts Writers

Authors are getting fed up. Shiloh Walker said it as well or better as I would have in her Piracy Post.

Meanwhile, And what else can YOU-a reader-do to help us fight piracy? Don't download pirated books. Take a stand. Tell your friends not to. Be the bad cop for a change...if you're in school, write a research paper on it. Write newsletter articles about the problem, blog about it.

Get the word out. Put up links to our blogs about how piracy affects us. Word of mouth not only can help an author by letting peeps know about their books, but by helping peeps know how to keep those books coming!

Bottom line: we WANT to write the books you love, but we can't do it if we're losing rent money b/c of thievery. Help us stamp out piracy.

Except, of course, for Johnny Depp, the cutest pirate there was. *grins

Yasmine

7:34 PM

9 Comments

(Add Comment) |

20 Kudos

Translate

August 27, 2009 - Thursday

Guest Blogging At Nalini Singh's

I have a guest blog up at @NaliniSingh's blog. Contest. (I'll pick the winner Saturday morning).

http: //www. nalinisingh.blogspot DOT com

Remove spaces. MySpace hates Blogger so can't put the link.

10:17 PM

1 Comments

(Add Comment) |

3 Kudos

Translate

August 26, 2009 - Wednesday

Between Fire and Ice...

...that I've started along with authors Alyssa Day and Anya Bast. In honor of my inauguration post I'm running a contest there today! I'll be blogging there every Wednesday.

It's a blogger URL so MySpace won't like it, but here it is in pieces, and you can find the link from my personal Blogger blog. http//(no spaces here)fireandiceauthors DOT blogspot DOT com

Yasmine

2:33 PM

0 Comments

(Add Comment) |

7 Kudos

Translate

August 21, 2009 - Friday

It Was Only A Dream
Current mood:

busy

I have a lot of nightmares—more than the average person. I’ve got a lot of baggage from the past, from abuse as a child, from domestic abuse with my ex. Combined with my vivid writer’s imagination and a tendency to walk in the shadows, my dreams can get pretty dark at times. I can’t count the number of times Sam’s had to wake me up because I’ve been screaming in my sleep, or crying, and I can’t pull out of the dream. Horrendous dreams, of spiders and monsters and the truly human monsters I've faced in the past.

But there are nightmares, and then there are the nightmares that seem to spring from Tim Burton’s imagination, or the Enquirer, or the local urban legends mixed with some bizarre cartoon. And those—those are the ones that make us wonder, that leave us scratching our heads after we catch our breath. Or perhaps they’re the ones that leave us laughing and going WTF after we’ve fully pulled out of them.

To that extent, I promised my readers a week or so ago on Twitter, I’d blog about a couple of my bizarre nightmares that make me question just how far I still stand on the sanity scale.

First—the granddaddy of them all has to be my Alien Pig Love Slave Dream. Now, let me preface this with…oh hell, there is NO way to preface it. I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know why I had it, all I know is that it’s both Laugh-out-Loud and yet a little embarrassing just because it shows you just how far warped my mind has gotten. Maybe my subconscious was trying to amuse me.

The Great alien Pig Love Slave Dream: Apparently we (as a planet) had been invaded by alien pigs. Now the alien pigs were bipedal, though they had hooves, they were about 3-4 feet talk, BRILLIANT fuchsia, and they were in league with the Nazis. (Hold on, it gets better). So there were groups of people around the country trying to form an underground resistance against the combined alien-pig-menace-Nazi threat, because of course—they were out to control the world.

Now, I was the leader of one small underground resistance group. I don’t know if we had a code name, but we were about twenty strong. And we’d found a floor of an office building that was deserted and decided to set up shop there. We were trying to black out the windows with dark paper so they couldn’t see in, and we were busy building secret doors and all that good stuff that underground resistance units do.

Well, at one point, I was helping someone put black paper against the window when I happened to glance out at the building across the way. There, I could see—through the opposite building’s window—a group of Nazis and Alien Pigs staring back at me through binoculars. I shouted for people to get out before they could come over but as we neared the door, running and trying to gather up our documents, the Nazis and Alien Pigs broke in.

They gathered us together in a group and I, being the good leader I was, identified myself as such and took responsibility for my people. One of the Nazis tipped my chin up and said, “We could kill you all, you know that don’t you?”

I nodded and said, “Please, let my people go (okay, okay—it’s cliché but yes I said it in the dream), and I will take the punishment.”

One of the Alien Pigs whispered to the Nazi and he looked at me and said, “We will let your people live if you agree to become the consort of the Great Alien Pig Leader.” (Yes, he said ‘great alien pig leader’).

I threw my arm across my brow like in a melodrama and, in a trembling voice, said, “Yes, I will be your leader’s love slave if you let my people live.”

And then…I woke up.

I kid you not, yes I had this dream and to this day those pigs are as brilliant fuchsia in my mind as they were then. During the dream it really was terrifying—I mean, they were going to kill us and I knew it, and then the only chance to survive was to become the concubine of an intelligent evil pig? Come on—it was horrifying. But sixty seconds after I woke up and stopped shaking, I lost it laughing and to this day, that remains one of my most vivid, bizarre nightmares.

I’ll give you one other that I had last year--my brief but nerve-racking Drew Carey dream. Now, this I WILL preface by saying I’m sure that Mr. Carey is a nice man and all…but…I dreamed that Drew Carey was determined to marry me. Not only did he want to marry me, he wanted me to move to Minnesota where he’d take me ice fishing. I was terrified and looking for any way to get as far away from him as I could. I woke up in a cold sweat from that dream. Funny? Yah, but trust me, I’m not an inland-sort of woman, and the thought of ice fishing with Drew Carey just does not do anything for me. I’m sure it wouldn’t do anything for him, either, so I think we’re both safe from that dream coming true.

