Time to Gear up for Thanksgiving

The cold that attacked me three weeks ago and which seemed to have totally abated, came back with a vengeance last Sunday. Either that or a different virus attacked me while I wasn’t on my game. Whatever the case, I called in sick to work on Monday and mostly laid around getting caught up on old episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles. I’m mad at myself for not rallying enough to get at least a few things done on my to-do list, but, hey, I was sick, right?

I remained punky most of the week, so missed my church meeting Tuesday night and the church service Wednesday night. Again, Chris, you had enough time to get more done this week. Then Thursday was my boss’s 25^th year anniversary of working for the organization, so I got it in my head to go into work an hour early to decorate his office. I don’t know what came over me. I hate that kind of stuff. Plus, payback stinks and I do not abide by it, so now I feel I have to watch my back. You know?

Anyway, here is how I did on my goals for the week:  

1) Post three times to my other blog, the Dino Chronicles. Done.    

2) Read five of the blog posts that other ROW80 participants post and comment on three of them. Read five but only commented on one. Sorry, guys.

3) Spend one night working on my short story “Where the Dogs Bark”.  Yes.

4) Read six chapters in my novel “The Truth Beyond the River”. Yes.

5) Spend one night working on my family tree. Nope.

6) BONUS: Since I have pretty much decided to self-publish “The Truth Beyond the River” on Amazon, I need someone to make a cover for me. I had come up with this one, as a working version. The picture is from the location which inspired the story, but the building needs to be changed. So, I messaged a friend from high school and she agreed to work on it. I sent her a copy of the manuscript to read so she gets a better feel for it. I’m pretty excited about that. I’m sure she’ll do a fantastic job. She’s very talented. I’ll keep you posted.

This week, of course, is Thanksgiving. Right now, there will be fourteen around my dining room table. Possibly fifteen.

My brother-in-law and his wife from out of town will be coming up and spending the night Wednesday. Then an old friend from out of town will be driving over Thursday morning and spending Thursday night. I have to work Friday morning for a couple hours as well as Saturday until eleven. Sounds exhausting. We’ll see.

Here's what I’m going to try to get done. It appears my goals have been attainable so far, so I really need to start upping my game. Maybe in another week, though, huh?

1) Post three times to my other blog, the Dino Chronicles.  

2) Read five of the blog posts that other ROW80 participants post and comment on three of them.

3) Spend one night working on my short story “Where the Dogs Bark”. 

4) Read six chapters in my novel “The Truth Beyond the River”.

5) Spend one night working on my family tree.

6) Survive Thanksgiving dinner.

Last year's turkey, resting before he is destroyed. 

Once again, too busy

  Ok, let’s see what did I do this week? Hmm? I can’t remember.

I know I baked cookies one night for a potluck at work the next day. I also worked Friday morning, which used to be my day off, but now I have to work at least a couple hours every other Friday. Yesterday, I attended a “Fall into Wellness” event using essential oils, but we also did some yoga and practiced a little meditation. I’m glad I went to it.

It sure seems like I did more this week. My printer died so I was emailing back and forth to the company about it, and they decided to send me a new one, an upgrade even, because the old one was still under warranty. The new one arrived via UPS on Tuesday, but I didn’t get it hooked up until Friday afternoon. I was excited about that.

Oh, and lastly, I sold my old digital camera on the Facebook marketplace, so I delivered that Friday night. I was glad to get rid of it and I think it went to a good home.

But on to my goals:

1)    Post three times to my other blog, the Dino Chronicles. Done.   

2)  Read five of the blog posts that other ROW80 participants post and comment on three of them. Read four and commented on two. So close.

3) Spend one night working on my short story “Where the Dogs Bark”. Done. I used to keep track of word count but have decided to not worry about that for now.   

4) Spend one night working on my novel “Old New Spies”. Nope.

5) Spend one night working on my family tree.  Yep.

6) Read six chapters in my novel “The Truth Beyond the River”. Read nine. Yeah!

