word vomit

I have a scene that I'm writing for AnnaBeth2 in which there is information (aside from the actual scene happenings) that I wish to convey. It's sort of a story within the story about previous events which reveal motivation for one of my supporting character's actions.

I don't want to do a flashback, but I also want to keep from the infamous information dump. For the non-writerly types out there, an info dump is when an author just vomits a bit of story (usually back story) onto the page. It's quick and relatively painless but the cost is a loss of flow.

To prevent an information dump, I did the following. I vomited in a notebook. I wrote the back story all out in basic form. No fluff. Just go. I got it all out of my system, now as I write the actual scene that will go in the book, I weave in the necessary pieces gradually.

Doing this is kind of like spilling all of the puzzle pieces out of the box so you can get a look at what you have before putting them in order.

I'm keeping what's important and losing nonessential aspects or details that could be implied. I like it. Yes I do.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!

There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:

http://www.LeaRyan.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

things watched this weekend

I had flashbacks of my childhood and teenage years this weekend while watching TV. First up was Peewee's Playhouse on Broadway. I used to watch the show when it was on and revisiting that was surreal.

Peewee was just as funny as always. My 8 year old son thought it was hilarious. There was some really, really adult humor but it was so subtle that he didn't pick up on it. If you haven't caught Peewee on Broadway and you used to love the TV show, you must check it out.

Also in the TV time machine weekend, VH1 was showing In Living Color reruns. That was great. I used to watch that show religiously. I walked into work this morning with the theme song stuck in my head.

On to movies.

I’m doing quickie reviews today because I have two and I don’t want to prattle on all evening.

True Grit. I actually didn't want to see this movie. It's a western, as you probably already know. I expected some long, drawn out drama. Boring.

True Grit wasn't boring at all. It's about Mattie Ross who travels to a town to have her father's body shipped home and stays to hire a man to avenge her father's murder. She is so no-nonsense and intelligent that her dealings with the adults around her come off funny. She runs circles around them.

She hires a man named Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), who is an alcoholic bumbler but also brilliant in his ways. Matt Damon is LaBoeuf, a Texas Ranger who also happens to be after the same man.

The three of them venture into the wilderness. For most of the trip, it's
Mattie and Rooster. They bond and they argue and fight the bad guys.

True Grit is really entertaining. Don't let the old-timey look deter you from watching it like I almost did. The movie is really, really good. A


Limitless
Ah, Bradley Cooper. So pretty. In this one, he is Eddie Morra, kind of a loser with an excessively dirty apartment. He claims to have a book contract but he hasn't even written the book. His girlfriend dumps him. He's about to get evicted from his apartment when he runs into his ex brother in law, Vernon.

Vernon hands off a mysterious pill, which Eddie ends up taking. The pill makes him freakishly intelligent. He learns fast, reads fast, and is able to use memories that were buried deep in his brain.

When it wears off, he decides he wants more, of course. He discovers he isn't the only one after the meds. There is a whole mess of trouble for him. Some weirdo keeps following him around. A foreign man he borrowed money from decides that he likes the pills and would like some for himself. There are some rather bad side effects when the pills wear off.

But, there are blessings too. Lots of money. A shiny new job, etc.

Limitless is a roller coaster. One minute Eddie is way up, the next he's down, then he's way up again. This movie was also very good. There is a lot of danger in this lifestyle Eddie chooses. It also gets an A.

Two As!

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Are tablets worth the price?

I got a tablet recently. Mine is an Archos Android tablet and I love it. Seriously, it’s awesome. I can watch videos or listen to Pandora, play games, draw in a sketchbook app, look stuff up on the internet and the whole thing is so portable. It’s smaller than a spiral bound notebook.

But.

It does not replace my laptop. No way. I can’t get my Adobe Suite or Microsoft Office on there, mostly because they’re Windows programs. Even if the tablet could run the software, there isn’t enough memory and no CD drive to install it.

