New Book

I have been working writing a new book for the past few months. I have two reasons for wanting to write this book:

1. The first is that I felt like my first book was written from the perspective of hypomania. I want it to be more balanced, ironically, and have a little more on the depressive side.
2. The second reason is that this past fall I started taking medication and trying to find the one for me. I also want to include that story.

I’m excited to be writing it. I will eventually be ready to post a Chapter-A-Day so you can follow along and be part of the new books I write HERE if you want.

I’m excited to start this journey. I’m hoping it will make a difference in people’s lives. As I continue to write my romance novel I will also add that here as well.

Happy Reading!!

Advertisement

Book Review: Diving into Love

This blog is somewhat multifaceted. I hope you can see how it all ties together, and for those that enjoy it, all or one of the many parts, that you will stick around.

So today, I want to share a book from a new author that I have been networking with. She has been helping me with my writing and I have done some beta reading.

Full disclosure I beta read this book, and received an advanced reader copy (ARC).

However, my review is my own, and I don’t share unless I truly enjoy the book and give it a good review. So I will take it away. Click on the photo to take a look at the book.

Diving into Love:

This book is a romance novel. The kind I love the most. It also has a healthy dose of mystery and suspense which I love. The main characters are in high school, and it reminds me of young first loves which is always fun.

The characters are realistic and enjoyable. I couldn’t put it down. I could relate to the sweet girl and her insecurities.

If you need a good clean sweet romance novel to read this weekend or this fall, check it out!

Week 11: Ketogenic Diet Experiment/moderate carb

My husband lost another pound and a half!

Seriously he is doing so well. Crushing it.

I’m not doing so well at keto. I’m still maintaining the habit of three keto meals a day as a family which I love and I’m sure is still drastically decreasing my simple carbs over all. However, other than that not so much.

I am finding success in excercise. I’m really enjoying my walks. I get them in at least twice a week and try for more.

I practiced restorative yoga this Tuesday and was amazed to find that the beginning of my fitloop bodyweight fitness routine has a lot in common with restorative yoga.

I need to commit myself to that routine. I know it would be so good for me and strength gains. I’m just all over the place right now trying to keep things together. As everyone is from time to time.

I know school will help calm things down some. Also time will help. Some things just need time.

I’m living the dream though. Loving life. In a few months I’m excited to work on more remodels and I will have some good before and afters hopefully. This time from my side of the house.

I plan to mud the walls and paint so it should be exciting. I will start with just the dining room and living room. I want to do them together because they are really just one big room. I’m excited to see how it looks with the beautiful blue from the apartment. Hopefully it isn’t too dark.

Until next week. I may be late again as we have a family reunion to attend.

Week 9: Ketogenic Diet Experiment for Mental Health

This week has been crap! But seriously, I have had 4 cheat meals, and none of them were really planned. Most of them were related to my church calling. I volunteer with young women ages 16-18. They are so much fun and I love the calling. However, our church culture is centered around food. So many times we have treats. It is a bonding thing that extends to our entire American culture.

I, however, have gained a couple pounds this week. I broke 120! I know that is many people’s goal to get down to or goal to lose, but I’m still going to go at least to 125 maybe even 135. It is a healthy weight for me. Also, I can tell that my tummy is more toned. This tells me that hopefully I have lost fat and gained muscle.

My hubby didn’t lose this week but basically maintained. He isn’t sleeping well. He is in a lot of pain as he has kidney stones. Hopefully, they can pass and he can start getting better sleep again. He loses a lot more when he sleeps the full amount and regular hours.

Keto is going well, but we could both do better. Him with sleep, and me with staying on plan a little better.

On another note, I have been writing up a storm. I finished my first romance novel, and I started on my second one. I am editing the first and working with my incredible cover designer. She is also helping me with a couple other projects including getting my cover done for my first book for print.

I’m going to include a few reviews on the back cover as well as a short synopsis. Then it will be available for print. I know some people want that option as it is easier to share and give as a gift as well as reference and take notes in for the future.

I’m also considering creating a companion workbook but it’s not exciting me right now. I’m trying to ride my energy and put it in the most productive places.

Unfortunately, that is something you learn to do with the hypomania as a bipolar person.