This week might not be as productive. I have a church meeting Tuesday night and church itself Wednesday night. I’ll be off all day Friday but have to start deep cleaning house for Thanksgiving. How is it possible that Thanksgiving is only ten days away!!!

Because next Saturday is the opening of the gun deer hunting season here, there are craft shows all over the area for non-hunting women and men, or those just starting their Christmas shopping. For many years, I was one of those selling at the sales; we had a table for our nonprofit, selling Kenyan-made items to raise money for our projects. We decided to cut back on that, so I finally have this weekend off from that. So, I told my sister I would take her to some of the craft shows around her town, and I just got off the phone with my daughter and invited her to join us. She wants to make us appointments for pedicures that day – yikes! I don’t know about that, but we’ll see.

 

Yup, a lot going on in the coming week. I will still shoot for most of the same goals, though, and we’ll see what happens:

1) Post three times to my other blog, the Dino Chronicles.   

2) Read five of the blog posts that other ROW80 participants post and comment on three of them.

3) Spend one night working on my short story “Where the Dogs Bark”. 

4) Read six chapters in my novel “The Truth Beyond the River”.

5) Spend one night working on my family tree.

6) And all the other stuff I mentioned above 😊 .

How are things going with you? Still working on NaNoWriMo? Or planning a big Thanksgiving dinner?

Whoa! How'd I get this much done?

Well, here’s a surprise – I didn’t get much accomplished this week. As if anyone thought I would.

The last three days, though, I visited with six different friends or relatives in four different locations. Came home last night and told Hubby that if I ever think about cramming this much into one weekend again, that he needs to stop me.

Had good visits with everyone. Some of them needed it more than I did – you know, being the supportive friend and such. But sometimes I do need to get out of my house and be with people other than co-workers and clients at work. Exhausting though.

Here was my to-do list from last week.

1)    Post three times to my other blog, the Dino Chronicles. Done.  

     2)    Read all of the blog posts that other ROW80 participates post. I did quite a few. I shouldn’t use the word “all” here; that is asking for failure.

     3)    Spend one night – yes, just one night! – writing something, anything on one of my multiple works in progress. Again, this was a little vague. I’m kinda feeling like vague is my new modus operandi. Anyway, I did write on my short story, “Where the Dogs Bark” for one night.  

     4)    Spend one night working on my family tree. I had been gung-ho about that last spring, but just haven’t done much since then (kinda like the rest of my life). I did spend several hours last Sunday night working on the Hubby’s family’s tree.

     5)    Re-read my novel “The Truth Beyond the River” in anticipation of self-publishing it on Amazon. Read through chapter 6.

Riding way back in 2011. 

Whoa! That looks like I did all right. It sure didn’t feel like it. Guess that’s why we make lists. I guess for now it’s better to take baby steps and at least feel like I’m getting something done.

So for next week, let’s keep it simple again.

1) Post three times to my other blog, the Dino Chronicles.   

2) Read five of the blog posts that other ROW80 participates post and comment on three of them.

3) Spend one night working on my short story “Where the Dogs Bark”. 

4) Spend one night working on my novel “Old New Spies”.

5) Spend one night working on my family tree.

6) Read six chapters in my novel “The Truth Beyond the River”.

This week my work schedule doesn’t look bad, or at least it didn’t when I left for the weekend on Thursday. Anything may have happened between then and tomorrow morning.

Wishing you all a happy and productive week.

The struggle is real

Speaking of the day job, here I am with my co-workers
as Care Bears for Halloween. 

I was hoping that I would have a big revelation for you today. An unveiling of the new and improved goals for me for the rest of the year.

But, alas, nothing new to report. Argh! I wish I could figure out what is wrong with me, why I have no ambition and get nothing done all day (when I’m not at the day job, that is).

I’m going to cut myself some slack for the past week, as I have been battling a cold. Because I rarely get sick, I just don’t do well when I am coughing and hacking and sneezing and holding a Kleenex to my nose 24/7 as it continuously drips. Maybe I need to get sick more often, so that I know how to handle this. I pretend I’m not sick at all and power through day after day, but psychologically my brain is mush and – well – my body is shot.

