Accomplished Enough

Since I only worked one day at the day job this past week, I should have accomplished a whole lot more. However, painting the living room was a ridiculous lot more work than we anticipated. It took four full days, including the last day which was eight hours of putting the room back together again. In addition to that, we took a ride on Monday, and on Saturday we went to an art festival out of town and then to a wedding in the evening. Being busy never seems to end.  

Since there are only ten days left in this Round of Words in 80 Days, there should be more green and less yellow. Dratted busy schedule. At least the red is minimal. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is goal at least worked on, red lettering is goal not even attempted.

A. WRITING

1. Finish another edit of my novel, “The Truth Beyond the River.” I’ve been plugging away on it, through chapter 38.    

2. Continue tweaking my book proposal / query, as needed for each literary agent I intend to contact next. I have decided to put this on hold for now. I’ve got the writers’ retreat this week, and I will work on it then, when I have experts around to guide me.    

3. Write nine chapters on my next novel, which I am giving the working title of “New Old Spies.”  Nope, but hoping to this weekend.

4. Write two inspirational pieces for the page-a-day calendar at my work.  I wrote the second one!

5. Write two posts per week for my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. I posted three times.

B. REACHING

1. Send proposals / queries to the next agents on my list.  See #2 above.  

2. Submit the two inspirational pieces to my work calendar.  I submitted the second one that I wrote.    

3. Promote myself or a piece of my writing (whether it be promoting one of my books, submitting a piece somewhere, saying something brilliant about my writing on my social media, etc.) once a week. Nope.    

C. READING

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

2. Read the daily devotion in “Jesus Calling”. Yes.

3. Read five other people’s blog posts per week and comment on two of them. I read five and commented on three, I think, I’m pretty sure.      

4. Finish reading three books. I’ve read two. Yeah! Finally finished “Emma” by Jane Austen. I’ve started the third, “The Last Savanna” by Mike Bond.           

D. REMAINING

1. Physical

a. Increase my water intake, averaging 60 ounces per day. I’ve been trying.   

b. Lose five pounds and three inches around my waist. I’m still just disgusted with myself. Why do I just want to eat all the time? Definitely taking this goal off the list for next Round. It’s not worth fretting about. I may just have to go up a pants size. That’s the worst thing about summer, not wearing jeans for three months and then going, oh, nuts, these just don’t fit anymore..  

c. Exercise four mornings a week and three evenings a week. I only officially worked out two mornings and three evenings. But I am still giving this green as that paint job burned more calories than any of my work outs.

2. Home fires

a. Scan 100 of the old pictures I have around the house. I did it! I’ve scanned 123 pictures, from two of my mom’s photo albums and from one of mine. Got them edited and filed and even put on my external drive for all posterity!   

b. Wash all of my house’s windows. Done with just over half the house and don’t know when I’m going to finish. But we did finish painting the living room, so I’m going green on this one.   

c. Do a major cleaning of one of my closets. Still not a closet, but I’m giving that painting of the living room a second green here, coz that was a ridiculous amount of work.  

d. Host my brother-in-law’s wedding at my house on August 4. This should have stars and fireworks next to it!   

3. Tumaini Volunteers

a. Write the Policy and Procedure manual. Not yet.

b. Host two merchandise sales. We had one the first Saturday in August, but we have also sold over a hundred dollars’ worth of stuff at a store in town, so I’m calling this goal met!  

c. Do a thorough inventory of our current merchandise. Yes, yeah!

d. Apply for grants. Not yet, but I think we are holding off on this for now. Have a meeting today to discuss.  

e. Raise enough money ($5,000) to start the first segment of the community center. Let’s be optimistic. We raised $585 in July and another $350 in August with over $6,000 in the bank, so we are getting there. (That money in the bank has to cover our other expenses, so not all of it can count towards the five thousand, maybe half of it only.)   

This Thursday, I head out of town for that writing retreat. I’m not going to work on the writing goals until then, but, boy, I’m going to tackle that list come Thursday night. And since I will be gone until next Sunday, there’s not much I can do about the rest of the list.

Are you happy where you are at with your goals this close to the end of the Round? Are you thinking about what to do next Round?

Hubby and I starting the second coat of paint. I'll eventually post all the before, during and after pictures on my other blog.
I took 82 of them! I need to weed some of them out.