Like an Avalanche

My personal life has continued to feel like an avalanche bearing down on me. I honestly don’t see an end in sight, but if this is what life has handed me, there’s no reason to put that life on hold. I had a meltdown one night last week, but have gotten a grip on things and am going to plow forward.

Here’s what I had hoped to accomplish this past week and how I actually did. Green highlights were a success, yellow highlights were at least worked on and red were epic fails.  

     1)    Write a chapter in my new novel, “The Big House”, but only after I have finished the edits in #2. Since I only finished #2 in the wee hours of this morning, I did not get to this.

     2)    Finish the first round of edits on “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”. Finished at three this morning.

     3)    Post to The DinoChronicles three times. Only wrote new posts twice.

     4)    Make those plane reservations for the return trip to Kenya. Yes and got them at a great price with good connections.

     5)    Start those Foundation Training exercises to cure my back pain. Have slowly been working into them. Hey, and with all the stress of the last week, I have lost that five pounds I’ve been working on for six months. Probably not the way to do it though, huh?

That actually doesn’t look too bad considering I didn’t get home until after six each night all week. It was past seven thirty the night of my meltdown. Of course, something has to give, so my house is in dire need of a good cleaning. It doesn’t smell yet, though, so I’m not going to kill myself and who says the Christmas decorations have to come down before February?  

Next week my plan is to:

1)    Write a chapter in the new novel, “The Big House”. I also really need to start coming up with a name for it. “The Big House” is just the working title that I’ve been using coz I need to call it something.

2)    Send that first round of edits on “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” to my editor. I’d like to whip through it one more time tomorrow before I email it on Monday, but we’ll see how much time I have.

3)    Post to The DinoChronicles three times.

4)    Raise the final thousand dollars for our trip to Kenya. We have enough money in the bank to pay for the project we will be doing, but the policy of our nonprofit is to pay the expenses of our team leader, who is going to be my daughter Val this trip. I know she would pay her own way if she needs to, but with all the work she is already doing, I really want her to not have to worry about money on top of everything else.

5)    Get on track with the Foundation Training exercises. The plan states I am supposed to be doing these exercises for 15 minutes just three times per week. I am still muddling through learning them, so doing them for just a few minutes a day to get them straight in my head. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but it’s how I have to do it. Hopefully this week, I can get on that 15 minute/three times a week schedule.

6)    Put away the Christmas decorations!

If you would like to give a tax-deductible donation to send my daughter to Kenya, you can mail it to: Tumaini Volunteers, Inc., PO Box 726, Wausau, WI  54402 or donate directly through our website. Thanks and have a good week. 

My beautiful daughter with her brother and her husband, at my mother-in-law's house. At least I don't have as many Christmas decorations as she has. 

Starting Over . . .Kind of

I started my original blog, The Dino Chronicles, in the spring of 2010. I’d always wanted to be a writer and my daughter suggested it as a way to start sharing my story. It also has been a great motivator in getting me to write something at least a couple times a week.   

A few years later, I decided that I should start a separate blog in which to share my writing progress. About the time I had made that decision, I had discovered the blog Round of Words in 80 Days, a community of other writers. It was a great way to post my writing goals and progress twice a week – on Sundays and Wednesdays - and to keep me accountable.

For various reasons, I have decided to break from the Round of Words in 80 Days group. I’ll still post my writing progress here, at least once a week, but probably on Saturdays instead of Sundays. I’ll post mid-week if I have something exciting to share.  

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Here’s what I had hoped to accomplish in the last week. What actually happened is highlighted in green, what was worked on is highlighted in yellow and what I never even looked at is in red.

1)        Work on my current novel, “The Big House”.  Not at all.

2)        Work on edits for “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”. I am through 100 pages out of 280.  Not nearly as far as I had hoped, but at least I made progress..

3)        Post to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week. Only posted twice this week.    

4)        Submit a piece to some place for publication.  I submitted a poem to “Voices on the Wind” poetry journal.

5)        Work on scheduling a book signing or presentation. Nope.

6)        Finalize return trip to Kenya with our nonprofit Tumaini Volunteers.  Nope, but we are making our plane reservations today! Yeah!   

8)        Begin working out using the techniques from The Foundation Training book. I haven’t read far enough in the book to start the workouts yet, but I am at least getting close. Next week. Haven’t we all heard that before?

In the coming week, I hope to:

      1)    Write a chapter in my new novel, “The Big House”, but only after I have finished the edits in #2

      2)    Finish this round of edits on “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”

      3)    Post to The Dino Chronicles three times

      4)    Make those plane reservations for the return trip to Kenya

      5)    Start those Foundation Training exercises. I just found some of YouTube videos of them, so may try some of those as well

With the crazy schedule I have been keeping, and with all the chaos in my personal life, I think I am going to look at my goals on a week to week basis for a little while. Sometimes looking at the big picture of months or a year is exhausting.  

I’ll keep you posted as to all this pans out. 

 These pictures have nothing to do with what I just wrote. I just thought they were cute. Buddy, above, and Wesley, below. My grand-puppy Christmas elves.

Dino, the wonder dog, wanted no part of the elf photo shoot. 

