Goals in spite of Thanksgiving

We had our family Thanksgiving dinner at my house yesterday. Of the over twenty-some who I invited, we ended up with 13 (ok, unless you count the two dogs, then 15). Everything went okay. Actually rather uneventful, but the way my life has gone this entire year, uneventful is good.

And what of my goals? First, let me rearrange them so I can better concentrate on those I have to work on.

Goals Accomplished:

  

• Blog about my trip to Africa.
• Write a summary of my trip to Kenya and financial prospectus.  
• Set up dates to do my presentation.
• Have two sales of my Kenyan merchandise.
• Write a newsletter for the nonprofit.
• Finish reading “Shantaram”. This the latest goal accomplished. At nearly 1,000 pages, the longest book I have ever read. But so worth it. I thought it was great and would highly recommend it to anyone who has traveled to other and very different countries, or has an interest in learning more about other cultures.

And these goals are still hanging out:

• My church’s Christmas program. Yes, I finished putting together the main parts of the program, now I need to fill in lots of holes. And get lots of help with it. 
• Work on a power point presentation of the trip. I pretty much have my pictures from the trip edited and organized. I really need to get this together though as my first talk is eleven days away. 
• On the writing end of things… I think I am ready to start writing that second memoir, the one about my last two trips to Kenya. I just need some quiet time to dive into it. I know how and where I want to start it and have journal entries to rely on to keep me going. Just need the time.

 And I think it is reasonable to say that – plus all the preparations to take care of for Christmas – will take me to the start of the next ROW80.

 How about you? Getting caught up in the holiday frenzy? Or having your own personal frenzy? And did anyone reading this complete NaNoWriMo? 

coming up green

I think it is time to start adding some color to these goals.

  

• Blog about my trip to Africa. I have blogged about it enough. I think I am going to make a Tumaini Tuesday and blog once a week, on Tuesdays (duh), about the nonprofit and anything new that’s going on or anything I left out about the trip or whatever. So, I’m gonna call this one a wrap. 

• Write a summary of my trip to Kenya and financial prospectus. Done, printed and shared. 

• Work on a power point presentation of the trip.  Still working on those pictures. 

• Set up dates to do my presentation. I have three dates set up – December 11 at the clinic where I work, January 31 at my church and February 27 at an educational seminar for my profession as a certified medical assistant. I would say that is enough dates. 

• Have two sales of my Kenyan merchandise. I had one sale at the clinic in October and the second sale yesterday. I still have a bunch of stuff left, so have signed up for another sale on December 5, because why bother to have a life when Christmas is a month away. 

• My church’s Christmas program. I’ve got it written as much as I can at this point. I need to see what our Sunday School teacher comes up with for her class and what songs our puppet troop is going to do. I also have five older kids lined up to do readings and only need three more kids for that. Maybe we can pull it off yet. 

• Write a newsletter for the nonprofit. I finished that early in the week and even printed a few copies to hand out at yesterday’s sale. Will print some more and start distributing them this week.   

• Finish reading “Shantaram”. I thought I had a shot at finishing it this week, but no luck. Maybe this week, with an extra day off work for Thanksgiving.   

• On the writing end of things, I still have not done any of the things I had hoped to, but have resigned myself to the fact that it will all have to wait until the first of the year. 

• Sewing. Because I like to add goals after I do them, I finally sewed the piece of fabric my son brought back from Ghana in 2009 into a shirt which I wore at the sale yesterday. I sewed it in a couple hours Friday afternoon. I decided I had hemmed and hawed about it long enough. 

Nothing like a page full of greened goals to perk a person right up! What about the upcoming week? Looking at this list, I would say that the power point presentation is all I have to work on. That and Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday (coz Hubby works on Thanksgiving day, but I am going to a friend’s house for dinner Thursday and having the family over on Saturday, which not everyone has RSVP’ed to yet, so we will have between 13 and 19). 

(Though we just got our first snow last week, and it is covering my yard in a thin layer, seeing that picture above, I already miss the green grass.)

change

I’ve started using the desk top computer in my living room more and more. Even though my son checked out my laptop last week and said it is running as well as it can, it is still so painfully slow at times that I cannot stand it. Also I have about run out of patience with Microsoft Word. I just hate – I mean HATE – the thought of learning a new word processing program, but I may have to give in sooner than later. Change is not a friend of mine.