To anyone who might be on the fence about whether a tablet might be used in place of a computer, I can tell you that tablets are not the same. Maybe for the really light user who only wants to check email, play some app-type games or get on the facebook, it might work, but there are significant limitations.

And tablets sure as heck aren’t worth the price that the major brands are charging. Mine was like $200 something, which is a good range for what it does. I really don’t think I would pay much more than that. As I type this, the Samsung Galaxy is $500. It has 16gb of memory. For less than half that price, you can get a Toshiba netbook with a 250gb hard drive and it’s compatible with more because it runs Windows.

Of course, the netbook doesn’t have a touchscreen or apps as Android defines them, but in the end, it’s almost as portable and a lot more versatile.

I didn’t expect my tablet to do as much as my laptop. I knew what it was before I bought it. The point is that I don’t think a tablet is worth what certain brands are charging. I love my tablet. I would not pay $500 for it.

The end.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

don't be lame, homemade butterfinger bars, random word count update

I was reading a blog yesterday. It was actually a guest post on someone else's blog by an author who decided that Smashwords didn't work out for his ebook distribution. His books. His decision. Whatever.

I thought some of the comments that people left were kind of rude. I can understand if people don't agree, but when comments don't contribute to the blog or the conversation, I think not posting them is better. Keeping thoughts inside one's head is ok sometimes.

Anywayz. Check this out. This Momma lady has a video on her blog that shows you how to make homemade Butterfinger bars. AAAAAA!!!! spoiler: one of the ingredients is melted candy corn.

http://www.mynameismomma.com/2011/08/i-tried-homemade-butterfinger-bar.html

random annabeth 2 word count update: 40867

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

book working plus fun facts

Oy, my brain is tired. There was far too much thinking today.

There is rain outside, in the distance. I just got back from signing the boy up for cub scouts and we saw it falling over the fields. I kind of wanted to take my camera out there and get a shot but at this point, that would require way too much energy.

Anyway, book working update – AnnaBeth 2 word count is at 39,456. Almost to 40, woo! Crossing those 10,000 word marks is exciting for some odd, dorky reason. I really like the story so far. I know I say that about everything I write, but hey, if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t waste time writing it. No I would not.

There is a lot more action in the second installment. The romance element is still there, of course, but the action is definitely up a notch this time around. There is a demon involved. Not in the romance. There’s just one present in the story. She’s a girl.

Unrelated to book working updates, I have a random fact. This is from the new issue of Allure that I received in my mailbox on this day. In the 1770’s, French women used eyebrow wigs made of mouse fur.

Rodent fur. On their faces. Ew.

Bonus fun fact – sugar-free hershey’s chocolate tastes how lightning bugs smell. Yummers! Please do not injure any lightning bugs while trying to smell them. Understanding my comparison is not important enough to warrant a sacrifice of a helpless creature. Plus they’re awesome.
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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

movie: Sucker Punch

Ah, Sucker Punch.
Where do I begin?

The beginning of the movie finds our heroine in a bad situation. Her mother dies. Her stepfather comes after her, presumably to do something naughty to her. Drama ensues. She ends up accidentally shooting and killing someone.

Stepfather has her locked up in a super crappy mental institution. She creates a dream world in which she is in a whorehouse (they don't actually call it that if I remember correctly. It's more implied.) and the girls are forced to perform dances on a stage for clients. Her name in the alternate reality is Baby Doll.

In her alternate reality, the people force her to dance and when she dances, she descends into yet another place. Kind of like Inception - a dream within a dream. At this next level, she's fighting a war against zombie soldiers and dragons and robots and such.

Complicated, no? Yes.

Sucker Punch takes a while to really get going. Visually, it is stunning. It's gritty and the action is way over the top. The outfits are very cool.
There's a lot of music too, with words. The characters aren't singing but the soundtrack (which is awesome) is very present, almost like a character in itself.

Every man in the movie, save two, is an evil and/or perverted bastard. That was very noticable.

The end left a lot to be desired. Some issues are left unresolved.