But to not beat myself up too much, here are some of the things I did do last week.

  1)    Wrote and posted three blog posts to my other blog, the Dino Chronicles.

  2)    Read and commented on two blog posts by other ROW80 participates.

  3)    Spent a couple hours last night working on my husband’s family tree.

  4)    Sewed two quilt squares.

  5)    I almost forgot the real achievement. I submitted two inspirational reflections to my employers 2020 daily calendar. The deadline was the end of September, but they sent out another email last week that they hadn’t gotten nearly enough submissions and were begging for people to send them something. So I am pretty much a shoe-in for this, but it is still a creative blip that I put out there.

So, moving forward. Let’s just at least try to get something done this week.

  1)    Post three times to my other blog, the Dino Chronicles. I’ve been writing about my recent trip to Kenya, so at least I have a plethora of things to write about.

  2)    Read all of the blog posts that other ROW80 participates post.

  3)    Spend one night – yes, just one night! – writing something, anything on one of my multiple works in progress.

  4)    Spend one night working on my family tree. I had been gung-ho about that last spring, but just haven’t done much since then (kinda like the rest of my life).

That’s it. Baby steps and keeping it simple.

Am I just chicken to get published?
(I realize it's a rooster, but you get it.) 

The other thing I have been thinking long and hard about is my second novel, which has just been sitting in my computer collecting dust and probably even mold by now. I’ve had a few agents turn it down, not sure that traditional publishing is ever going to happen. I’ve been tossing around the idea of just biting the bullet and self-publishing it on Amazon. I might work on that process in the next few weeks, too.

How about you? Have your publishing goals changed? How do you handle that?

"I'm Back"

After one of our longest walks,
while carrying bags of groceries and getting lost. 

Wow, here I am, finally, after a two-and-a-half-month absence.

I returned to Kenya the last two weeks of September. Leading up to that, I had a lot going on and the muse was just not with me. I haven’t done much writing the entire year; haven’t worked on any of my to-do lists actually. I told myself that the trip to Africa would rejuvenate me and I’d return home the first of October ready to rock-n-roll.

And here it is – October’s almost over. I need to explain what I have been doing all month.

First of all, the trip was fantastic. One of my best ones (this was my sixth, by the way). The friend who went with me and I were healthy and injury-free, and after a few days in-country, we were both sleeping better than we did at home. We ate only one or two meals most days but were never hungry. We walked several miles almost every day. We reunited with old friends and met some new ones.

By the end of the first week, even though I had enough other stuff to do, the muse returned, and I started writing a story, based in – of course – Kenya.

I think that this is a fact, but I don’t suffer much jet-lag going over, but coming back home – yikes! Jet-lag for a week. No sleeping at night no matter what pills I took at bedtime (sounds like an addict, huh?). I suppose it was mostly from being on a high from the trip (another addict metaphor).

I still had to hit the ground running. Got home about eight on a Tuesday evening and had to be back to work at 7:30 the next morning, and the following two mornings. That first Saturday back I even had to work.

By the next week, I was starting to sleep a little. Then the second Saturday I already had to give a talk on the trip, for a women’s group out of town, which meant being on the road by seven. The next day, I gave the same talk to my church.

Last weekend, we had a family wedding, which meant out of town family spending Saturday night at my house. Which meant tearing through the entire house cleaning on Friday, as it really hadn’t been deep-cleaned in over a month.

Oh, and I almost forgot. We also bought a new car the Monday after I got home, and I got a new haircut a week ago last Friday.

Yikes! No wonder I’m tired!

With all that already on my calendar, I had hoped to jump back into writing and keeping up this blog at the beginning of the new round the first of the month. And here we are on the 27^th.

Oh, well. Moving forward.

I did work some more, the other day, on the story that I started while in Kenya. I guess I have no immediate goals other than to finish that, maybe by the end of the month.

I had a crazy thought while I was in Africa. That I would participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Yeah, a really crazy thought. We’ll see. I’ve taken a few unnecessary commitments off my November calendar already. I even told Hubby that maybe we should cut back on Thanksgiving dinner, just inviting our kids, instead of the twenty-plus people as in past years.

