July in Review

Health/Fitness
Average Calories consumed per day: 1764
Average exercise per day, in calories: 201
Weight: 170.5

I ate a little less and exercised a little more than I did in June, and gained a pound.

*side-eyes statistics*

So that was not particularly heartening. Exercise remains overall down from my highs when I still enjoyed playing Pokemon GO. I have not exactly quit playing Pokemon GO, but I don't play it as much as I used to and it's no longer an effective incentive for exercise. The trouble with Pokemon GO is that it never rewarded "getting exercise" as much as it rewarded "go to high-traffic areas with a lot of man-made attractions" and this is a bad strategy in the era of COVID-19. Maybe I should try a different exercise game.

I have tried some aerobics videos since March, but even beginner aerobics is hardcore. I can get through a beginner 15-minute video but it's very unpleasant. "Very unpleasant" does not lead naturally to "so I will keep doing it." The exercises I stick with are more like "this varies between kind of nice, meh, and moderately bleh" rather than "I hate this and can't wait to stop."

"I hate this and can't wait to stop" may mean the exercise is more effective at promoting overall fitness but I don't know that it'd be worth it even if I could convince myself to keep doing it. OTOH, my history of exercise over the last ~15 years has been "switch to some new form of exercise every few months/years", so there's no saying it can't have a spot on the long list of "I did this for a while and then switched to something else."

Writing
Oh hey I finished drafting another book. \o/ Fellwater closed at 120,000 words, coming in a little under my latest projection for its length. So that was 19,000 words written in July.

*checks this against the total from her bullet journal* Ooh, that even matches!

The Business of Writing
The Twilight Etheriumis out! I am excited about this one. It's always nice to have a new book out, and this is another polyamorous fantasy romance and I don't know why I ever write anything else. Purr.

Also did more work on The Lord, His Monster and Their Lady, including about 2900 words of re-writing existing material, and a new scene that's around 1700 words. I also cleared some editing points from its list -- twelve, total. There are fourteen left, five of which deal with the revised climax.

And finished the final revisions of Spark of Desire and sent that to Alinsa for layout.

Art
I kind of forgot that I'd been trying to do some work on art every week. Oops.

I did sketches three days in a row, on an alphabet theme that some of my fediverse friends did for a little while. And I spent about an hour total working on the cover for The Lord, His Monster, and Their Lady. I did not make meaningful amounts of progress in that hour. o_o;;;

Home Maintenance
Early in the month, Daniel from Christian Brothers Roofing came out to look at my roof and give me an estimate. He remembered the leak in my skylight from a couple of years ago.

"Yeah, it's back. There's a leak into the extension, let me show you where from the outside," I said to the roofer, as I walked with him around to the back of the house. "Oh ... and that's not caused by the roof at all. Do you do siding repairs?"

"We don't, but my best friend does! Let me send you his contact information."

The siding along the roof line between the extension and the house (the roof of the extension is a foot or so lower than the rest of the house) had rotted away where it was in contact with the roof.

I hired Christian Brothers Roofing to replace the roof, and StateLine Exteriors to replace the siding along the roof line and fix some other siding issues, mostly with the extension. The siding on my house is all asbestos shingles, which is not a problem until you need to fix them because they're hazardous to remove and you can't replace them with matching shingles. So this was a bit of an adventure but it did all get taken care of, and the roofing and siding companies coordinated the work so that they didn't have redundancy issues. It was expensive but remarkably painless otherwise. The roof was, in fact, removed and replaced in a single 12-hour day by a team of five roofers. The siding repairs were done by one man over the course of two and a half days, with a gap because of weather problems.

The gutters also desperately needed to be replaced so when Daniel asked if I wanted to I was like YES PLZ make them not be a disaster k thx. Next week, I am getting new helmeted gutters that are almost maintenance-free which is important because I have failed at not only cleaning my gutters myself but also at reliably hiring someone else to clean them.

My final big home-maintenance item is to have the exterior painted. I have a quote from a painter who was recommended by Kasey from Stateline, but I figured I should get a second quote from someone else just to have some kind of benchmark, and also my bank account needs a chance to recover. Today, I mentioned to Diane, who runs my lawn-care company, that I needed the bushes around the house cleared so it could be painted. Diane: "Have you hired anyone yet? We also do painting!" Me: "SURE GIVE ME A QUOTE."

So I may actually finally get the house painted. It's needed it for like two or three years now. Maybe longer. Two or three years is probably when I noticed it was getting tattered. Who knows how long it took me to notice.

Goal Scorecard
Helped Lut: according to my bullet journal, I did six different medical-related chores in July, from appointments with medical professionals, to scheduling appointments, to filling prescriptions. I think this is pretty average.
Replace/repair roof: This has actually been done! I have a new roof! It has a 50 year warranty! If I have to pay to replace it sometime after the warranty run out, I will feel extremely fortunate.

Stretch Goals
Published The Twilight Etherium! Not on the list, but I'm still excited about it.
Siding repair: Also not on the list, but it was an important accomplishment.
Finish rewrites on The Lord, His Monster, and Their Lady: I still have a couple of bits left to rewrite, so I didn't finish this. I made significant progress, however. Also, I finished final edits on Spark of Desire, so I'm counting the combination as a win.
Write some of Fellwater: I finished it! That was unexpected and spiffy.
Work on art/sketch at least weekly: Forgot this was on here. I did some art but not every week.

I am giving myself an A+ for July even though I technically missed two stretch goals. I did a lot in July. It was a good month.

Goals for Next Month
Assist Lut.
Schedule to have the house painted.

Stretch Goals
Finish initial edits on The Lord, His Monster, and Their Lady and send it to first readers.
Figure out what my next writing project will be and start that.
Finish the cover for Spark of Desire.
Work on art/sketch weekly.