I didn't love Sucker Punch, but it does have merit as entertainment. It gets a C.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

The Ruins

The first time I saw the ruins was about 10 years ago, maybe not quite that long. My daughter was much smaller, of course. I took her to the Holliday Park in Indianapolis just to check it out. The ruins were there then, next to a run-down nature center that wasn’t open while we were there.

They sort of looked like someone’s giant, tacky lawn ornament. That was my first impression. Seeing them there in a park smack in the middle of the city threw me off, I guess.

A couple of weeks ago, I returned to Holliday Park with the boy. Before I went, I looked at the website to make sure that I got the location correct. There was information about The Ruins there. I’m going to grab a bit of their description and slap it on here.

“In the 1950s, the St. Paul Building, at 220 Broadway in New York City, was torn down to make way for a modern skyscraper. Karl Bitter, one of the outstanding architectural sculptors of the late 19th century, had designed the facade of the original building, including three massive statues made of Indiana limestone called “the Races of Man.” To find a new home for the sculptures, the building’s owner, the Western Electric Company, held a competition among U.S. cities, which were required to submit plans for their display and preservation. Indianapolis proposed to place them in Holliday Park, which was then an arboretum, and the city was ultimately awarded the highly prized sculptures, valued at the time at $150,000.

Elmer Taflinger, who provided the sketches for the proposed structure, was chosen to carry out the design. He worked to complete the project over the next 20 years.”

Since I was last there, the park people had torn down the old crappy nature center and built a beautiful, new nature center in a different spot in the park. The Ruins now stand alone in a field, which is a much better situation. They don’t look like tacky lawn ornaments anymore.

Photo number one is The Ruins from the front. The second is the view from the back. It’s pretty overgrown with weeds in the middle but still looks kind of cool. The third picture is a creepy statue. She had a sheep sans head on the opposite side.

http://www.hollidaypark.org/

Link to History of the Ruins pdf

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Journey Reader Backstage

Journey Reader is going really well. The response has been great. I am booked out for weeks assuming that a significant number of people who I sent interview questions and such get back to me soon. It's hard to believe the blog has only been live for four days.

I'm still tweaking some things and contacting various people and trying to streamline some processes, like sifting through email. One of my projects tonight is seeing if I can tell Twitter to stop notifying me when new followers hop on. I'm getting three pages of email a day, at least one of which is follow notifications, not that I'm really complaining. I just need to pare that down a smidge.

One thing is really want to do in the next week or two is find a website or sites with author readings on mp3. I know they're out there; I just need to look. I would like to make the blog as multi-media as possible.

Another goal is to do something with book covers, maybe interview some book cover designers, get a nice visual going with those images. Books are more than the words inside.

I find that I am very afraid of getting someone’s name or information wrong. I probably will at some point. It’s only a matter of time. Lol

I also have a fear that I will post the wrong entry on the wrong blog and another one that I will type Journey Reader as Journal Reader at an unfortunate time.

That's all I have for now. I have some pics of ruins that I keep meaning to post here. I may put those on tomorrow.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

2sday

What is up? I have been hard at work at various tasks.

I jumped back into the AnnaBeth 2 rough draft. I decided that I don't want to drop a writing project in the middle again. I knew that wasn't a really good plan to begin with, but I couldn't help myself. Sometimes the Attention Deficit takes over.

It will all be alright in the end, of course. I'm just working through a period of minor disorientation. Also, I think I lost some notes. Did I mention that before? I think I did.

The situation isn't as bad as it sounds. I just have to go back and check on who was doing what and proceed with the story.

I'm off and running with the actual writing in spite of the obstacles. I think I've slapped down about 2880 words since picking it back up.

The husband didn't help matters this weekend. He enjoys many activities, none of which is letting me work. He has the energy level of a toddler with a king-size bag of Skittles. Let's go see a movie, then bike a few miles, and go out for mexican food. Crikey.

That's all for now. I'm going to go work on Journey Reader for a bit. Check it out if you haven't yet. Today is Book Trailer Tuesday.

http://www.JourneyReader.com

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

movie: Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens! That's right. I got my happy self to an actual movie theater this weekend.