This has run on long enough. I’ll review my life this week and come up with some goals by next Sunday. In the meantime, how is life treating the rest of you? I’ve missed reading all your blogposts, so maybe that will be my immediate goal – to get caught up with you all.

Take Care Fellow Rounders, Chris  

Many Distractions

One of many distractions

Late this afternoon, I finally returned home from the writers’ reunion I left for on Friday morning. I took more than a few side trips to get there. What should have been a little over a two-hour drive, took me five and a half, not to mention that I was an hour late leaving. I didn’t make quite as many stops coming home today, mostly the four-hour visit at my daughter’s house, but that was more important than anything else anyway.

Starting in 2010, I attended the Green Lake Writers’ Conference almost every year, until it came to an end a few years ago due to cost and decreased numbers of attendees. Earlier this year two of the women who had been quite involved in it decided to have a reunion of sorts. A day for anyone who was interested to return to Green Lake and renew those friendships as well as share writing tips and offer support.

I had a good time and hope that we do it again.

My weekly goals maybe suffered because of the time away, but it’s hard to measure some of the other more important stuff.

If you remember, green highlight is goal met, yellow highlight is goal worked on and red lettering is failure.

   1)    Write 1,000 words a week on my Work In Progress. I don’t know that this is even worth noting, but I only wrote an actual 33 words this week. I did a little bit of revising, though, after adding three complete chapters in the last few weeks and having to deal with the later chapter I had already written. So, I’m not going to beat myself up.

   2)    Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Posted three times. 
   3)    Continue tweaking my book proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”. I still haven’t looked at it.  

   4)    Homelife. I’ve washed nine of the fourteen windows in our house so far. Might be a few weeks before I get back to them.

   5)    Bonus. The writers’ reunion I mentioned above gave me a lot of time to rethink my whole writing thing. Still not quite sure where I’m going to go with it, but the number one thing is to stop stressing about it and stop beating myself up about past mistakes and current inactivity. Maybe I’ll write something down in the next few weeks – like, my game plan or business plan. Or, I know – GOALS! Long-term ones. Just bouncing around ideas in my head.

Day at a Time, Window at a Time

Here we are, already in the last month of summer. For those of you who survived the horrendous winter of 2018-2019, you know what it means to appreciate summer. And you fear what the weather will be like in another six months.

But we must take it a day at a time and be thankful for what balmy days we have left.

The first of July, I dedicated myself to three super easy and attainable goals for the rest of the year. I’m starting to feel pretty wimpy about that and feeling the need to push myself at least a little bit, as well as document that I do other things besides work the day job and sleep. With that said, I’ve done a tad of adding and tweaking.  

Here is my revised list of goals to achieve by the end of September. I’ve added some beloved color as well. If you remember last year, green highlight is goal met, yellow highlight is goal worked on and red lettering is failure.

   1)    Write 1,000 words a week on my Work In Progress. I wrote 977 words on my novel. Wow, should I add a random thirteen more words? Or just say, yup, goal met? I guess the green tells you my decision on that. Of course, I did write all those words for my blog, too, so I really did go well over 1,000.

   2)    Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicle. Posted three times.  

   3)    Continue tweaking my book proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”. I still haven’t looked at it.

   4)    Homelife. I’m working on getting all of the windows washed in my house. I’ve done four out of fourteen so far. In addition to the windows being washed, half the screens need to be replaced. It’s a long story, but we have had cat issues for ten months. Our remaining cat has decided to come and go as he pleases which means busting in and out of any of our screens he chooses. We’ve come up with a temporary solution to his misbehavior which is so redneck I don’t think I can share it with the world. In the meantime, Hubby is hard at work replacing screens in five of our windows. Should I start a list of goals for him as well?

I’m looking at that list, asking myself, why did you announce remarkable additions to your list, when you added one teeny weeny little thing? Because I am not going to jump into that overachiever hole again. Plus I have a busy week coming up again (I know, you’ve heard that before).