I’m working hard though to work during the depression as well. I watched a YouTube video on just that. A family member shared it with me. I love that she was kind enough to read my book and knows what to recommend to me. I loved it.

Until next week, remember to follow me on Instagram @balancingmybipolar for recipes and to follow my keto journey daily.

Week 8: Ketogenic Diet Experiment

We both forgot to do an official weigh in today so I will update tomorrow. I did one midday though and I think I’m seeing progress.

I finished my second book last night. I have decided to write fiction for now. Mainly clean contemporary Christian romance novels.

It is so much more fun to write to be honest. My memoir book Balancing Your Bipolar was somehow heart wrenching and raw and difficult and it’s still hard for me to market and share. This book though is the type of book that I love to read myself. I’m hoping that will make it easier to market and share.

My garden is coming along beautifully and I’m so pleased. Back to Eden gardening makes the garden look so pretty. I love it and I’m excited for summer to harvest.

I have been busy with many things some of which I will share more of once they are ready. I so enjoy writing and learning all about everything that goes with it.

Week 5: Ketogenic diet experiment

Progress!!!!

Hubby lost 3.2 lbs this week. Woohoo! He cut down a bit on portions and snacks but it just worked this week. He also worked out a bit because he couldn’t sleep 😂😂.

I gained almost 2 lbs! Yes we are both moving in the right direction. Hooray.

We did a few less recipes this week. I enjoyed clearing out the fridge and the break.

I have now reached 25,000 words written on my second book. I think another 10-15k and I may be ready to start editing and writing book 2. I’m trying to get to where I’m publishing a book a month. I know it can be done because I know an author who does it and does it well.

Keto has been so amazing. I love that I can have dessert and it’s good for me. Good fats. I love how many vegetables I’m eating. And since switching to me cooking for my husband he has had way fewer cravings and issues like that. What a miracle!

I feel full and I love making progress with weight gain. Plus I don’t have to eat as much because it’s all full of fat. So nice for those of us who struggle to gain weight.

We made pizza with fathead dough yesterday. It was very good. I rolled out the dough between two parchment paper sheets and precooked the crust. You could pick it up and eat it like regular pizza. And my husband said it was the best I had made. Haha he almost always says that. I’m sure I get better at cooking but he is also an amazing husband.

My goal for this summer is to figure out keto freezer meals and Crock-Pot meals. I know I will need them when I get depressed.

Here’s to another week and continuing to try to be more active.

Week 4: Ketogenic diet update

This week was a little disappointing. I lost .6 lbs which is going in reverse for me, and my hubby maintained. Seems like I need to adjust. I need to workout more and I think I need to be more intentional about portion control for him.

Something I’m going to start doing is filling his plate with a reasonable portion and then leaving the rest in the kitchen to be packaged. That way if I or the girls want more we can get it but he doesn’t know how much there is or feel as much desire to keep eating.

I did work out once last week yay for the blog pushing me. However it has been crazy pants over here with trying to get our apartment ready to rent. Between walk throughs, no shows from walkthroughs and getting repairs and cleaning done and doing everything normal in our own home there hasn’t been a lot of extra time.

That and I started writing a second book!! Happy dance!! It’s fiction this time, a Christian romance about a girl who has bipolar disorder. I’m thinking about submitting it to Hallmark as well since they are accepting manuscripts this year.

We are making progress though. The shower is all done and looking amazing.

We also got a light in and just have mostly little things left and a few doors to install.

I’m loving keto. We made some awesome recipes this week including two pumpkin desserts. Out of season I know. They were very yummy though.

I’m slowly working through my overfull fridge from shopping while hypomanic and not listening to my own stops. Ugh. I had a voice screaming in my head that I’m spending too much and I did not listen. The compulsion was very strong. So I put myself on a spending hiatus for a month.

So far that is going well and it tends to give me the break I need to see we have too much and it’s good timing since we need to clear out our second fridge and give it to the renters to use.

This post has been an update on many things and all over the place a little like my brain is right now. However, I have to say how much I am loving writing right now. It is so much fun and my capacity is increasing significantly. Some days I have written over 3k words which never used to happen.

