Holidays: The End of your Healthy Lifestyle?

I’m winging my way across the ocean today (plane and weather gods willing) while you read this. Hopefully on Friday, I will be writing from sunny Texas.

Weightloss Wednesday, right before Christmas. What shall we talk about?

Should we discuss all the cakes, cookies and pies everywhere we turn? How about fat-laden mashed potatoes, all the bread you can eat, and the alcohol that flows freely at holiday parties?

What’s a poor girl trying to make healthy choices to do?

Give it all up until after the first of the year? We could do that. But that’s 2 weeks and if you’re anything like me, you’ll take license to eat whatever you want and to damn the rest. When it’s time to start back up again, you’ve gained back that 20 pounds you lost before Christmas.

Deprive yourself? You watch everyone around you shoving all those calories down their throats without abandon. You start feeling left out. Then is desperation, or possibly even spite, you indulge. And indulge and indulge and indulge.

Neither of these options sound all that appealing, do they? With a plan in place, you can weather the holidays, indulging in the traditions that make up your family holiday and keeping on a healthy track. After all, balance is what it’s all about, right?

If you have a holiday gathering, eat a little less during the day beforehand and get in your exercise. You’ll feel more in control and by conserving some calories and burning more with the exercise, the food you eat at the party won’t make a dent in your plan.

If you’re hanging with the family, incorporate some healthy snacks along with the baked goodies. If you eat a bunch of low-cal veggies, you don’t have as much room to hold the high-cal foods. You may even find that you don’t crave them as much as you thought you would.

There’s always lots of alcohol at holiday parties, right? You can still indulge. In moderation. Alternate glasses of wine with sparkling water. Or do like the Germans do and mix half wine and half sparkling wine. That’s a popular drink over here and it cuts your alcohol intake in half.

One important thing to remember is that the holidays are separate events. If you stick to your healthy lifestyle most days and indulge at those special parties or family gatherings only, you’ll still be on track in January.

What are some of the ways you balance your healthy lifestyle with the holidays?

Delivering Christmas Cheer in Germany

Thank you to Lillian Grant for stopping by on Friday and sharing such an interesting story with us. Thank you, dear readers, for stopping by and saying hi.

The winner of a copy of Lillian’s new release, Happy Birthday Nancy Tobin, is:

FiremanPat

Congrats, FiremanPat. I couldn’t find your email address so could you please email me at riley@riley-quinn.com. I’ll get your copy out to ASAP.

So what did your weekend hold for you? This time of year seems to find people so busy.

We started delivering Christmas gifts to the neighbors. I say start because we learned another difference between Americans and Germans last year.

When we lived in Texas, we were in a fairly new neighborhood and as a result, we met our neighbors as each family moved in. Being near a military base, most of them were friendly and we did cookouts and parties together.

At Christmas, I always baked goodies and put together a gift bag for the neighbors. We’d go to each door, ring the bell, wish them a Merry Christmas and give them a gift. They’d say thank you, Merry Christmas back and we’d go on our way to the next house.

So last year, I put together gift bags and one night after hubby got home from work, we thought we’d run gift bags around and then eat dinner. We only had 4 houses to visit. No problem, right?

At House 1, the neighbors were gone. So we left their bag inside the doorway for them.

House 2 is where our master plan began to unravel. Instead of a quick stop, we were invited in. Wine was brought out. Then another bottle of wine. 2 bottles of wine, several schnapps, and 2 hours later, we left.

At House 3, again we were invited in. This time it was beer. 2 beers each, 2 schnapps each and 1 hour later, we left.

Keep in mind, this is 2 bottles of wine, 2 beers, lots of schnapps (which is powerful stuff here in Germany. Think tequila) all on empty stomachs. I was drunk and we still had one more house to go.

We popped into our own place and ate a quick snack of sausage, cheese and crackers in which I proceeded to slice my finger open while cutting the sausage. Then on to House 4, which happens to be our upstairs neighbors and we KNEW that would be a long visit. It was.

Moral of the story: We needed more than a quick visit to deliver our goodies. Friday night, we were invited upstairs. We took their gift. Today, we visited House 1 & 2 and tomorrow we’ll hit House 3.

In addition to all this impromptu neighbor visiting, we had hubby’s work Christmas party and then a co-worker’s Advent party this weekend. Lots of fun, lots of socializing.

We’ll also get a lot of the same over the next 2 weeks. We’re heading to Texas to visit hubby’s family and see all our friends for the holidays. We fly out of Frankfurt on Wednesday (good travel thoughts please as there have been a lot of cancellations lately) and straight into Dallas. We’ll be there until after the first of the year.

So what about your weekend? What kept you busy?

New Look, New Attitude

As you can see, I've got a new look. Isn't it great? Rae Monet did an awesome job for me, designing my website and matching my blog to it. Over to the right is the link to my site. Head over and take a look. Let me know what you think. Personally, I'm thrilled with it.

