no, not nothing

I have to make this super short, and that should be easy, as I have nothing to report. As in NOTHING. I haven’t worked on my WIP one single time the entire week and I am less than half-way to my goal of 30,000 words for that project for CampNaNo.

My entire week was consumed with my CMA conference, which ran Thursday through today. The early part of the week was spent in preparation, but I guess it all panned out. I got my paperwork printed for the business meeting Friday morning (112 pages, I think it was), I got my report done for the meeting Saturday night, I got everything lined up for the breakfast I hosted Sunday morning and most importantly I got all of my Kenyan merchandise organized so that Friday morning we were able to get it all out on display and made – drumroll please - $813. All money which will go back to Kenya on our next trip to help all of those people we have come to love.

And that’s all I got. This Monday night after the day job, I will pack up all the stuff I have left, and then dive back into my WIP for the rest of the week. 15,000 words here I come!

(I look pretty fat next to my anorexic friend and partner-in-crime Denise.)

just one goal . . . yea, right

I’m going to repeat myself here and remind you that I have too much stuff going on this month. I knew that going in, which is why I chose one big goal for my writing – write my sister’s story. My goal – finish it out at around 30,000 words. I am up to 10,050. I guess that’s not as horrendously behind as I had thought – like only 5,000 words behind. The problem is the month isn’t getting any easier. Well, at least not this week anyway.

This Thursday night I leave for a three-day conference for my career as a medical assistant. Tumaini Volunteers, our non-profit organization, signed up to be a vendor. For either a $100 fee or a donation of a door prize, which my friend and partner in crime Denise donated, we will have a table set up for Friday and Saturday selling our Kenyan merchandise to a new crowd. I have had booths at - let me think – nine or ten craft fairs all within a 45 mile radius of where I live and all those shows caterer to the same demographic. This time we are 150 miles from home and in front of a totally different kind of group. We have also increased some of our prices, since this new crowd has a better income than some of our other targets and plus people need to realize that this is for a nonprofit and we aren’t pocketing this money to finance a new car or anything like that. 

Last week, my kids had brought back from Kenya nearly 200 pieces of merchandise which need to be inventoried, priced and repacked for Thursday. Right now it is spread out all over two tables in my dining room. We inventoried it and priced it yesterday, so all I have to do is pack it up. That’s really my biggest goal for today. I have my doubts.

So all that being said, I need to spend the rest of the week until then getting ready not only for the sale, but for the conference overall as I am an attendee as well.

Next week on Thursday, I am giving a talk at a church out of town, so sometime before then I need to update my slides on my powerpoint.

I also have yet to finish going through the nearly 900 pictures that I took on our vacation the first of the month. Why am I such a putz?

And there are those 20,000 words yet to write on my project for CampNaNoWriMo. And on top of everything else, the sun is finally shining here, the snow is gone and the forecast is for 70 degrees again today, so I need to get outside. I think that is what I really need to do today, as mental health is the most important thing. 

How’s the weather by you? Has spring finally sprung? Have a great and productive week. 

do you need to focus?

I haven’t done so good this week on my one main goal of writing the memoir of my sister and our lives together for CampNaNoWriMo. I am up to 8380 words. Since it is almost the middle of the month and my goal was 30,000 words, I am way behind. Like 7,000 words behind. I keep thinking that I have lots of time, that I can still catch up, but I have so much going on this month. I just don’t know what I was thinking by even trying to tackle this.

Tonight after work I am giving a talk on my African trips to our children’s class at church (usually known as Sunday School, but since they meet on Wednesday night, and Wednesday School doesn’t have a ring to it, I never know what to call it). I give two more talks in the next month, one on the 28^th and one on May 8 at two different churches in two different towns, one 30 minutes away and one an hour and a half away. Also, the weekend of April 23 is the yearly state conference for my profession in medical assisting. We are having a table there to sell all of our Kenyan merchandise, so I need to get all our new stuff inventoried and priced this weekend. Of course, first and foremost is that my kids and the rest of our team come home from Kenya tomorrow. And I cannot wait to hear all of their stories and see all of their pictures.

I also am still trying to work my way up to running 5K. The weather here has been so abysmal, however, that I haven’t been able to start running outside yet and I just can’t go far on the treadmill.

And then there are the 900 pictures I took on vacation last week, which I need to edit and title, and hopefully delete a bunch. I bet there’s something else I am supposed to be working on, so much for keeping my goals simple this Round!

Has it been this hectic for you? Or are you meeting all your goals so far? And has spring come yet to your neck of the woods? 

And it seems like every time I look out one of my windows, this is what I see. So I spend a half hour taking pictures of them. I do appreciate my beautiful visitors, but I need to focus.

Time to get down to business

All right, it’s time to get down to business.

At Starved Rock State Park.

Hubby and I got home from vacation Friday afternoon. 

I worked on my project for CampNaNoWriMo nearly each evening, after being a tourist all day and seeing everything I possibly could in the area between Joliet and Utica. Uf-da. Even though I had been researching that part of Illinois for a few months, I hadn’t realized how truly much there was to see, from Route 66 to historic Ottawa to beautiful state parks.

I took nearly a thousand pictures, and have only edited one day’s worth. Once I get that all together I will put them on Facebook and start writing about our trip on my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. 

All the while still working on my WIP, titled “Holding All the Aces”. I’m a little behind my goal of a thousand words a day, up to 6,951 words for the month. Up to this point, though, most of those words came from ones already written, in a variety of journals I’ve already written about my childhood and my sister. There are a lot of holes to fill in, so I have plenty of material. I just need to BICFOK (butt in chair, fingers on keyboard) and also SOSM (stay off social media). I need to engrave that in a plaque over my desk.

And it’s snowing again! Argh! At least that means no yard work to distract me, right?

How are you doing so far this Round? It’s early enough to make up for any lost time. So get down to business.

My yard the day we got back from vacation. 

Truly Going to Keep It Simple

Welcome to Round 2 of Round of Words in 80 Days. This Round I am going to keep it simple (yes, I’ve said that before, but this time I mean it). One goal each month for the next three months. Here we go.

April goal – I signed up for CampNaNoWriMo for the month of April so that I can get my focus back and accomplish something, start something and finish it. For years, I’ve wanted to write the story of life with my sister Pat. The last few months I’ve gotten a few signs pointing me in that direction. Instead of being a straight forward memoir, it will be word-snapshots from our childhood, poetry, excerpts from letters Pat had written to me over the years, as well as first person accounts from my point of view and third person narration from where Pat was at. I have a lot of thoughts on all of that and the biggest snag may be organizing it. But that’s the joy of NaNoWriMo. Just putting it all in the laptop and pulling it together later.

May goal – Do a thorough edit of my novel, “Coming Home” and possibly start looking for a home for it.

June goal – Finish the memoir of my two most recent trips to Kenya.

Of course, I will keep blogging, both here and on the Dino Chronicles and keep training for a 5K. I also will keep working on the nonprofit organization – my kids are in Kenya right now, but as soon as they get back we need to get back at fundraising and start planning the next trip.

And that’s it, besides being a Round 2 sponsor and cheering the rest of you along.

 Have you got your goals for the Round rounded up?

At rehearsal for my first wedding in 1986. No, we didn't plan on wearing the same style shirt.