off to the races in the new year

Here we are, one week into the new year already. I can’t say that 2018 has shown a huge improvement over 2017, but we are going to power through.

The week turned out pretty good for me, at least as far as goals go. Goals fully achieved for the week are highlighted in green, those attempted are highlighted in yellow and those not even looked at are in red letters.

   A.    WRITING

1.     Edit six chapters of “The Truth Beyond the River”. I really haven’t been doing much of an edit, just reading through it and fixing the obvious errors. I’m about 70% done with that. Next read-through I will get serious about it, but I think I needed this quick one to get back into it.

2.     Write three posts to the “Dino Chronicles”. Done.

   B.    REACHING

1.     Read four other blogs and comment on two of them. Read five and commented on one (so I’m counting that).

2.     Promote “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”.

a.     Finish emailing my contact list asking for reviews. Done.

b.     Share the book on my social media. I blogged about it, so that counts.

   C.     READING

1.     Read the daily assignment in “Today’s Light” Study Bible. Up to date.

2.     Daily read “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee”. Pretty much. It is a long book, though, and not very cheery. I’m reading it to help with the perspective of one of the main characters in “The Truth Beyond the River”.

   D.    REMAINING

1.     Physical

a.     Exercise four mornings a week. Exercised five mornings.

b.     Work out three evenings a week. Worked out four evenings.

c.      Cut back on sweets.  Not really. Don’t know how to measure this goal, but the answer is still “no”.

2.     Home fires

a.     Scan a dozen old pictures. I spent most of the day Friday trying to get my scanner to work, without success. I bit the bullet and tried just taking pictures of my pictures. It hasn’t been too bad. Those old photos don’t look the best anyway, so with a little editing the photographed ones are as good as the scanned ones. I can only do it on a sunny day, though – natural light, so I did a bunch (42!) yesterday.

b.     Work on the new scrub top. Cut it out Friday and sewed most of it yesterday. I’ll finish it today. (I almost only gave myself a yellow highlight, but my goal was clearly to “work on it”, not to finish it.)

3.     Tumaini Volunteers

a.     Start writing the Procedure Manual. Got the basics started and outlined.

b.     Write a tentative itinerary for Medical Outreach in the Fall. Nope.

Looks like it was kind of an all or nothing week. But that’s okay; I’m good with that.

Next week, I don’t have too much extra going on – church Monday night and an appointment for a facial on Friday (I know, I don’t get it either, but I’ll post the pictures here next Sunday). Oh, and I work Saturday morning. But I should still have time to get lots done.

A. WRITING

1. Finish the initial edit/read-through of “The Truth Beyond the River”.

2. I’ve had an idea for another book for a while (well, actually like four of them, but this one is speaking to me), so I might start working on -that – outlining the characters and such.

3. Write three posts to the “Dino Chronicles”.

B. REACHING

            1. Read four other blogs and comment on two of them.

            2. Start researching literary agents to contact.

3. Promote “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”. This one gets so depressing. I keep checking the book’s ratings on Amazon as well as the number of reviews, and every time I do, I just say to myself, “I suck!”. I know that probably 90% of authors say the same thing, but it just gets so old. I know I should stop checking Amazon all the time, but I just keep hoping to see some jump in reviews or sales. I keep trying to come up with new and original ways to promote it (again, as I am sure all authors are doing), but nothing seems to make a difference. 

a. Maybe do some research (again) on places I can do book-signings.  

b. Share the book on my social media (again).

C. READING

1. Read the daily assignment in “Today’s Light” Study Bible.

2. Daily read “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee”.

3. I am also going to try to get back at the Tuesday morning Bible study. I quit going about a year ago, when my life started to slide into the abyss. One of my resolutions for the new year is to start going again. They are reading the book “Jesus Calling”, so I downloaded it onto my Kindle and will start reading that too.

D. REMAINING

1. Physical

a. Exercise four mornings a week.

            b. Work out three evenings a week.

c. Cut back on sweets and increase water intake. 

2. Home fires

a. Sort through those boxes of pictures so that when I do scan them, I can do it quickly and efficiently. If there is a day where the sun is streaming in my windows when I am not at work, I’ll try to photograph some more of them.

b. Finish the new scrub top.

3. Tumaini Volunteers

a. Work on the Procedure Manual.

b. Write a tentative itinerary for Medical Outreach in the Fall.

c. Post four items for sale on Etsy. I’m going down to my daughter’s today and we plan on working on it.

That’s about all for this week. The weather is finally supposed to start warming up here, so I’m pretty excited about that. Maybe I’ll be able to get out and take some pictures of my yard or my dog.

Have a good week and best wishes to all. 

Showing off my horsemanship skills at Wall Drug in 1971.

They finally let me on an actual horse in 1988.