a little crazy around here

My son and my #1 grandpuppy

Seven o’clock, Friday morning, I left for the hour drive to the high school where I gave an hour-long presentation about my travels to Kenya. Drove back to town, worked for two hours at the clinic, and then left home again around one to drive the four hours to my son’s place for the night. We had a good visit, then stopped at my daughter’s house on the way home and didn’t get to our house until nearly seven Saturday night. It was good to see my kids and good to share Africa with a group of strangers. But it was a long 36 hours. 

I spent most of the rest of the week working on that presentation, hence the mix of color below.

As usual, green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

WRITING     

1)        Read through “Finding Justice” one more time.  Nope.

2)        Read through my novel-in-progress, “Ice Cream Spies”, in anticipation of getting back to writing on it. Nope.    

3)        Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.” Yup.

4)        Post here once. Yup.

REACHING

1)        Research self-publishing “Finding Justice” on Amazon. I didn’t research as much as added the copyright and disclaimer stuff to the front and my bio to the end. That’s something, right? 

2)        Design a cover for “Finding Justice.” How  about this one?

3)        Write a “thank you” section for the end of “The Truth Beyond the River”. Nope.

4)        BONUS: Regarding “Truth Beyond the River”, I did do something with it. I did email it to one of my relatives as well as re-emailed it to the gal who was going to design the cover and had deleted the copy I had originally sent her.

5)        Finish the presentation for my niece’s class and give it on Friday. Got this done, gave it my best shot, but you know that high school freshmen are a pretty tough crowd.

READING

1)        Read 65% of the novel I’ve been reading, “In This House of Brede”. Up to 73%.

2)        Read five other blogs and comment on three of them. Read five and commented on three. Not that I have anything against my blogging friends at ROW80, but I’ve been looking into reading other blogs as well. Just letting you know. Broadening my horizons.

REMAINING

1)              Scan and dispose of pictures from yet another old photo album. Nope, not at all.

This coming week is more of the same – CRAZINESS! I have a meeting at work on Tuesday over the lunch hour (that’s the time I try to read other blogs), I have a church meeting after work on Tuesday, and then there’s Friday – Mammo at eight am, oil change at ten am, appointment for income taxes at eleven am. Then there is an RV show out of town on Friday and Saturday which we want to go to one day. We’ll see how that works out. I know – cutting myself thin again, right?

In spite of all of that, here is what I want to get done this week.  

WRITING     

1)        Read through “Finding Justice” one more time. 

2)        Read through my novel-in-progress, “Ice Cream Spies”, in anticipation of getting back to writing on it.   

3)        Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.”

4)        Post here once. 

REACHING

1)        Research self-publishing “Finding Justice” on Amazon.

2)        Write a “thank you” section for the end of “The Truth Beyond the River”.

READING

1)        Finish reading the novel “In This House of Brede”.

2)        Read five other blogs and comment on three of them. 

REMAINING

1)              Scan and dispose of pictures from yet another old photo album.

2)              Wash the walls in my spare bedroom.

How have you been doing? Running yourself ragged trying to get everything done? Or just chillin’? Whatever the case, best wishes to you!

not sure what happened this week . . .

I’m not really sure what I did this past week. But for sure, I didn’t work on anything that was on this list.

Here are my goals from this past week. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

WRITING     

1)              Read through “Finding Justice” one more time.  Did not look at it.

2)              Read through my novel-in-progress, “Ice Cream Spies”, in anticipation of getting back to writing on it. Did not look at this either.     

3)        Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.” Only posted twice. I know – what a failure!

4)        Post here once. Yes, finally!   

5)        BONUS. Yes, I actually did do something this week. I wrote and submitted a poem to Wilda Morris’s Poetry Challenge.

REACHING

1)        Research self-publishing “Finding Justice” on Amazon. Nope.

2)        Design a cover for “Finding Justice.” Nope.

3)        Write a “thank you” section for the end of “The Truth Beyond the River”. Nope.

I love talking about my time in Kenya. 

4)        Work on presentation for my niece’s class. Yes, finally! Even though I’m not done with it, this goal clearly only stated “work on it”.

5)        BONUS. I know, right? Am I grasping now? So, I messaged a cousin of mine asking her if she wanted to read my novel, “The Truth Beyond the River”. Long story why she came to mind, but she got right back to me and said, “Yes”!