A setback and forward progress

I am going to make this quick.

I’ve had another setback as my mom’s health has taken a sudden slide. We had her in the ER on Monday afternoon and had hoped that they would keep her overnight. She’s so weak, fatigued, confused, not eating, but her labs were all normal enough that they couldn’t justify admitting her (stupid insurance). So I didn’t get home until 6:30 Monday night, after making sure she was okay getting herself ready for bed. Then my cousin called at 7:30 worried about her because she picked up the phone when he called her, but then didn’t talk. So I ran back to her apartment, let myself in, and found her all tucked in bed, sound asleep.

Last night, I stopped to see her after work and sat with her again until she was ready to go to bed (this is after a nine-hour day on the day job of course.). I feel bad that tonight I didn’t stop because I worked until nearly 6:30.

I do have good things to say though too.

I’m up to page 100 on editing “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”, out of 280 pages. I am happy with that progress, considering how my week has been going.

I’m also holding off on getting back to my exercise regimen as my hubby got a book for Christmas called “Foundation . . .something, something”. It spells out an entire workout program geared to fixing bad backs. I want to start using those exercises and totally ditch the ones I’ve been doing for years. From what I’ve read so far, those exercises are no doubt making my back worse instead of better. 

Lastly, it’s a date this Saturday to make our plane reservations to Kenya in the spring. Yeah!

And another Christmas picture, as I haven't taken any others since then. 

Ending the Christmas Season and Moving On

I finally had some progress this week. I hope I can keep the ball rolling. I think now that the holidays are finally officially over (we had our last Christmas get together just this past Friday), I can get my focus back on these goals.

Green highlights are ones which met the quota for the week, yellow highlights were at least worked on and red were a fail.

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”.  I wrote 968 words, but unfortunately I won’t get back at it for another week or two. (See #2)

2)        Have “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” published. I finally got the first round of edits back from the editor. Yeah! I’ve been playing around with how I want to do my own track changes, so have only gotten through chapter 3. I plan on barreling into it later today and getting it done this week.

3)        Continue posting to my other blog, “TheDino Chronicles” three times a week. Nope, only posted new posts twice this week.    

4)        Submit three pieces to various places for publication. Nothing, but hope to submit one poem this week and have another poem in mind. (Exactly the same as last week. Argh.)

5)        Schedule a book signing. Nope, nothing. But now that I am back on track with my publisher, I am going to start working on this.

6)        Book a presentation either on my books or my trip to Kenya. Nope, same reason as #5. (Do I know why I put these as separate goals? They are so much the same.)

7)        Finalize return trip to Kenya with our nonprofit Tumaini Volunteers.  Did some stuff. I posted on all our social media asking for donations and also have been working with my daughter on looking at flights. Still also working on those donation letters.  

8)        Get my body in better shape than it is now. I worked out three mornings and two evenings. I’ve had something going on with my ankle, so didn’t want to overdo it. I ran out of turmeric, so bought another bottle of that yesterday along with some more glucosamine, which I’ve been out of for many months. I thought I would try it again. I gotta get this pain under control.

Looking at the week ahead, I should be able to get off work from the day job early on Monday (early for me is 5:00pm), but have to go in for training on Friday (which is normally my day off). I ordered new glasses, so I have to find the time to go pick them up. Also, I would like to book our flights to Kenya next weekend, so should get together with my daughter to do that. I also have a meeting at church on Tuesday night. Anything else on my schedule that is going to slow me down this week? I don’t see anything, but things do have a way of popping up. 

What things get in your way that slows down your progress? Are you able to plow through them or do they completely stall you? 

 My son - "Christmas is all done."

My daughter - "Oh, really?"

why is there so little color this time?

I had hoped to come up with a more exciting list of goals, but here is the one I posted last week. Green highlights are ones which met the quota for the week, yellow highlights were at least worked on and red were a fail.

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”.  I didn’t get any writing done on it, but since I haven’t worked on it in a while, I started rereading what I had written so far. So it was at least looked at.

2)        Have “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” published. I hadn’t heard anything from my publisher since I bugged them a month ago saying “I haven’t heard anything”. They got back to me saying, “sorry, we will get that first round of edits to you in a few days.” I emailed them again this week saying their lack of communication is unacceptable. They emailed me right back, again, saying sorry, we will get back to you with those edits in a few days. I’m kind of at my wits end. I looked at my contract and there’s nothing in it which can get me out of it at this point. They have a year to publish the book, which is still nine months away. If I don’t hear by mid-week, I will email them again and just ask if I can cancel the contract as I feel they are dropping the ball. It’s not so much the delay right now, but if this is how they operate, I don’t want to continue a relationship with them. Sigh.

3)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week. Yes, complete.   

4)        Submit three pieces to various places for publication. Nothing, but hope to submit one poem this week and have another poem in mind.

5)        Schedule a book signing. Nope, but did some research. Also, I shouldn’t pursue this right now until I have a better idea the future of the book.

6)        Book a presentation either on my books or my trip to Kenya. Nope, same reason as #5.

