Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 28

Wednesday Update 4/17/13

I debated on whether or not to link up to the linky tool today. I don’t really have anything to report for ROW80 except for one thing…the authors in this community have really rallied together to help me in so many ways. Even when you all just stop by with prayers, thoughts, or virtual hugs, it means a great deal to me. The support in this community is phenomenal, and I am so grateful to every one of you. I’m also so very grateful for the increased book sales and the contributions you have made to the fundraiser Kait has set up for my family. I had no idea she was going to do that, and I still don’t have words to express how I feel about that. It’s kind of embarrassing to NEED help, but I know I shouldn’t feel that way. I’ve always enjoyed giving to fundraisers when I could, but I never thought I would be a recipient. Kait has a heart of gold, and so do those of you who have helped. And Anya is still talking about all this on Facebook, trying to help me with book sales.

So here’s a report for those of you who are wondering how hubby is doing. First of all, I’ve realized he was more seriously ill than I really knew. I knew it was bad, but just not how bad. The clot in his lung could have caused so many problems. Most of you know my best friend died of this same thing, but apparently she didn’t die the way I thought, now that I know more about it. I thought the clot left the lung and went to her heart. That’s not the way it works. From what I’ve read, the clots that go to the heart and brain are from the arteries. The ones that travel to the lungs (and these are more common) come from the veins (mostly in the legs). Clots in the lungs cause lack of oxygen, and that can affect many other parts of your body. Many people go into shock from clots in the lungs. The reason hubby was in ICU for so long was because his oxygen level wasn’t coming up enough. When they were able to turn his oxygen down a bit, he was put into a regular room. But his blood still isn’t thin enough to go home. I don’t know when he’s going to get out of the hospital.

So, I’m working some every day now, although not the whole day. I’m going back and forth from work and the hospital. My husband will be out of work 2-4 months, and he is the major source of income. The medical bills will be pretty big because insurance doesn’t pay it all. So the fundraiser Kait set up is going to help a lot. I’m so, so grateful.

I just want to say a word about the hospital. I live in a fairly small city. The hospital here doesn’t have the best reputation, and most people go to one of the two larger hospitals about 40 miles away. I had a friend upset me yesterday because she begged me to get a second opinion. But I can say that my husband had been treated with the utmost care at this facility. Everyone has been professional, but also very, very kind. The doctors are great, the nurses are awesome. There’s always a smile on everyone’s face. And I’ve been reading a lot about his situation, and the research I’ve done shows that the hospital is doing everything they are supposed to do in this situation. I don’t know why people always talk about the negative things and rarely talk about the positive things. This world would be a much better place if people would just be nice to each other and do the best job they can do, no matter what it is.

I didn’t mean to get so long-winded. But I guess I’ve just needed to let some words out. Because, you know, that’s what writers do.

A World of Thanks

I want to send out a special thanks to Anya Kelleye and Kait Nolan for their generosity and time. They have both sent big shouts out to the world about my current predicament. But, please don’t think I don’t know that many more of you are doing things to help. There are so many of you, I can’t list you all, and I don’t want to leave anyone out, so I’ll just say, you know who you are, and I know who you are. Thank you.

Sunday Update 4/14/13

Those of you who follow my blog know what’s going on. My husband has been in ICU with a blood clot in his lung and another in his leg. This has involved getting to see him four times a day and spending most of the rest of the days and nights in the waiting room. Luckily, I had my own little cubicle. Yesterday, he was moved to a regular room, and they found me a recliner to sleep in. Let’s just say the couch in my cubicle was much more comfortable. I’ve had very little sleep. My arms kept going to sleep when I lie on my side.

I was so strong for the first three days, but these last couple…I keep bursting into tears. Stress, fear, lack of sleep, it all takes it’s toll. I was told it could take a couple of weeks for these clots to dissolve. We are both out of work, obviously, at the moment. Oh how I wish my book sales would take off for just a little while so the lack of work wouldn’t hurt so badly.

So, anyway, I guess it’s obvious I didn’t get any writing done. Maybe things will get better later in the week….

A Quick Update

Hubby is still in ICU. He has a blood clot in his lung and a big one in his leg. We think it stemmed from his broken ankle. They are giving him blood thinners to try to dissolve them, but right now, he’s in a lot of pain from the clot in his lung. A LOT of pain. So they keep him pretty doped up. There are only four visiting times per day, so I’ve spent a lot of time in my own little cubby in the waiting room, where I’ve slept every night. I’ve been home once to shower in three days, and went in to work for about two and a half hours yesterday. My son is feeding my dogs and cats. I scooped the litter box the one time I was home, so it’s probably pretty rank right now. I have two cats, so it needs scooping daily. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi to everyone and let you all know what’s going on. I just want this to be over soon and have him back home.

And Yet Another Trial

Hubby is in the hospital. Might be out of pocket awhile. More updates later.

Sunday Update 4/7/13

Last week was so much better on the writing front. My goal is to write three days a week. Well, I was lazy Friday, so I did some things I wanted to do instead of actually, you know, WORKING. But, even though I only wrote two days, I churned out 3,822 words. If I was averaging 500 words a day, seven days a week…it would be better than that. LOL. I wrote about 2900 words on Saturday. I just sat down and words started flowing. I was by myself, there was silence, and I was in the mood. It’s really hard for me to write that many words in one sitting, but I did it.