READING

1)        Read 60% of the novel I’m reading, “In This House of Brede”. Only got up to 50%. The plot is good, but, man, it is slow going.

2)        Read five other blogs and comment on three of them.  Read five blogs and commented on three. Apparently, I can only achieve the last goal in each category. But no reading bonuses.

REMAINING

1)              Scan and dispose of pictures from yet another old photo album. No, just four pictures and they were for a post to my other blog.

Just some of what came out of that room. 

2)              Clean the file cabinet and desk drawers in my office. Nope.

3)              Wash the walls in the spare bedroom. Clean the closet, nightstand and other spaces in the spare bedroom. Done. It dawned on me that I should clean the other stuff in that room before tackling the walls, so I still count this as completed.

Obviously, I need to cut back a bit this week. In addition to that presentation on Friday, I have to go into work for a couple hours after it. Then Hubby and I are talking about running to our son’s for the weekend. Hubby does get his stitches out on Wednesday and hopefully the doctor clears him to start using that arm a bit more.  

WRITING     

1)        Read through “Finding Justice” one more time. 

2)        Read through my novel-in-progress, “Ice Cream Spies”, in anticipation of getting back to writing on it.   

3)        Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.”

4)        Post here once. 

REACHING

1)        Research self-publishing “Finding Justice” on Amazon.

2)        Design a cover for “Finding Justice.”

3)        Write a “thank you” section for the end of “The Truth Beyond the River”.

4)        Finish the presentation for my niece’s class and give it on Friday.

READING

1)        Read 65% of the novel I’ve been reading, “In This House of Brede”.

2)        Read five other blogs and comment on three of them. 

REMAINING

1)              Scan and dispose of pictures from yet another old photo album.

Wish me luck with that! And best of luck to you in the coming week.

when things get turned upside down

My very busy week that I had scheduled last week got turned completely upside down. That cold that I was starting to come down with on Sunday made my life miserable all week. I did my biennial CPR at work on Monday and between that and the virus in my head, I called in sick on Tuesday. By afternoon, I felt human enough to work on a few things on my to-do list.

Hubby's arm fracture and my artwork of how it was repaired. 

Then on Wednesday, Hubby broke his arm, so we went to the orthopedic surgeon in the afternoon and I had to take all day off Friday while he had surgery. Because I thought I shouldn’t leave him alone too much, I skipped the seminar on Saturday. And today we were getting a bunch of snow so I canceled on my daughter as well.

Basically, I stayed home pretty much as much as I possibly could all week. You would think I would have gotten even more accomplished on this list.

So, here are those goals from this past week. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

 WRITING    

1)        Start editing “Finding Justice”, if I’m going to self-publish it on Amazon, any time soon.  Started and finished.   

2)        Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.” Done.  

3)        Post here once. Done.

REACHING

1)        Research self-publishing “Finding Justice” on Amazon. Not.

2)        Design a cover for “Finding Justice.” After reading it through again, I see that the pictures I picked out might not work, so I am back to square one.

3)        Write a “thank you” section for the end of “The Truth Beyond the River”. Not.

4)        Contact one place where I might give a presentation and hold a book signing. Done. Back in October, I gave a talk at a women’s rally and the pastor at that church mentioned that he thought his congregations (he has two churches) would like to hear my stories about Kenya. I finally got around to emailing him to see if he was still interested.

BONUS on top of that: my niece’s daughter messaged me that they are studying Africa in one of her classes, and when she told her teacher I had been there several times, he asked if I would give a presentation. I got that scheduled for February 21. 

READING

1)              Read 20% of the novel I just started, “In This House of Brede”. I got through 37%. I had a couple hours in that hospital waiting room during Hubby’s surgery to either read or watch whatever talk show was on the TV (not).

2)        Read five other blogs and comment on three of them.  Read four and commented on two. So close.

REMAINING

There was a mess on the floor. 

1)              Attend that work seminar on Saturday. Did not, as mentioned above. I did however . . .

2)              Clean the bookcases in my office. Did that on Tuesday, between naps, when I was home sick.

 Right now I don’t think I have anything extra going on this week, so hopefully I can get some more done.  