7)        Finalize return trip to Kenya with our nonprofit Tumaini Volunteers.  Nope, didn’t work on the trip at all. Right now I am updating our 2016 donation list to start sending out 2016 donation letters to donors for income tax purposes.

8)        Get my body in better shape than it is now. Didn’t eat much better, but did work out three mornings and three evenings. Finally some green.

You’ll notice some goals didn’t even get a color. Instead of being worked on, they were actually fretted over, so I couldn’t say they were a fail yet were not progressed on.

The one thing which took up a lot of time however was the sweaters which I put together for a Christmas party we went to last night. I was still finishing them as we were about to walk out the door, so they don’t have all the cute things on them that I had planned on. There’s always next year, I guess.

 Plain sweaters from St Vinnie's. Mine was $3, Hubby's was on the clearance rack for $2.

 All laid out, this was my goal for what they were going to look like. 

 Running out of time!

 At the party. 

 Didn't get around to the snowman's hat or the jingle bells on the tree. Question - do I add them quick now or wait until I drag them out next year? 

Cuddle or Write? Hmm?

I am still in the after-the-holidays-daze. Trying to get motivated to get back to work on the three non-paying jobs that I hold down in addition to the paying day-job. In reality, I just need some more time off. Time to cuddle with the puppies.  But the real world is calling. Time instead to buckle down.

So what are my goals for this year and for the next few months? Let me try to break it down, somehow.

Goals for the year:

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”.  

2)        Have “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” published.

3)        Finish writing the memoir of my second two trips to Kenya.

4)        Finish writing the memoir of my sister’s life and death.

5)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  

6)        Submit twelve pieces to various places for publication.

7)        Participate in a book signing.

8)        Give a presentation either on my books or my trip to Kenya.

9)        Return to Kenya with our nonprofit Tumaini Volunteers.  

10)      Get my body in shape.

I could expound on each of these, but let’s focus on what I can accomplish in the next 80 days or so:

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. 

2)        Have “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” published.

3)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week. 

4)        Submit three pieces to various places for publication.

5)        Schedule a book signing.

6)        Book a presentation either on my books or my trip to Kenya.

7)        Finalize return trip to Kenya with our nonprofit Tumaini Volunteers. 

8)        Get my body in better shape than it is now.

Again, I could expound on each of these. But I think I will let it ruminate in my head for a bit. Hopefully by this weekend, I can better see where I’m headed and what route is the most likely to get me there.

Are you sticking with concise goals or are you traveling in several different directions?  

2016 year-end review

Before I can consider goals for the upcoming year, I always like to recap what goals I accomplished in the previous year.

At the beginning of each year, I type up a long list of goals for the entire year, breaking it down in categories such as: writing, reading, family, church, home, health, etc., and including chores ranging from clean a certain closet to plant my garden to read this many books of the Bible as well as fun things such as go camping in August or take a road trip in the winter.

I started this in 2014 and titled it “40 things in ‘14”. I did not increase that list by ten each year (ie 50 in 15, 60 in 16), but am trying to stick with 50 goals. For 2016 I had 46 such goals, accomplished 24 of them, worked on 5 of them, and was only an epic fail on 17. And because I am kind of nuts over numbers, that means I have a percentage of wins or worked on’s at 63%. I like that.

More numbers. One of my writing goal was to submit 12 pieces somewhere. I came in at 10 pieces, which again I am pretty happy with. Only two of those were accepted and six were rejected. Since two are still out there waiting to be heard from, they are not fails yet, so my winning percentage is 40%. Not quite as good as I would like, but it is what it is. I worked on it, right?

As far as what I really wanted to accomplish with my writing in 2016, that ridiculous list looked like this:

1.     Write the memoir of my sister Pat’s life and death – I did work on it.

            2.   Finish editing “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” – Not only finished the final edit, I submitted it somewhere and it got accepted. I should really give myself quadruple bonus points for that, huh?

3.   Write memoir of my second two trips to Africa – Worked on it

4.   Write the novella “No Body Found” – I started this actually 25 years ago and for some reason dug it out last spring. It is half written, long-hand, so I started typing it into the computer. It shouldn’t be that much to finish, but my heart isn’t really in it anymore.

5.   Start writing the novel “The Abbey” – This has been my baby since early this past fall. I’ve written 46,000 some words on it since August. Finishing it is going to be a main goal for 2017.

6.   Start writing “The School” – I don’t know why I think I should have all these projects going on at one time. I think I wrote short bios of three of the main characters, but I think they will have to wait until they are ready to talk to me.

  

I have been swamped with all sorts of other things this week, not to mention that the house is a disaster. I am going to go attend to those things now, and promise to post my 2017 later in the week.

Oh, and one last quick thing, I got a new Laptop for Christmas! So that long list of things to attend to includes setting up the new device with all that I need and want. Been working on it all week and still not done. Yikes.

How about you? Do you review the previous year before diving into the new one? Or do you just keep looking forward? Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?

I am trying to look surprised, but the hubby had already asked which debit or credit card he could put up to a thousand dollar purchase on. He also said that if I saw any emails from Best Buy to disregard them. The man is such a sweetheart, but not very cunning at all.