But really, we are short-handed at work this week, so I’ll put in even longer, more stressful hours than usual. Then Friday morning I am heading to a writers’ retreat. I’m pretty excited about that – hoping to get lots of writing done and become imbued with lots of inspiration.  

How about you? Finding inspiration in all the right places? Adding to your list of goals? Already dreading winter?

Needing to Gather Ambition

From our ride yesterday 

Yet another week gone by in a blur. I put in some mighty long days at work this week, then was busy with housework on Friday, my day off. Yesterday, Hubby and I took my sister and her husband for a ride. She’s been wanting to go bumming with me, but I said we should take the guys with. Okay, her husband has terminal brain cancer and isn’t doing so hot. I understand her wanting to get away, but I think she – and us too – should do as much with him as we can while we can.

Other than that, not much going on. Here is my short, sweet list of goals through September.

     1)    Write 1,000 words a week on my Work In Progress. I wrote 709 words on my novel and another 642 words for my blog. Maybe I shouldn’t count the words on my blog, because that is really counted in #2, but, hey, I can make up the rules as I go along.  

     2)    Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicle. Posted three times. 
    3)    Continue tweaking my book proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”. I still haven’t looked at it.  

It sure seems like I did more than that, not even any bonus goals. Some day I have to gather up some ambition and get some stuff done. I’m hoping to wash at least a few windows today. We’ll see how that goes.

How about you? Getting any extra work done, either on your writing or around the house?   

Back from Vacation

Hubby and I were camping all this past week. We didn’t have internet access so when I was on my laptop in the evenings, I was writing instead of aimlessly scrolling through Facebook posts or taking quizzes to see where I should retire or checking the ten-day weather forecast five times a day.

After a wonderful relaxing week of camping at a state park with electricity, running water and hot showers, I came home yesterday to no power. Everyone in the area (half the state, perhaps) lost electricity in horrendous storms Friday night. Not gonna complain that we were far enough north that the storms totally missed our little pop-up camper.

So I sat at home with no electricity, internet or running water most of the weekend. Luckily, I have a weird obsession of storing jugs of water for just such an occasion. We also have a gas stove, which will light with a match when there’s no power. So we live with a few inconveniences and praise God we bought a generator earlier this spring to keep our frig and freezer cold.

The electricity came back on shortly after noon, after being off for 40 hours! I am just now getting this posted, as I had so much to catch up on around the house.

Here is my short, sweet list of goals for the next three months.

   

   1)    Write 1,000 words a week on my Work In Progress. After I had written just over 300 words in chapter 9 of my latest novel, I realized that I really needed to add something. So I went back and added an entire new chapter 8 and rewrote most of chapter 9. Which means, I’m not really sure how many words I actually wrote, but my best guess is that it had to be at least 1,900. Yeah!

   2)    Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Not, but as already mentioned, I didn’t have internet access for an entire week. Yes, I could have written them ahead of time and scheduled them to post while I was away, but I’ve never had much luck with that. Too much to think about.  

   3)    Continue tweaking my book proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”. I still haven’t looked at it.  

Sending prayers and thankful thoughts to all the linemen out there who have been working ‘round the clock to get everyone’s power back.  

How has your weather been this summer?  

Happy as a Kid in the Cabbage Patch

Found this in the box of my sister's pictures. Yup, a kid in the cabbage patch. Remember 1985? 

I don’t know where the last week went. I was crazy-busy at work a couple days and quite a bit more laid back the others. As of five pm Thursday, I am on vacation for ten days and am actually surprised that I haven’t heard from anyone at work yet.

Yesterday, I was at a meeting for the professional organization I am a member of (see more on that below), but as I post this, I am a free bird. I need this vacation more than anyone can imagine. I feel like I’m getting it together after six and a half long miserable months. It will all be good.

Here is my short, sweet list of goals for the next three months.