My WIP is evolving into something totally different than I originally planned. It was going to be a paranormal romance, but it looks like it’s going to be a mystery/horror. I started out with a ghost. Then I suddenly had a “not quite human” murderer. So I had to figure out how the ghost was relevant now. But I finally figured that out. Now there’s a mine. There wasn’t originally a plan for a mine to be in this story, but it really helps explain some other things in the story. This story is starting to write itself and surprise me at every turn. That’s usually when I start loving it.

Half Light – My Favorite Movie

I’m sitting here watching, again, my favorite movie, Half Light. I found this movie by accident, or I should say, my husband found it. One time, several years ago, he was in the video store and picked it up, thinking it looked like something I would like. He was right. I later bought the movie on DVD. I was searching through Netflix this morning, looking for a mystery to watch, and I saw it. I had to watch it again.

Why this is my favorite movie:

1. The setting in Scotland is BEAUTIFUL.

2. Even though it’s not scary, it’s eerie.

3. The people in the town are strange and mysterious.

4. The acting is great – Demi Moore and Hans Matheson.

5. There’s a romance between a tortured writer and a mysterious lighthouse keeper.

6. There’s a couple of really strange twists that I didn’t see coming.

There’s so much to love about this movie. My husband doesn’t really like it. It’s not his kind of thing. I absolutely love the mysterious, creepy feel of the movie. It IS my kind of thing.

So maybe you should give it a try. I have to warn you…something very tragic happens in the beginning of the movie, and it’s really bad. So if you can’t handle stuff like that, you better not watch it. But the thing has to happen to set up the rest of the movie. And don’t expect a normal HEA. I wanted to scream at the movie. But there is some satisfaction. The only thing that might frustrate you (it did me) about the movie is that there are a few things that I think were left unanswered. But I think that’s kind of on purpose so you can draw your own conclusions. And there’s a couple of times the townspeople speak in Gaelic, and you never know what they said…unless you speak Gaelic.

Okay, I’m going to unpause the movie and carry on.

P.S. I’ve apparently posted about this movie before because when I was doing the tags for the post, some of the stuff automatically came up, so I’ve used those tags before. LOL

Fitness Friday – Back in the Saddle

I’m back in the saddle again…. Okay, so I like Aerosmith.

I was happy with the scale this morning. After the 2.5 gain last week, I wasn’t sure how this would play out. Honestly, I got back on the scale the day after the weight gain. I had actually lost most of it the next day, so it was definitely water weight.

Anyway, when I’m showing my stats today, I’m pretending last week didn’t happen and going from the week before. Otherwise, I would show a BIG loss this week. And although I would like to brag about that, I chickened out and wouldn’t do my little stats table last week, so I don’t really deserve showing the big weight loss. LOL. We’re just going to pretend last week didn’t happen at all.

Btw, I’m wearing some size 14 jeans that were hanging in my closet. These are a bit smaller than the 14′s that hubby bought me. My new jeans are relaxed fit, but the ones in my closet are more form fitting and more flattering. I’m so glad I can wear those again!

So here are my stats for this week. Remember…last week didn’t happen. Hee hee.

Stats for this week:

Beginning weight: 193

Today’s weight: 171.5

This week’s loss: 1.5 lbs.

Total loss: 21.5 lbs.

Get Your Southern Speech Right!

Can I complain a little bit without sounding too bitchy? It’s about a book I just read where there’s a southern woman whose way of speaking really gets on my nerves. Well…it’s mostly one thing. Yes, the author dropped her “g’s” where the “ing” is used, and that’s pretty accurate for most southerners. I do that a lot. But here’s the problem. Southerners do not use “y’all” to speak of ONE person. “Y’all” is short for “you all”. It’s not short (or long) for “you”. I would not say to a friend “How long have y’all been waiting here?” or “I hope y’all feel better soon.” I would say the above phrases to more than one person, but not to one person. (If anyone from the south is reading this and disagrees, then you certainly speak differently than people do where I’m from. But the person in the book was from my area.) In the north, the same phrase is usually “you guys”. At least in northern Ohio where I have cousins who say “you guys”. I always teased them about that, saying “I’m not a guy”. I would say “y’all”, they would say “you guys”. But when referring to one person, we both said “you”. In the book I read, it sounded so awkward when that word was used referring only to the person she was speaking to. It drove me absolutely crazy.

Anyway, do things like that bother you? If you’re from a certain area, and the author portrays the speech in that area much differently than it really is, does it make you want to scream? I don’t usually mind when little things are wrong, but when they mess up our southern speech, it really bothers me.

ROW80 2013 Round 2 Goals

I’ve been thrown quite a few curve balls the last six months. Life hasn’t been a lot of fun for me. But I know there are a lot of people dealing with a lot worse, so I’m thankful for all the good things. Because there ARE a lot of good things. Unfortunately, one of those good things WASN’T writing like I should.

Anyway, for this round’s goals, I don’t want to set the standard too high because I’m going to have to get back into the groove. For now, I’m going to set my goal for writing a hour on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When work slows down and LIFE slows down (I hope), I’m going to add Tuesday to the mix. Hopefully, I can do that soon. We’ll see how that goes. I usually set goals higher, but right now, too much is going on. I need goals I can actually meet. Monday is going to be for my sponsor duties if I don’t get everyone visited on Sunday. I never write on Wednesdays and Sundays, because those are church days, and Wednesday is sponsor day, too.

I hope everyone has a great Round Two in 2013!