One more thing off the list

 Last night, I was able to cross off one of my goals for this Round. The Children’s Christmas Program came off without a hitch. Ok, honestly, there was a bobble or two, but no hitches.

Big goal - Publish “The Early Life of Jesus in 40 Days”   I have still not received a physical copy of the book. My publisher says that he has been in contact with the printer on a nearly daily basis and that now with the holiday crunch, they just have not been able to get my book out. I’m pretty bummed about it, but also try telling myself that God must have some great reason for letting this delay continue to drag on. 

Small goals –

Finish writing my novel – Yep, finished that a while back and haven’t even looked at it since. 

Work on my third devotional – Nope, haven’t looked at it. That is what January 1 is for.

Submit three pieces somewhere – Yep, submitted three pieces. I believe two were rejected and one is still pending.

Christmas program at church – Yeah! All done!

I think that I am restructuring my goals for next Round. I think I will have a few big goals for the total Round (write so many days on the new devotional, have edited six chapters on the novel), but otherwise I think I will take it week-by-week. I don’t foresee myself being as busy as I have been the last four months, but maybe if I take it a week at a time, I can set up goals which are attainable and which keep me moving forward instead of falling into the quagmire of the past month. (Here’s something truly amazing, I spelled “quagmire” correctly on my second try! I don’t know, I think that is amazing.)

In the meantime, I hope everyone has an especially Happy Christmas. See you all in the New Year. 

 There's only six kids in our whole Sunday School. But I keep telling everyone that if we fall to one kid in Sunday School we need to keep it going just for that one. 

I really don't do anything for the program except put it together. Two women lead this creative expression ministry and two others run the Sunday School. During the actual program, my only job was keeping the middle schoolers who were ushering on task. 

Oh, and taking pictures!

A Busy Week that included Christmas Seals

I am pretty sure that I already told you that this past week was not going to be productive as far as ROW goals. I got home from work at 7:30 on Monday. Tuesday I met a friend for supper at the Chinese restaurant and after that had to drop some stuff off at church, so it was going on seven when I got home. Wednesday I had to stop at church after work to make sure that everything was a go for the Christmas program on the 20^th. I confirmed everyone’s assignments and handed out parts. Thursday I was at church one more time, to bake cookies for the bazaar this weekend. I actually had made my cookies already last weekend, but I roped the others who were done with their baking into helping me color the program covers which didn’t get done by the kids the night before. Friday I had the day off from the day job, but went to see my daughter. Had planned on having her help me with Christmas shopping, but we continued to get sidetracked with one thing or another. Yesterday, I was going to go shopping with my Kinship kid, but she had a change of plans, so I stayed home and actually got some housework done and decorated for Christmas.

Whew! I have four totes and several other boxes full of Christmas decorations and other years I have put everything out. This year, I said I don’t really care, I am cutting back, this is ridiculous. So I put out my nativities, hang a few things on the wall, put out about a half dozen knickknacks, and I am done. When the hubby came home from work, he said, “Well, it looks nice. All you have left to do is the tree.” I gave him “the look” and told him he could do the tree this year. We’ll see.

 

When my mom moved last year, she gave me an old Mexican nativity set. I don’t remember where it came from. It’s pretty cool, but I didn’t know that seals were at the Jesus’s birth. Oh, of course, Christmas seals.

Sorry, Lord, I couldn’t help it.

Anyway, no writing got done. If you read my Wednesday post, you know my publisher did list “The Early Life of Jesus in 40 Days” on Amazon.com.  The ebook is currently available, but I am still waiting for the paperback version.  Still. Impatiently, I might add.

 How has your week been? Are Christmas preparations getting in the way of your goals? 

Just had to share

I wasn't going to post tonight, because I have to make Christmas cookies for the church bazaar and because I still thought I would sneak in some decorating and card-writing during the week. But I got the following email from my publisher:

Great news: the ebook version of The Early Life of Jesus in 40 Days is now available on Amazon:http://amzn.to/1umRSFB

The print proof shouldn’t be far behind – the modifications have been made and approved, and the proof should ship very soon.

Have a great evening.

Just wanted to share. Hope you all have a great evening too. I promise to check in on Sunday. 

Straying

I had something going on after the day job every night this week, except for Thursday, when the hubby really just wanted me to watch TV with him for once. I knew I was going to spend very little time in my office writing or working on writing, but it still has me down that I have nothing to show for the last seven days. It’s more than that even, but I can’t get into it here. I know the first of the year is coming and after the holidays, I have plans to hole up in my office for the rest of the winter.

As far as my goals, as you may have guessed, not much got done. I did finish my church’s Christmas program and have all the people and kids I need. I have to call two parents tonight just to confirm something, but other than that, I think I have it. I want to bounce the final copy off one of my musical friends to see if she thinks the lineup makes sense. Then this week, I just need to start handing out the parts, talk to the secretary about making me some copies. Yea, I think that may be it.

For the coming week, I am once again straying from my goals. I work late on Monday, I am meeting a friend for supper on Tuesday, I have to catch up with everyone at church on Wednesday, I have to go back to church on Thursday night to help make cookies for the bazaar on Saturday. Umm? What do you think about Friday? Help set up for the bazaar or go Christmas shopping? That one is a no-brainer, don’t you think?

While working on my other blog last night, I had to take some pictures of Mary and Joseph from one of my nativity sets. Alice was checking out Joseph. Or more likely, she was put out because I was using her couch.