The answer would be to invest in a new laptop all together, but I do not see that in the budget. I asked the hubby if I could ask for a new one for Christmas, and he gave me the Look. So I guess I am stuck with what I got.

Here is the list of goals I started this Round with:

  

• Blog about my trip to Africa. I have blogged about most of our days in Kenya, I still want to share a few thoughts and stories, but I think I should wind it up this week.
• Write a summary of my trip to Kenya and financial prospectus. Done, printed and shared.
• Work on a power point presentation of the trip.  Haven’t worked on it, but still am editing pictures, so I want to finish that first anyway.
• Set up dates to do my presentation. I have one date for a talk – December 11, at the clinic where I work. And I think I will speak at church after the nine a.m. service on January 31. That is the week before the Super Bowl, so people won’t have anything else to do that Sunday. I will verify it with Pastor this week and get it in the newsletter. The friend who went with me is also working on getting us on the schedule for a CEU seminar the end of February.  
• Have two sales of my Kenyan merchandise. The second sale is coming up next Saturday, so I need to get ready for it and promote it.
• My church’s Christmas program. I’ve written the “bones” of the program and have a few kids lined up. I need to call more kids tonight and finish writing the program, as much as I can. My organist will help fill in the songs.
• Write a newsletter for the nonprofit. I hope to work on that this afternoon.
• Finish reading “Shantaram”. The longest book I have ever read – nearly one thousand pages. I am getting there though, only two chapters left. I hope to finish it this week.
• On the writing end of things, I still have not done any of the things I had hoped to, but have resigned myself to the fact that it will all have to wait until the first of the year.

I have to work this Friday all day (my usual day off and most productive most weeks), but I have off Tuesday afternoon instead. I need to get a lot done that afternoon. Today is an unusually beautiful mid-November day here and I may have to go outside and play, so I may not get done as much as I had hoped. 

How is your upcoming week shaping up? 

My yard one year ago. Glad to still have green grass this year. 

Maybe Not So Lazy

I wasn't going to post a blog tonight because I didn't have anything to say, so I will make this quick.

This morning I was ready to cancel our church's children's Christmas program. We just have so few kids and though I know that I said several years ago when I took on the task of writing the program, that we would do it even there was just one kid, this morning it seemed so futile. Some time during the day I decided that I would stick with it and some how make it work. So  I sat down at the computer and churned out the "bones" of the program - the Bible verses and a template for adding everything else. I will talk to our organist tomorrow for help plugging in songs and then wait to hear from our puppet troop to see what songs they are doing. And this weekend call all of my slacker parents and force them to rope their middle schoolers and high schoolers into this.

I can get this done. What made me panic this morning was looking at the date - I have a month and a week to pull this together! How did I let time get away from me like this?

Ok, but I was going to keep this short and get to bed.

Besides the Christmas program, I have been working on more edits of my pictures from Kenya, have posted to my other blog on schedule and have done some promoting of my two devotionals on social media. Oh, and posted a picture on Facebook for the upcoming craft sale I will be at. I guess that is enough. Oh, and one more thing. My daughter was up Monday and all evening we worked on stuff for the nonprofit.

Yeah, see, no matter how lazy I say that I am, I guess I still get stuff done.  

See I can do it! 

So says Little Eddie, the house kitten at the volunteer house where we stayed in Kenya. 

Busyness

I have decided that with the long list of things I have to get done before the end of the year, I really need to write a specific list of what and when I need to get stuff done. But I have been so busy that I haven’t had time to even look at my list.

I was at a seminar for work yesterday, and every time I asked anyone how they were, they would tell me how busy they were. Finally, at the end of the day, when the last woman I talked to started on with her list of busyness, I held up my hand and said, “Talk to the hand. I am tired of hearing how busy everyone is, coz this is what I have going on.”

After thinking about it, though, I am going to try a different tact. It is almost like a contest to see who can be the busiest. Why is that?