   1)    Write 1,000 words a week on my Work In Progress. As of Friday morning, I didn’t see that this was going to happen this week. Friday evening, though, I had an epiphany and started writing a brand-new story which came out of the blue. Yesterday, I was at a meeting all morning and only had to participate in a few minutes of it. So I sat in the corner for the remaining three hours of the meeting, pretending to pay attention to what was going on, while I was really writing. And believe it or not, put down 994 words! I know, like I could just throw in six more words this morning and meet that goal, right? But I am happy as a kid in a cabbage patch with that number.

   2)    Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicle. Posted there three times. I finished the story of my sister’s cancer on Friday and now am actually going to take a week-long break.

   3)    Continue tweaking my book proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”. I haven’t looked at it, but I have time as I won’t send it out to the next agent on my list until September 18, unless I hear back sooner that the first agent rejected me. I suppose I should be ready for that, huh?

   4)    Bonus! At the meeting yesterday, someone asked to buy eight of my books! That came out of nowhere, so much so that I didn’t have any books with me! But I got an idea of how to get them to her.

That’s where I am and pretty satisfied with it. How about you? Charging into those goals? Or still mulling things over?

Back in the Saddle

In the saddle, back in the mid-seventies, on my cousin's horse Shawn. Gotta love the socks. 

Monday I announced that I was back in the saddle and ready to rock this writing thing. Okay, that’s not what I wrote, and that’s not my intention. My intention, instead, is to be realistic, to take one baby footstep at a time, one second at a time.

I’ve accomplished very little as far as writing is concerned this year so far. Actually, I’ve accomplished very little in any regard. Those baby footsteps have been sloth-like in their rate. Anyway, here we are, halfway through the year and it’s time to get going.

That being said, here are my goals for the next three months, nothing earth-shattering, but hopefully attainable.

  1)    Write 1,000 words a week on my Work In Progress. At this point, I’m hoping that WIP is my latest novel, but I am going to be open to where the muse takes me. As long as I work on something which somewhere down the line has potential for publication.

  2)    Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. The last few weeks I have been faithfully posting thrice weekly about my sister’s life and death. It’s been a bit depressing at times, but since last month marked the 20^th year anniversary of her passing and in one week she would have turned 60, I wanted to honor her. Previous to that series, I had been slacking in even writing to that blog, so I really want to stick with it.  

  3)    Continue tweaking my book proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River.” I submitted it to a literary agent last week, but want it to be ready to go to the next agent on my list if this one turns it down.

And that’s all folks. No other weekly goals for this chick. I’m going to stop overextending myself, going to enjoy life and not sweat some long crazy list to accomplish.

Wishing you all the very best in meeting your goals as well.

I'm Back

The last time I posted here it was the first part of April. I had been struggling with my writing as well as life in general since the first of the year. I’d tried various things to get myself motivated, but as you can tell by the three months absence, nothing has worked. I won’t go into the sorry state of affairs that I have been living in the entire 2019. Oh, I shouldn’t be dramatic, but I can’t lie, it’s been a rough six months. I’ll give you just the most recent calamity.

I broke my foot on Memorial Day. Luckily it was nothing serious – I know, when is a broken bone ever not serious? But it didn’t require surgery, I was not encased in a cast, I was only non-weight bearing for a few weeks. And actually, it’s what pushed me around the corner.

I haven’t gone great guns and started writing ruthlessly. Last time I posted here, I said that I was going to write something every day. That didn’t come close to happening. But at least in recent weeks, the muse has returned to my head, has settled in and begun whispering to me “you can write”. In fact, last night, after I was cozy in bed, an idea for a short story popped in my head and I had to jump up and type the opening lines into my computer so I wouldn’t forget it.

Where does that leave me with goals for the next three months? Umm, it leaves me staring at the screen, my fingers resting gently on the keyboard.

I got nothing.

But I will keep at it. Hopefully in the next few days – or more likely weeks – I will come up with something I intend to complete by the end of September.

I am at least back and I’m not going anywhere.  

Just a few of the issues this year.
Basement flooded three times. 

Lost a tree. 

Lost a cat. Lost my smile. About lost my mind. 