So what about you? Have you had any bizarre nightmares that—in the light of day—made you crack up laughing? If so, dish! I want to hear that I’m not the only psycho around. ~wicked grin~ (And if you see any bright pink bipedal pigs wandering around, watch out!).

Yasmine

6:52 AM

16 Comments

(Add Comment) |

19 Kudos

Translate

August 17, 2009 - Monday

Blog Up Today...

Over at the Witchy Chicks. Since it's on Blogger, you can find the link at the WC website(since MS doesn't allow blogger links).

Yasmine

2:45 PM

1 Comments

(Add Comment) |

7 Kudos

Translate

August 13, 2009 - Thursday

Something Clicked...

I’m in an odd mood today. Taking a couple days Twitter break and that in itself feels odd. Spent a manic past few days getting through the copyedits of Bone Magic, and trust me, it’s a damned hot book, IMO, and darker. In fact, my agent just called to say she's reading it and she raved about it for a nice ego-boosting ten minutes! Seriously, Bone Magic is the best I’ve written in the series, from my viewpoint. I love it—though I wonder what people will think of a few of the character developments and situations that happen. But I can’t let myself worry about other people’s reactions—I write what I need to write and keep it true to my world.

So, I went to the naturopath today, once again, we couldn’t coax blood from my veins. Heh, maybe I really am a vampire? But she was happy that I’m on track and doing what I’m supposed to be doing. We got to talking and I told her, “Something clicked.”

And a light went on in her eyes. She nodded and told me that the “something clicked” point is what will see me to success. When you reach critical mass on something, it shifts—or, ‘clicks’ and you can’t go on the way you have been. You have to make changes…and that’s what I’ve been doing.

You see, I’ve been fighting my weight all my life. I doubt I’ll ever be “thin”—never have been and I’m not sure I’d be comfortable given I’m so short. I’d be too petite for my taste, and I like full curves on a woman (especially me). But my goal is to be back at the size I was when I met my ex—still was considered a ‘plus’ size (especially in today’s society), but a size I could easily work with. And I want to gain some significant strength skills. I used to lift weights and I miss it.

I want to be strong again, to be able to dance through the night again, I want to take belly dancing (or at least make a good stab at it), to take long walks without worrying about muscle spasms in my back. When I injured my ankle and back in 1994, those went by the wayside because I did so much damage and couldn’t afford the things I needed to help myself, including regular health care.

And, yes, I want some of the clothes I used to be able to fit into but was too embarrassed to wear back then because my personal worth and self-esteem were beat to a pulp by my stepfather and my ex—baggage I’ve managed to shed much of over the years.

At this point, I’m able to afford some of the alternative health care that can help me reach these goals—like massage. And I’ve finally embraced the diet that works for my body best instead of fighting it (and please, no helpful suggestions—I’m sticking to what my naturopath and I found works best for me and I am not inviting or approving comments of people who don’t like the fact that I’m not a vegetarian).

I’m off starch, I’m off 99% of the sugar, and I’m feeling better. My chiropractor says my back’s improving, my joints don’t hurt much now when I stand up, my muscles don’t ache as much. It’s not so much weight loss that’s helping (though, yay, I’m starting to see more of that again), but the starch and sugar that muck up my body.

Grains are poison in my system, corn and potatoes need to be saved for very special occasions, few and far between. Meats, poultry, fish, fruit, nuts, and some veggies make up the majority of my diet now, with a few treats scattered in (an occasional drink, once a week a serving of coconut milk agave “frozen dessert”).

I’ve been this route before, but this time, as I said, something clicked—my frustration reached critical mass and kicked over into “fuck it, I’m doing something”. I’m recognizing the joy of feeling stronger vs. the joy of a quick mood fix in the shape of a bowl of noodles or gluten free cookie, both of which immediately react in my system in terms of joint/muscle pain.

And finally, I’m back to the point where I can begin exercising without as much pain. To that end, I’ve cleared out a part of the living room—gave away a nice chair and end table to do so—and ordered a weight bench and a dumbbell rack, new exercise balls, more yoga blocks, and a friend and I are going to work out together a couple times a week here at my place. The mutual support is a goddess-send.

I’m keeping focused on a mantra that’s been helping me: I want the results. I want the results more than than my dislike of regular exercise. I want the results instead of chronic aching. I want the results more than I want a bigger variety in my diet. I want the results even if it means being bored in my diet, and I will not let myself self-destruct this time.

Motivation for change must come from within. And it must come from loving yourself and not hating yourself. I love myself enough to give my body what it needs to feel better, to work on the pain issues, to change what I can so I become my strongest and most brilliant self. I owe it to myself to do this…I’ve worked damned hard, I want to enjoy the work without hurting, I want to enjoy the fruits of what I’ve earned without hurting. *grins*

So yah…I’m rambling today. But I think what I’m coming around to say is that: I’m making changes. I’m reclaiming my strength. My career’s on track, and I want the rest of me to be too. And I’ll be back on Twitter yammering away on Monday. *grins* But hey, you get a break from me this weekend!

Just remember: reader chat in my chatroom on Sunday: 6:00 PM, Pacific time. Registration is required but free, and stick around to play in the forums!

Yasmine

9:12 PM

26 Comments

(Add Comment) |

29 Kudos

Translate