The movie starts out with a cowboy waking up in the desert with a piece of alien tech around his wrist. He has no memory of who he is or how he got there. But what he does remember, apparently, is how to kick some ass.

He travels to a nearby mining town where he finds some trouble, and just when local law enforcement is about to ship him off to the big city for justice, guess who shows up.

Go on.

Guess.

Aliens! That's right. They fly in and snatch up some locals and engage in various shenanigans. Our hero manages to down one of the flying pod thingies and the alien takes off into the night. A group of locals decides to track it because they would kinda like to get their kinfolk back.

Cowboys and Aliens is awesome! When I first heard about the movie, I wondered how they could mesh a concept we think of as futuristic with a time period that's pretty far into the past.

The movie people made it work well.

There are gun fights and alien fights, tense moments between criminals and well-behaved civilians and Native Americans. We have creepy aliens and a ton of action.

And Harrison Ford!!! You can never go wrong with Harrison Ford.

Very good. Cowboys and Aliens gets a big fat A.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

announcement

Whattup, yo? I set up a whole, spankin' new blog for author interviews and the guest posts, etc. I thought having another spot just for that would be better than trying to squeeze it in here.

www.journeyreader.com

If you're an author, book publicist, or publisher, be sure to check out the submissions page for more information.

Don't fret, dear hearts. I do not plan to ditch the splendiferous journal. Movie posts, book working updates and release info and that stuff will remain here.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Gone Fishin'

Yeah, right, like I would really go fishing. Well, I might accompany someone else who was fishing if the weather wasn't too hot and if they provided me with mass amounts of beer to consume. Does that count as fishing?

I will probably be away from the blog for the next few days. I am finishing up the rewrite and then writing like crazy on AnnaBeth 2 this weekend.

Until I return, please feel free to peruse these pictures of Walt Disney's house. It's for sale for a meager 3.something something million bucks. If I had the moola, I would buy that thing in a heartbeat. It probably has secret passages and naughty illustrations stuffed under the floorboards.

Seriously, it is amazing. Here's a link to the slideshow.

http://waltdisneylahome.com/

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

book working

Today was day 3 of drastically reduced sugar intake. Day 1 was awful. Day 2 was worse. I barely had enough energy at the end of the day for a 2 mile bike ride. Today I actually feel better. I am still easily irritated, however. The word of the day was 'stupid'. Lol, I guess there are worse insults I could be slinging around.

I got to watch my son eat cake and ice cream at a school function this evening, so that was fun.

I did come up with what might be the best book title ever. It's for MacDowell Sisters and AnnaBeth. I'm changing the title with series relaunch. I can't say what the title is yet because someone will probably steal it before I get to use it. And that would make me very angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry, especially when I have a nonexistant blood sugar level.

Remix project update:
I'm on page 80 of 106. Word count 63000 words.

I may actually finish before my self-imposed deadline of friday. I would say there is an 80% chance.

I am starting to get excited about writing more on AnnaBeth 2. Writing on a blank page is different from a rewrite. It feels more adventurous somehow.

That's all for today. I leave you with a photo of some band people we watched. This was a dress rehearsal for an event at Lucas Oil Stadium. They were all highly skilled and very tan. I looked very goth next them.



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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

movie: Battle Los Angeles

Extraterrestrials invade. They are assholes. Our army fights them.

A tried and true Hollywood sci formula if there is one.

I really wanted to like this movie. I was excited about finally seeing it. I expected to be blown away, given what I'd heard about its supposed awesomeness.

Our reaction was more like - meh.

What this movie does really well is realism. We follow a group of soldiers onto the battleground as they fight. They move from building to building and shoot things and try to figure out how to foil the invasion. There are explosions and such.

The most obvious comparison is Independence Day, but that movie was more compelling. The characters were more developed. The story was more interesting too.

