Distractions

I hope this finds you doing well and making progress on your goals for the year. Myself? Not so much.

A couple of things. My kids, along with three others, left last weekend for their volunteer trip to Kenya with our nonprofit. Whenever they are gone, I naturally obsess about what they are doing, where they are, if things are going well. I stalk all of them on Facebook to see if they have posted anything new. Even though things always turn out well, it seems there is always one snag on each trip. It is Satan’s way of saying, “you need to stop trying to do good in Africa”, and God’s way of saying, “have faith.” Anyway, so someone broke their leg the other day. Not one of my kids, someone else on the team. It’s all going to be okay; she’s taking it in stride. But I feel I need to do something from ten thousand miles away to help the situation. As if there is anything I can do.

The other distraction is that I dog-sat for my daughter’s two dogs this week. They were really good and not a problem, but it was still enough of a drain. We took them back to my daughter’s neighbors on Friday, where they will stay til she gets home Friday night.

Lastly is the editing of my novel. I had it professionally edited by a woman I know and trust, and she did a remarkable job. I’ve been going through the manuscript manually accepting (and occasionally deleting) her edits. The problem is that every time she makes a suggestion, other than something grammatic, I obsess about it. Mostly it’s the comments reminding me that someone might be offended by what I wrote about a certain ethnic group or sounding too preachy or – I can’t even remember all of them. And I totally get it – this is the world we live in and if I want this book to get published and I want people to read it and write positive reviews, then I can’t step on too many toes. But how do you even write anything? Someone could read this blog post and be offended because I mentioned God and Satan in the first paragraph. Blah! I’m not going to rant.

So, I’ve been choosing my battles, as they say, deleting a few things, rewording a few things, and leaving some just the way they are. And if this book does get published and read and someone is offended by one word out of 75,000, then that’s their problem. But it still means this whole editing process is taking longer than anticipated.  

So here are 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 I will do it all over again next 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”. Worked on it; you already read about it above.

2)    Finish the proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River”. Not worked on.

3)    Write nine chapters in “Old New Spies”. Not started.

4)    Continue posting three times weekly to “The Dino Chronicles.” Yes.  

5)    Continue posting here once a week.  Yes.

REACHING

1)    Submit the query/proposal for “The Truth Beyond the River.” No.

2)    Submit four pieces somewhere. No.

3)    Redo my website. No.

READING

1)    Finish reading “The Secret Garden”. 55% done.

2)    Finish reading “All the Place to Go”. 45% done.

3)    Read an average of five other blogs per week, commenting on three of them. Yes, yeah! Finally something in green.

REMAINING

1)    Empty half the box of old pictures in my office. Not worked on.

2)    Finish my family tree. Worked on.

3)    Clean three closets in my house. Cleaned the front hall closet

4)    Finish the 30-Day Yoga Challenge I started on January 9. Missed one day.

5)    Tumaini Volunteers Nonprofit

a.     Get the tax-deduction letters out to our donors by the end of January. Not yet. Hope to today. (Have to today!)

b.     Hold a meeting after the team returns. Not scheduled yet and won’t be til they get home from Kenya next weekend.

That’s it for now. Have a happy week.