I spent the past 2 ½ weeks in the States, returning home yesterday. While I was there, I got to see my parents, my brother and sister, their spouses and kids, including meeting the twins for the first time (they're 7 months old). I also got to see my grandparents, one of my aunts and her husband as well as both of her daughters and 2 kids of the oldest. I reconnected with my best friend from high school and her mom, who was like a second mom to me growing up. This really refreshed my spirit. I like it over here in Germany, but I miss being able to see my family and friends more than once a year.

In addition to the lovefest, I attended RWA National conference in Orlando, where I got to spend the week with my friend, Autumn Shelley, as well as soak up new information. I met a ton of other great writers there and even some that didn't write but loved to read. Autumn brought her friend, Rachel, who roomed with us and I'm adding another friend to my list. I've got some stories, and pictures (oh no) and I'm going to post about conference the rest of the week.

Along with my new look, I've got a new attitude. My spirit refreshed, I'm ready to get back to work. I've got 3 chapters to comb through again and polish. I've got a new project that I'm starting while I polish Out of the Shadows. I've got other ideas spiraling through my head and lucky you, you'll probably hear about them at some point. LOL

So, keep checking in. Let me know what you think of my new look. Tell me what you've been up to for the past 3 weeks.

Touch of Celtic

Well, it appears my friend, Shelly, received her birthday gift. That means I can share here now.

I think I've spoken before about some of the crafting I do when I can find the time. My grandma taught me to crochet when I was young, maybe 8? Anyway, I've been doing it for a long time now. It's relaxing to me and a good way to keep the hands busy while watching TV with hubby rather than snacking.

So in January I started an afghan for Shelly's birthday. She likes all things Celtic and I found this pattern that had that kind of feel to it. Unfortunately, it took longer than I'd anticipated. Her birthday is in February. She just got it this week. She's very patient. I hope the wait was worth it.

My next project is almost halfway finished. I found this shawl pattern in a magazine and then found some great yarn at a German yarn store. It is so soft and the color is a light purple with a silvery shimmer. I'm making it to wear over my sleeveless black dress that I'll be sporting at the award ceremony at national conference. Hopefully I'll be posting a picture soon.

Tomorrow is my midterm exam for my Intro to Religion class so it's off to study for me. Hope you all have a great day!

Back to Business

First of all, thank you to all who posted well wishes for me Friday. It was a happy day for me, though I did have to work the part time job that day. I was bursting to tell everyone, although my coworkers are tired of hearing about it, I'm sure. Suzanne, you are the winner of a free copy of Stellar Heat. Please email me at riley@riley-quinn.com with the email you want it sent to.

This past weekend was a busy weekend. We started off Saturday with a trip into post to do laundry. I think once we know we're staying longer, I'm getting a washer and dryer for the apartment. The German version is much different though, but trekking into post and then NOT being able to do laundry… When we showed up at the laundromat, it was full of soldiers. I mean, every single machine taken. I've never seen it that busy before. So we headed to the PX (Post Exchange – kinda like Walmart) and an early lunch.

Outside the PX was a Turkish company selling carpets. Now, we've lived here over a year. We've needed carpets for the living room for all this time, but we finally got around to buying some Saturday. Below is a picture of the large one. The couch (in pieces, as you can see) sits on it perfectly and I think the coffee table we have coming will slide right into place. We have a smaller rug and a runner coming that should be here on Wednesday. Once we get the furniture (end of May *fingers crossed*), I'll post a pic of the whole effect. I can't believe the difference the one rug makes.

Then we ate lunch, bought groceries and headed home where we were promptly invited to join the neighbors behind us for dinner. Our neighbor's birthday was Saturday and his son's birthday was Sunday so we celebrated by grilling out. I know I've talked about German food before but have I mentioned the spread they put out? Yum. We had bratwurst, bauch (not sure if I'm spelling it right) which is kind of like really thick bacon, and pork steaks along with potato salad, pasta salad, bread and stuffed banana peppers. Everything was so good.

Sunday I did some work in the office, had my chat with my accountability group and then trekked upstairs for another birthday party. There were 3 kinds of cake, coffee and then later in the evening, baked trout. I swear, I don't know how Germans keep from being huge. Must be the schnapps.

So, lovely weekend with beautiful weather. Yesterday it reached 75 and was sunny. As my neighbor, Renate, said, "Balcony season is open." Today is more like the Germany I'm used to, though. It's overcast and rainy. Cooler than yesterday, but still about 60. I guess that's good incentive to get my work done, right. So, I'm off to the laundromat for another try, along with my trusty AlphaSmart. I really want to finish those last two chapters of the rough draft of OOTS this week.

What was your weekend like? Busy? Relaxing? Good weather?

New Contract

The Wild Rose Press will be releasing a new series this fall called Jewels of the Night. It is a romantic suspense series and each story will contain a blue diamond. I first learned of this special submission call last fall when my friend, Autumn Shelley, told me about it. It sounded like fun, but no ideas popped into my head at the moment. So I put it to the back of my mind and didn't think about it anymore.