Alas hopefully next week we have better results.

Done is better than perfect!

My house is looking so much better!

I found a blog called A slob comes clean a few months ago now and I love it! I have now bought both her books and listen to her podcasts almost daily while I’m cleaning or working in the yard. So much of what she said clicked and it has helped my home a ton. Remember the post about my Kitchen and the disaster state it was in? This blog and the books have helped me stay out of disaster state for months now and it feels amazing!

I have decluttered:

some which helps and I also started the weekly tasks this week. So as to avoid getting overwhelmed I decided on Tuesday to just do one bathroom rather than all 3. I did the one we use the most and the one I had already decluttered the most. I then worked on another day decluttering my master bathroom and I will go from there. I figured if I did them all and burnt out then I would go months again without clean bathrooms. Where as if I do one and do another next week and wipe down the first and then another and wipe down the others by week 4 it should be easier and way better.

So far so good, as I ran errands Wednesday, and Thursday I mopped my kitchen and attached laundry room floor. It was bad this week and took longer but hopefully next week I make it to the dining room and it’s easier.

Tomorrow I will be vacuuming which has been done more recently and with a 5 min pick up shouldn’t be hard.

The laundry is going well too. Although I’m struggling with putting it away I’m still excited with how much easier Monday laundry days have been in general.

Now to the point that sparked my desire to write this post. I don’t know what to write on my blog but I want to blog. I know to some degree I need to just get started and try. I need to practice and do, to get over my fears and find out what I don’t know that I don’t know. Where I need to learn and stretch and grow. Also what my audience wants and what I want the blog to be too. Who my people are? Who my tribe is? What my passion is around balancing my bipolar?

I think some of that is just being honest. Honestly maybe this post is the place to start. Maybe recording my thoughts on my mental state through depression. My frustrations with not being able to be social and donate my time by volunteering and doing it all. My frustrations with dinner being hard and cleaning being hard and showering more than once a week being hard and doing anything. My worries for my kids and what they need me to be. Letting go of some of that guilt too. Improving one step at a time. Acknowledging myself and giving myself some credit that my book is actually helping some people. Reading it again and facing the reality that it could be better and my fears and hypomania may have rushed it. But realizing that I made a decision to do that and it’s okay.

This is what I’m feeling right now. Unfiltered maybe crappy, definitely less than perfect but “done is better than perfect” and it’s real and it’s what is reality right now, not my made up dream in my head.

Balancing Your Bipolar

My book Balancing Your Bipolar is now live on Amazon! It has been a crazy few months and many things have changed since the last time I posted. I have been busy with the book but I hope to be posting more regularly here now that the majority of the work is done.

I am learning a lot about myself and how to push out of my comfort zone. Publishing a book has been very exciting but very scary as well.

It is nerve-wracking and stressful to put myself out there. I also hit a depression cycle right after I finished final edits of my book. Talk about bad timing!

I have had to put the techniques I wrote to work on myself and I have seen great results. It is not perfect, nor easy but it is completed and I keep telling myself I can do hard things.

Now a little about the book:

Balancing Your Bipolar: A Holistic Approach to Living a Life You Love helps loved ones and people who have bipolar to work to have a life of balance and learn to love their life. It also shares my story, to help you know what is possible and that I have been there.

Some of the tools you can learn in the book include:

• managing activity level
• managing food issues
• building a basic exercise routine
• dealing with other’s perceptions
• managing your expectations

You will also learn the basics of bipolar disorder, and how it can really feel to be trapped inside a body that won’t always cooperate.

 

I hope you will check it out! I would love to hear what you think let me know in the reviews or comments below!

My Book Cover and Title

I would love feedback on my cover and title. What do you like what don’t you like and what could be more clear.

The book is a memoir of my life focusing on my diagnosis of bipolar and creating balance with my new self and how others with mental illness can accept their diagnosis and create balance too.

Also if you would like to be part of my launch group and receive a free copy of the book and help promote please join me here: https://m.facebook.com/groups/772839569583820

EDIT: I should mention my amazing cover artist is my sister in law Ariel Edwards.

Also I’m considering other sub titles such as replacing “ups and downs” with bipolar or mental health.