Battle Los Angeles gets a little stale after the first half hour or so. It becomes a lot of the same thing over and over. Points are also deducted for the use of the same sound effect they used for the aliens in Independence Day. Lame.

The special effects were good. The aliens were creepy.

Battle Los Angeles gets a C+.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

adventures in weekending

This weekend was unexpectedly busy. I mean crazy 9am to 9ish pm both days crazy with almost constant walking.

What I did not do: work on the book I should be working on. Both Saturday and Sunday, I planned to have this wonderful sit down and work time that never happened. I have a scene I wanted to add to the remix project. I had it all plotted out and everything. It was going to snap right in like a jigsaw puzzle piece. Alas. The scene is still on but it did not get written yet.

Instead I took the boy to the Arts Park in Indy which was like a miniature Indianapolis Museum of Art, only much of the art was for sale. They had a nice gallery and then a sculpture garden on the grounds. The primary function of the center is art classes, but we didn't take any. Then later that day, we went to several stores to purchase various extravagant items such as school supplies, groceries and a garage door opener remote.

Sunday, we went to Gen Con which I had no intention of attending. My husband was the one who really wanted to go, which was weird because I'm by far the geekier of the two of us.

Why wouldn't I have gone? The convention is mostly card and board games, which those are cool but not my thing. I'm all console gaming, baby. They did have some video games, but not many. Most of the video game action was relegated to one room off from the primary convention area. They projected the games onto the wall, which was wicked cool. Here's a shot of the dark room. The game on the left was Guitar Hero something.

The convention was not centered around one of my primary pastimes. Does that mean I didn't I didn't have fun? Hecky naw, that place was awesome! There was a lot to see and do, a lot of cosplay stuff, a lot of art and just...wow, a lot in general.

The boy got some Naruto cards, Magic the Gathering cards and a game mat, which he is currently using as a giant mousepad.

I got a Dalek action figure at a Doctor Who booth. That's right. A Doctor Who booth. How fricking awesome is that?!?! And I got a pair of steam-punkesque goggles, which I've actually been talking about getting for a year. Why? I don't know. Sometimes I just want odd things.

We also each got a copy of the Rift for PC. I saw commercials for that game and they looked pretty awesome. If I can find the time, I may give it a go.

Here are a couple more convention pics – a giant troll statue and a giant something else statue.

That's all for now. Movie post tomorrow.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Thurzday

Alrighty Thurzday! Tomorrow is friday, glorious, delicious, fabulous friday!

I don't have much to say. Remix rewrite project update - page 59 of 106. 61,600 words. The part I'm at doesn't seem to need as much rewriting, so I'm able to move a smidge faster.

I really wanted to try to get a book out this year, but I'm not sure that will happen. I can finish writing both books I'm working on, but editing and such takes so much longer. Realistically (not ideally), it's going to be at least very late 2011 or the beginning of 2012. I wanted AnnaBeth 2 out in fall, but I'm just working too slowly for that, which is aggravating.

I am giving myself a firm rewrite deadline. A week from tomorrow, I'm putting down the rewrite no matter where I am on it.

The kids are gone next weekend (my babies!!!), so I get some real work time. Super golden daytime writing time. I can guzzle a gallon of caffeine put on some classical music (or george washington songs as the boy calls them) or some weird new age-y instrumental crap and go to.

Aw yeah, it's gonna be on like LeBron. Just me and the laptop and Max trying to lie wherever he can most be in my way.

Are we friends on the Goodreads? If not, we bloody well should be. Lately my non-indie book reviews have gone there. You can follow them if you like. I don't do many and I don't write long, official reviews because that would be boring.

I don’t know if this is the right link for friend adding. Let’s see if it works.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4113839.Lea_Ryan

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Devil, Thy Name is Sugar

I'm about ten pounds over what the BMI chart people refer to as "normal" weight. The situation is frustrating to me because not too long ago, I was in that normal weight range, not too far in but far enough to count.

I've gained the weight mostly due to my laziness when it comes to exercise (and a busy schedule) and, I think, a sugar intake that's too high.

