I
can’t say that I was a lazy sluggard this week. I certainly was busy,
concentrating all of my energy on just one goal, basically. (Green highlight is
a goal that is on track, yellow highlight was at least worked on, red letters
is a total fail.)
1) Finish writing my current novel, “The
Big House”. I only wrote
2,388 words last week and two chapters, for a total word count of
30,139. A little shy of the number of words I had been putting in the previous
weeks. I was swamped all week with other stuff. See below.
2) Work on readying “Where the Sky Meets
the Sand” for publication. Nope. I haven’t heard any more from the publisher,
but they said it would be the first of December before they got the first round
of edits to me. Yes, I still have other stuff to do on it – research places
willing to host book signings and such – but I have been so wrapped up in the
story of my newest novel. I know I need to get my heart back around to “Sky
Meets Sand”, but maybe after the end of this month.
3) Do some editing on my two memoirs,
“Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. Nope.
I think I should take this goal off my list, at least for now.
4) Continue posting to my other blog,
“The Dino Chronicles” three times a week. On track, three posts last week.
5) Work on my daughter’s nonprofit,
Tumaini Volunteers. And this is where all my time has
been spent in the past week. My daughter Val came up Monday night for overnight
as she had to be at the craft sale on Tuesday by 7:30 am. The whole evening we spent
working on stuff. Then Tuesday night, after the sale, she stopped at the house
for what I thought would be long enough to drop off the merchandise she didn’t
sell and give me an update, but instead she stayed for hours. We worked on the
website, brainstormed fund-raising, I don’t know what all we did. Then she came
back Friday night for overnight, because we had the craft sale Saturday morning
here in town. The goal of the next trip to Kenya next spring is to set up
rabbit farming at the community where we started chickens this past spring. To
get it up and running, they recommend we buy 36 pregnant rabbits, after we have
built their hutches of course. Each pregnant doe costs $50. So Val came up with
this idea that we should get people to sponsor each rabbit, and for an incentive,
we would give them a handcrafted folk-art bunny. So we handstitched five of
them Friday night. Sold two on Saturday. And today, as I was just starting to
write this post, Val called again, working on updating the website some more
and wanting my input. I am so happy that she is this dedicated and so proud of
her for having her heart in Kenya. But I just want her to relax and be a
26-year-old newlywed with a full-time job, house that is in the middle of DIY
projects and a dog – my grandpuppy, which I expect to be taken care of and
spoiled when I am not around. Anyway, we both need sleep. But by the way, we
did raise over $400 between the two sales. 
6) Get my body in shape. Umm? I don’t have a clue, so the answer is probably just no.
7) Bonus Points – I submitted a poem to a poetry challenge. Boy,
and I sure need bonus points this week!
I’m
going to admit up front that I probably won’t get a chance to work on any of
these goals this coming week. I’m hosting the annual Thanksgiving dinner on
Friday and it has gotten completely out of control. In past years, I’ve invited
up to 20 people but have been averaging 12 or 13. So I upped the invites to 28,
estimating that based on previous years, I would get 16 or 17 people. Well, I
was up to 18, when I called the last cousin on my list, who said she and her
spouse would love to come and since their daughter and son-in-law from out of
town will be in town that weekend, they would love to come too. Really? And as
you may or may not be aware, the whole point of Thanksgiving dinner at my house
is to fit everyone around one table, just like on TV. I have enough room and
enough tables to string together, the funny thing is that I don’t know if I
will have enough chairs. I’m still working on that. My hubby is stressing about
how we will be able to cook enough turkey, but I am going to leave that problem
to him.
I
bet you just can’t wait to hear how that all turns out.
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