Home and needing to buckle down

I arrived home from Kenya last Saturday night, around ten, and on Friday I just first started getting my groove back. Jet lag usually doesn’t affect me this much, but I have not been able to sleep at regular times all week. You would think that since I was only gone a week, my body wouldn’t have switched to Kenyan time so readily. Our second night there, I slept eleven hours and after that, my internal clock was set to their time. Why can’t the same thing happen coming home? But alas, after a week back, my clock has just now adjusted. I’ve heard somewhere that our internal clocks more easily adjust to moving ahead in time and take longer to adjust to going back, for some reason. I don’t know. But whatever the case, my butt got whooped this trip. 

Anyway, we had a good time, got done what we needed to and didn’t have any incidents. Now, it is time to buckle down and get stuff done.  

Here’s my list of goals for April, May, and June. Green highlight is goal accomplished (for the week at least), yellow highlight is goal at least worked on, red lettering is goal not even attempted. A Smiley face marks a goal completely done for the Round. If I didn’t give it any color, it’s because I couldn’t really work on that goal for whatever reason, and I just didn’t want to drag in another color. 

A. WRITING

J1. Finish a final edit of my novel, “The Truth Beyond the River.”  Done, on April 5.  

2. Continue tweaking my book proposal / query, as needed for each literary agent I intend to contact next. Spent some time looking at it on Friday but need to decide on the next agent to send it to first, so I know what they want.  

3. Write eight chapters on my next novel, which I am giving the working title of “New Old Spies.” I wrote about 960 words, not much, but a start.  

4. Write a piece to submit to the Guidepost Magazine Writers Contest (deadline June 10). Not started.

5. Write three posts per week for my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. Nope, just one this week. Still decompressing after the trip.  

 

B. REACHING

1. Continue sending that proposal / query to each next agent on my list. I spent a couple hours researching the next agent. Though I already had a list, it needs constant updating. I will try to pick one and submit it this week. (I should make a note somewhere with my tally – submitted to 2, rejected by 2.) 

2. Submit the polished piece to Guidepost’s Contest. Nope. Gotta write it yet.

J3. Submit a poem I wrote a while back to the next issue of Voices on the Wind Poetry Journal (deadline April 20). Submitted, accepted and published!      

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, not a thing that counts this week. Oh, I suppose I could count that I shared the link to that accepted poem on Facebook.

C. READING

1. Read the daily assignment in “Today’s Light” Study Bible. I managed to get about two weeks behind on this. Am going to really try this week to catchup by at least one week.   

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

3. Finish reading three other books.  Actually read two books while on the trip. “Rescuing Finley” by Dan Walsh and “The Body” by Stephen King.  

D. REMAINING

1. Physical

a. Increase my water intake. Hmm? Not so much. My goal is 60 ounces a day, and I think I’ve averaged around 40 to 50.   

b. Cut way back on my sweets intake. Hmm? Definitely not so much. We’ve had a boatload of stress at work all week, so there is chocolate everywhere!   

Jc. Do whatever my specialist says to do that is going to heal my heel.  I was sure that all the walking I did on the trip, plus only wearing my ASO brace instead of the big CAM walker would have really screwed it up. But I saw my podiatrist on Wednesday and she turned me loose, said it was time to keep walking on it, working it, to strengthen it now. So, whoot, whoot for me!

2. Home fires

a. Clean out my mom’s papers. Not yet.

b. Do a major cleaning of one of my closets. Not yet.

c. Plant my garden. I couldn’t believe that when I came home from Africa, all of the snow was melted. Hopefully this week I can get the hubby to till the garden and then I can plant it by Memorial Day. Maybe I should buy the seeds this week.   

3. Tumaini Volunteers

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

Jb. Host two merchandise sales. Had two of them in April. Now it’s time to start scheduling them for the summer.   

Jc. Return to Kenya this Spring! As you already know! If you follow my other blog or follow me on Facebook, you may be reading more about it.  

Wish me luck in the coming weeks. Spring is here and there is so much to do around the house and in the yard. It will be hard to keep my focus.

Has Spring arrived where you live? Does it make it hard for you to stick to your goals when it is nice outside? 

At the safari camp where we stayed while we were working with the villagers. I'm looking pretty serious here, aren't I? Just hard at work.