So I'm cutting back on the sugar, which does not make me happy. I like sugar. It makes things taste yummy.

Yesterday I decided to figure out how much sugar a person should have. I really had no idea.

The American Heart Association recommends about 25 grams a day for women and 31 grams a day for men. Let's look at an average day in my food life, shall we?

This is a weekday.
Breakfast bar - 11 grams
Granola bar snack - 11 grams
Cheese sandwich - 5 grams
"Light" yogurt - 11 grams
Ice Cream after dinner (1/2 serving) - 10 grams

I didn't count dinner because it varies too much. Our dinners are usually pretty healthy. Even not counting dinner, that's 48 grams of sugar.

Almost double the RDA.

Weekends are even worse because there's drinking involved.

I'm trying to change up my workday routine to cut out the sugar. I really don't want to cut calories because I don't eat that many. Plus I don't want to be tired all of the time. I have stuff to do. I'm switching the breakfast bar, the granola bar and the yogurt out with less sugary options.

I'm not switching my weekend drinking time out with anything because I don't want to. If that keeps me fatter than I should be, oh well. LOL, that didn't sound lushy at all, did it?

My goal is to fit back into the skinny pants. Hopefully this will work.

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

profiling the dawg

I thought I would hurry up and profile the dog before we don't have one anymore. She keeps running off, which is really frustrating. Since last week when she was gone 24 hours, she has run off and come back at least 2 more times.

At first, we had her in a collar. Since her neck is fatter than her head, she found a way to get out of it. So we bought her a harness. Now she does this thing where she wraps her line around the deck posts and squirms out of the harness. She's like fricking Houdini out there.

The profile.

Zoe, a mutt, mostly beagle, maybe some corgie. Mostly very rotund from eating food that falls on the floor, except for vegetables which she will not touch. She does a very good Roomba impression.

Also, she often does not smell fresh.

My mom adopted her from the humane society a few years ago. Mom really wanted a cocker spaniel of puppiesh age. She looked at a few shelters if I remember correctly. Then she found Zoe at one of those.

The people who worked there told her that the dog was a puppy (less than 2?) and that she was dominantly a king spaniel. We're pretty sure they lied on both counts. Her vet papers say beagle mix. She has cataracts and spends most of her time lying around like an old dog does.

Mom got another dog a year or two later so she had a pair. She later decided that she no longer wanted Zoe because of the level of attention the dog wants.

The dog loves people! And who can blame her? We're awesome when we want to be. Seriously though, if someone wanted to pet the dog until they rubbed all her fur off, she would be happy to oblige.

We like the dog, so even though we aren't really dog people, we let her live here.

She is quite funny. She sometimes does yoga. Her favorite pose is up dog.

She also enjoys running away on a regular basis and then returning when she gets hungry. She's almost like a self-walking dog, which I'm sure my neighbors do not appreciate when she runs around in their yards. Actually, she might not even do that. I don't know what she does when she runs off.

So that's the dog.
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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

worst movie ever plus awesome car

Possibly the Worst Movie Ever: Hobo With a Shotgun

I blame Husband for this movie choice. He blames some Facebook friend.

Honestly, we didn’t watch the whole thing, so I probably shouldn’t be writing anything on it at all. But I feel obligated to warn the masses.

The plot is – victimized hobo gets pissed off at these idiotic and comically violent 70s criminals and goes on a shotgun rampage to get revenge.

Hobo with a Shotgun is bad. It’s intentionally bad. I understand they were going for the maximum amount of cheese. Whoever wrote this crap probably thought they were pretty darn witty.

The movie is garbage. The writing is awful. The acting is equally awful. We couldn’t even tolerate it long enough to watch it the whole way through. Please do not waste money renting it or use precious moments of life you’ll never get back watching it. Hobo With a Shotgun gets an F-

On the plus side, we discovered a wicked awesome car we’d never heard of. The bad guys drive one of these. The Bricklin SV-1 looks like a cross between a Corvette and a DeLorean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricklin_SV-1

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1