Instead of trying to up everyone else’s list, I’m going to try to answer with something witty, like, “I feel blessed that there are enough hours in each day to do the things I need to do, because if there isn’t any more time in the day, I don’t have anything else to do.” Or something to that effect.

What about you? Getting as tired doing too much every day as you are in telling people about it?

Here is the list of things I am looking at:

  

• Blog about my trip to Africa. Have been whittling away on it, and I think only have two more posts to write and share.
• Write a summary of my trip and financial prospectus. Done, printed and shared.
• Work on a power point presentation of the trip.  Haven’t started on the pictures yet, but wrote an outline and have a title: “Poverty in Kenya: the good, the bad and the ugly.”
• Set up dates to do my presentation. I have one date for a talk – December 11, at the clinic where I work. I also talked to a few people at church and they agree that sometime in January or February, maybe after football season, after church Sunday morning. I need to get a 2016 calendar and pick a date.
• Have two sales of my Kenyan merchandise. Have had one and the second is November 21. I need to promote it yet.
• Decide on this year’s Christmas program for church. After talking to our pastor and our Sunday school teacher, the program is a go, even though there are only three kids in her class. THREE! But I said it years ago, when our numbers were dropping, that we need to have a program even if there is only one kid. I just have to rope more confirmation class and high school kids into participating. The puppet team from town is going to get back to me, but they have always performed in the program before. The congregation singing Christmas carols will just have to fill in the rest of the time.
• On the writing end of things, I have not gotten to any of these things.  
• Edit my third devotional
• Edit my novel about Kenya now that it is fresh in my mind again
• Start pulling together notes for a potential second memoir
• I also need to add to this list writing a newsletter for the nonprofit. I need to get it put together and out to everyone who has supported us so far as soon as possible. We need to raise $4000 by the end of the year to get chicken production started at the school shortly after the first of the year. $4000 shouldn’t be that much money to come up; it would just be nice to get one corporate sponsor willing to foot the bill We will just have to see what happens.

 Have a good week and don’t be so busy!

Why the pics are taking so long....

Are your goals flabby?

Ah, here we are, the first day of NaNoWriMo. Hope that those of you who are participating are off to a great start. Maybe I will call this month GeItToMo (get it together month). I like that, maybe I will start a movement with that.

So here’s what I have done in the last week out of the long list of stuff I have for the month:

• Blog about my trip to Africa. Written and posted three, which is my goal for the week. Have three more, or so to do yet. I also am still working on posting pictures to Facebook and have a few (a few hundred) left to do.  
• Write a summary of my trip and financial prospectus. Done and emailed to the chairman of the board and the volunteer I had taken with. Later today I will probably email it to the rest of the board.
• Work on a power point presentation of the trip. No, not yet. I have, after all 1400 pictures that I am still weeding through.  
• Set up dates to do my presentation. I have one date for a talk – December 11, at the clinic where I work. I think I will wait until after the first of the year to do a talk at church. With Christmas coming up way too fast, I don’t think that our parishioners will take the time to attend yet this year.  
• Have two sales of my Kenyan merchandise. Had one this week, which went over well, I think. Made nearly $400. I have the second sale November 21.
• Decide on this year’s Christmas program for church. Speaking of Christmas. I really did not want to do this again this year, and with only five kids (yes, Five!) in Sunday School, I was hoping their teacher would be like, no, not worth it. But she thought she could get them to do at least a few songs and it is up to me to find older kids (the confirmation class and high schoolers) to fill in the gaps. So I really need to start working on that.
• On the writing end of things, I hope to do some of these things, but have not even thought much about them this week.
• Edit my third devotional
• Edit my novel about Kenya now that it is fresh in my mind again
• Start pulling together notes for a potential second memoir

 The only other thing I can think of that I have going on is taking care of my hip pain once and for all. I started seeing a chiropractor on Friday and have my first real appointment (i.e. when the action starts) tomorrow. I am going to remain confident that this will work. I already love the chiropractor because she kept saying how fit I seemed to be as she was checking me out. I wanted to tell her that the constant pain has derailed any fitness program I had been attempting, but I guess I did not get all flabby as fast as I thought I would.

Speaking of flabby….

 And more random pictures from Kenya.