Then, around Christmas, an idea started to take shape. Just little bits here and there until I came up with a full-blown story idea. Characters and plot points danced in my head. The deadline (or so I thought) was March 31. That was 3 months away. I could write this story.

I was a little slow out of the gate. I submitted my first 15 pages to the Roses Critique Group in January and received the pages from 3 others that I had to critique. Imagine my delight when I found pages for a romantic suspense that featured a blue diamond. Those pages belonged to Rachel Lynne. We started emailing back and forth and decided to help each other along. We sent our chapters to each other for critique as we finished them. We spent time on AIM plotting out our stories and figuring out our characters. It was a lot of fun.

I can honestly say that if I hadn't formed this partnership with Rachel, I may not have the deadline. I can really put things off when I'm stuck. So, anyway, I finished my story ahead of time and sent it in a few days early. That March 31 deadline was to enter my submission in a contest. A story from the series will be chosen at random to be the kick off story and get lots of extra publicity. The Wild Rose Press is still accepting submissions for this series, if you're interested.

Blood Diamond was born, the story written, a romantic suspense novella set in the rain forest of the Congo and featuring Jill St. James, a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, and Mack Nichols, a former soldier turned mercenary. It's actually the first attempt I've made at romantic suspense that didn't involve werewolves and vampires, so I'm pretty excited about it.

Yesterday, I received an email from the senior editor of the Crimson Rose line, who is in charge of the series. She offered me a contract! It arrived in my email inbox early this morning while I slept. I am happy to say that Blood Diamond will be my first published work under the pen name, Riley Quinn.

What’s on my mind today

Yesterday was just one of those days. Hubby went in to work late, so he threw off my morning routine. Since I worked the part time job ALL DAY yesterday, the morning is when I would have normally posted on my blog. Yeah, didn't happen. Then I didn't get home until after 7, cooked dinner, tired with no motivation. You get the picture. So I was a bad girl.

I had hoped to have my revisions done and to my critique partners yesterday. Didn't happen. So today, I'm working all day, like a fiend, to finish up. I'll be crafting my synopsis this weekend on a long bus ride. That should keep me busy for a while, right?

I started a hat yesterday. I found the pattern online and worked on it for 2 hours. Almost finished it so since it was slow at work last night and since I do work at a craft store (yeah, not a lot of job opportunities on a foreign military post but the people are great and I get to indulge my hobbies), I finished it up. Here's the picture that the pattern designer posted. My hat is in black wool. Awesome.

I'm so amazed by Facebook and how easy it can be to connect with old friends and colleagues. A friend of mine from over 10 years ago found me on Facebook. So I added her. Then I get a look at her friends. OMG, some of them are people I knew way back when. So I sent a 'Remember me?' to them. How fun.

If I finish today, I'm heading into Bayreuth, a college town and the closest large city to us, to head to the yarn store there. I'll take some pictures and post them. I'm preparing for a trip this weekend. More details on that tomorrow.

So I'll leave you with a poll. I will be posting a new German recipe soon so please vote for your preference. It's on the left at the top. The poll will stay open until midnight PST (if I've figured out the time difference right).

What's on your mind today?

Old Friends

When I woke up this morning, a snippet of a dream hung around in my head for a while. Two reasons why I mention this. One, I rarely remember ANY dreams so the fact that I did this morning makes this something for me to ponder. Two, in the dream was a friend that I haven't seen in probably fifteen years.

In my early twenties, I hung out with this guy and two others. Almost every day. We had such fun, going to concerts, talking about books, playing four square (yes, the childhood playground game), just hanging out. Then things changed, as they tend to do. This friend got a girlfriend and we didn't see him as often. I moved to another state for a job and wrote for a while but that soon petered out. Eventually we all just lost touch. I think about them every now and then, curious as to what they're up to, what they're doing, how life's treating them. I haven't thought of them in quite a while, though so the fact that I dreamt of one makes me wonder. Why now? Does it mean something? Should I try and look him up? I have no clue if he stayed in Ohio or moved away.

We all have them, I'm sure. People who were once good friends, but drift away for whatever reason. Then we have those that stay with us through every aspect of life. I believe that each person that touches our lives has something to teach us. It's up to us to accept that lesson.

Is there someone you lost track of over the years? Ever tried to find them?

How many friends is too many?

Is it possible to have too many friends? According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar (http://www.thestar.com/living/article/761237--british-researcher-asks-how-many-friends-can-you-have?bn=1), our brains can only handle 150 connections. Wow, 150? I can't even imagine calling that many people friends. Then I got to thinking.

I am a member of several writers' groups, most of them online, but I do get a chance to meet a lot of the people face to face at conferences. I have many things in common with these people, most importantly our love of writing and the effort we put into it to become better. We have similar interests and experiences. I feel close to these people. Are these people my friends? I think so.

So, maybe we can only handle 150 friends. I don't really know, but I'm not sure that I want to limit myself and my experiences so I'll just leave this debate as "Hmm, interesting" and continue to socialize as I've been doing - without counting how many friends I have.

What do you think about Dunbar's Number? Do you think our brains can only handle 150 friends?