WRITING     

1)              Read through “Finding Justice” one more time.  

2)              Read through my novel-in-progress, “Ice Cream Spies”, in anticipation of getting back to writing on it.    

3)        Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.”

4)        Post here once. 

REACHING

1)        Research self-publishing “Finding Justice” on Amazon.

2)        Design a cover for “Finding Justice.”

3)        Write a “thank you” section for the end of “The Truth Beyond the River”.

4)        Work on presentation for my niece’s class.

READING

1)        Read 60% of the novel I’ve been reading, “In This House of Brede”. I can’t say that it’s difficult reading, just tedious. Pretty much all dialogue and keeps jumping from present to recent past. Kind of like a typical “classic” novel.

2)        Read five other blogs and comment on three of them. 

REMAINING

1)              Scan and dispose of pictures from yet another old photo album.

2)              Clean the file cabinet and desk drawers in my office.

3)              Wash the walls in the spare bedroom. Hubby was going to wash the walls throughout the house this winter, but with his arm in a sling for the next six weeks, I think that’s out of the question. I just need to suck it up and start it myself.

I think that’s enough. Hopefully, your week has stayed a bit more on track.

better than I first thought

     I honestly don’t know where last week went. Went shopping with Hubby on Friday and then to visit his mom yesterday. Cleaned the house today. But seeing as I didn’t have anything going on any evening, it still seems like there should have been time in between to get more accomplished. Oh, well.

So, here are those goals from this past week. You may or may not remember that green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

WRITING     

1)        Finish writing the story “Where the Dogs Bark.”   Finished, wrote 646 more words, for a total word count of 7,318.

2)        Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.” Done.

3)        Post here once.  Done.

REACHING

1)              Research self-publishing my novella “Finding Justice” on Amazon. Not.

2)              Design a cover for “Finding Justice.” (I think I may change the title too.) It wasn’t a lot of work, but I did pick out some pictures from Lake Michigan that might work.

3)        Write a “thank you” section for the end of “The Truth Beyond the River”. Not.

4)        Contact one place where I might give a presentation and hold a book signing. Not.

READING

1)        Finish reading the novel I am currently reading, “The Carpenter: A Retelling of the Story of Joseph of Nazareth.” Finished Saturday night. It was kind of “out there”, I don’t think I’d recommend to anyone.

2)        Read five other blogs and comment on three of them.  Read five blogs and commented on five.

REMAINING

1)        Scan and empty another photo album of old pictures. Hmm? Nope, I don’t think I worked on this at all.   

2)        Clean the desk and file cabinet in my office. Nope, I know I didn’t work on this at all. 

 I know you don't know anything about my novella, but much of it takes place along Lake Michigan. The picture above is actually on Lake Superior, but ...

 these two are on Lake Michigan. I think looking at them now, I'd go with #3. 

So what do I have on my plate for next week? I work the day job Friday morning (and of course, Monday through Thursday). Then I have a seminar for work all day Saturday. On my way home from that, I plan on stopping at my daughter’s for the night and hopefully help her with some stuff around her house on Sunday. I also have a church meeting Tuesday night. With all of that on my schedule, I don’t see getting a lot done.

Oh, one last thing, I started coming down with a cold this morning also. Can you say “Argh!!!”?

Let’s give this list of goals a whirl.

 WRITING    

1)        Start editing “Finding Justice”, if I’m going to self-publish it on Amazon, any time soon.    

2)        Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.”

3)        Post here once. 

REACHING

1)        Research publishing my novella “Finding Justice” on Amazon.

2)        Design a cover for “Finding Justice.” Maybe change the title. 

3)        Write a “thank you” section for the end of “The Truth Beyond the River”.

4)        Contact one place where I might give a presentation and hold a book signing.

READING

1)              Read 20% of the novel I just started, “In This House of Brede”. It is ridiculously long so it is going to take a while for me to finish it. I have a year-long goal of reading four books considered classics, so I need to start somewhere.

2)        Read five other blogs and comment on three of them. 

REMAINING

1)              Attend that work seminar on Saturday.

And that’s it for now. Wish me luck on fighting off this cold. How about you? Staying healthy this winter? Or not so much? Does being sick completely throw you off your game or are you able to power through?