EVERY DAY

I seem to have fallen off the chart again, having not blogged as much as I should and really not striving to accomplish my goals. With that in mind, I haven’t made any goals yet for this second Round of Words in 80 Days for 2019.

I had a bit of an epiphany earlier this week. At the start of Lent this year (how many ever weeks ago that was now), I had one challenge in mind – you know, like giving up chocolate or swearing or whatever – but that challenge fell completely to the wayside after a couple days.

This past week it dawned on me. What I should do every day in Lent is write – something, anything, however short it may be. Writing coaches recommend that. Just spend ten minutes every day, no matter what, writing whatever comes to mind and keep doing it every day. My plan is to continue this after Lent is over.

Sounds like my new mantra is “every day”.

Anyway, so no other goals, writing or otherwise – for now. April is going to be a ridiculously busy month and I’m not adding anything else to it. Except to write something EVERY DAY. (I’ve been averaging 100 words so far for the last six days, so if I need a number for this, that will be it.)

Hope you all are off to a good start. No matter what your goals are don’t sweat it. Do what you can and just relax. 

 Kinda like our weather. Friday I woke up to the above - fresh snow on my deck. By afternoon, there was hope.

Looking Pathetic

If you follow this blog via the Round of Words in 80 Days, you know that the first round of the year, the first 80 days, has ended. If I don’t keep plowing along every Sunday, year-round, I can forget totally what I’m doing. As it is, it’s tough enough to keep looking at these goals, telling myself to not give up.  

These first three months I reverted back to having an insurmountable list of goals to try to tackle in 80 days. Previous to that, I tried to attack things just one week at a time. I think I may do that again starting April 1. I have a ridiculous lot of stuff on my calendar already until May. And by May, the whole yardwork thing will be out there. So I’m thinking about it all, but not going to think too much. Just going to see what I can do.

But about this past week . . . Hubby and I helped move our daughter and her husband into a new house on Friday. First thing off the bat, I slipped on the ice. Too bad nobody took a video of it. They claimed that as I struggled to not fall my moves were priceless. Good thing my jeans weren’t.

So here were my goals for January, February and March. If it is a goal which I accomplished, and it is done for the Round, I’ll highlight it in blue. If it is a goal which was accomplished this week, but which I need to keep working on (coz I’m giving myself one more week), I’ll highlight it in green. A goal at least worked on is highlighted in yellow and red lettering is not even attempted, a complete fail

WRITING

1)    Finish the edits on “The Truth Beyond the River”. Finished.

2)    Finish the proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”. I didn’t work on it this week.

3)    Write nine chapters in “Old New Spies”. I didn’t work on it this week.

4)    Continue posting three times weekly to “The Dino Chronicles.” No, I didn’t post on Wednesday. Again.

5)    Continue posting here once a week.  Yes.  

REACHING

1)    Submit the query/proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River.” Nope, not yet.     

2)    Submit four pieces somewhere. No, none.

3)    Redo my website. No.

4)    Do something each week, or at least twice a month, to promote my writing. Hmm? Nope.    

READING

1)    Finish reading “The Secret Garden”. Finished.

2)    Finish reading “Once Upon a Road Trip.” Am 63% done.   

3)    Finish reading “All the Place to Go”. Finished.

4)    Read six chapters in “Grin with Grace.” Still at four chapters.

5)    Read an average of five other blogs per week, commenting on three of them. I don’t remember. I only read a few and commented on less than that.     

REMAINING

1)    Empty half the box of old pictures in my office. I only scanned a card box full of obituaries.

2)    Finish my family tree. Worked on it again for a hours and hours. I don’t see this ever getting finished.

3)    Clean six closets or areas in my house.  Done. Finally, something concrete accomplished.   

4)    Continue doing Yoga every day. Yup, managed every day.

5)    Tumaini Volunteers Nonprofit

a.     Get the tax-deduction letters out to our donors by the end of January. Done.

b.     Sign up for two craft sales this spring. Signed up for two.

That does indeed look pretty pathetic. Oh, well, not gonna sweat it. See what I can finish up this week and then come up with a new plan moving forward.