a week of ups and downs

It was a week of up’s and down’s.

I finally got up the nerve to check on my 401K. With the pandemic and the economy tanking, everyone has been losing money on their investments. I’ve been scared to look up my numbers, fearing I’ll have to keep working full-time for three or four more years. But, luckily, last year, in hopes of retiring within the next few years, I put most of my investments in low-risk markets, so I only lost around eight thousand dollars.

The second exciting thing is that we took our camper for a ride Friday to see how the new truck handles with it. I made Hubby let me drive it home and when we got in the yard, I actually backed it up myself. I was so excited. I don’t know about any of the rest of you, but it seems like guys have brains which are wired for backing up a trailer and girls don’t. For twenty-five years, they have all been telling me how to do it (“turn your wheels in the direction you want to go”, “turn the opposite of what you think you should”, “use your mirrors”), and it never clicked until Friday.

I wish Hubby would have gotten a video of it.

Off to go camping last year, with the old vehicle. 

 The bad news is that one of the tires had gone completely flat by the time we got it home, and it took the entire morning Saturday to get it changed.

Anyway, I don’t know what else is new. Here’s what I had hoped to do this week and what I actually got done. Highlight in green for each item accomplished, yellow for those at least attempted, and red lettering for an item which did not happen.

WRITING     

1) Continue updates on “How Chris is Coping with Corona” three times a week. Three days for 631 words.

2) Post three times to “The Dino Chronicles.” Only posted twice. It was too long a day on Tuesday at the day job to write a mid-week post.

3) Post here once. Yes.  

4) BONUS. I started working on the memoir of my sister Pat. I think I’d like to try publishing by late fall. 

Speaking of camping and my sister Pat, here we are cleaning the first used pop-up we bought in 1996.

REACHING

1)              Write a blog post about the idea behind my novella “To Find Justice”.  Nope. Not sure why I can’t get this done.

2)              My novel, “The Truth Beyond the River”.

a.     For starters, I am still having stress over the accuracy of the very first scene. I finally added a mere three words and I’m going to call it good.

b.     Work on the front cover. Have not.

c.      Work on the back cover. Have not.  

d.     Finalize the thank you section. Pretty much done with it.

e.     Update my biography. Pretty much done with it.

f.       Get headshot pictures for the back cover. Will have to wait a couple more weeks to get a haircut first.

g.     Format it for both e-version and paper version. Not yet.

h.     Think about marketing for its release. I’m always thinking about, just not doing anything about it.

READING

1)              Read six other blogs and comment on three of them. Read six and commented on four.  

2)              Start reading Beth Camp’s latest novel, “The Seventh Tapestry.” Have read 40% of it. Beth always does so much research for her novels, which makes it easy to fall right into her stories.   

REMAINING

1)              Work on my family tree two days. I think so.  

2)              Send out three thinking-of-you cards. That’s’ another story, but I’m going to just pretend I did it.  

3)        Camping – Finished what we needed to do on the camper.

a. Put up the pop-up camper. Done.

b. Clean out the camper. Done.

c. Fix the refrigerator in it.  Done.

d. Take it for a ride so Hubby can practice backing it up. Done. Read about my success above.

e. Change that unexpected flat tire. Done. But now we have to change the one on the other side, having inspected it and found it will be equally as flat as its partner very soon.

This will be a short work-week. I’m taking off on Thursday, so that I can go to a cabin up north with my oldest sister. She has been needing to get away for quite some time (like, since her husband was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer 13 months ago). I know that she is going to drive me nuts – we actually don’t have a lot in common (I don’t know how she is going to make it two days without watching her soap opera, she stays up until 10:30 to 11 every night and I’m in bed by 9 at the very latest, etc, etc.). But it will still be good to get away from the house for a few days. 

The resort we are going to. 

Which means I should have lots of time to write! Or that’s my plan. I’ll have to see how needy my sister is and how much I will have to entertain her.   

WRITING     

1) Continue updates on “How Chris is Coping with Corona” three times a week.

2) Post two times to “The Dino Chronicles.” Since we won’t have internet at the cabin, I’m thinking I won’t get a third post in this week.  

3) Post here once.

4) Work on my next novel, “Ice Cream Spies”.

5) Work on my memoir – the one about the sister who passed away so won’t be at the cabin with us this weekend.

REACHING

1) Write a blog post about the idea behind my novella “To Find

 Justice”. 

2) My novel, “The Truth Beyond the River”. (Down from eight items to five.)

a. Work on the front cover. I will keep checking in with my friend who is an artist. 

b. Work on the back cover.

c. Get headshot pictures for the back cover.

d. Format it for both e-version and paper version.

e. Think about marketing for its release. (Seems like a long

 list.)

READING

1) Read six other blogs and comment on three of them.

2) Finish reading Beth Camp’s latest novel, “The Seventh Tapestry.”   

REMAINING

1) Work on my family tree two days. 

2) Send out three thinking-of-you cards. 

3) Relax while at the cabin Thursday through Sunday. Crazy that I have to put that on my to-do list! 

My sister is loony for loons which is why she picked this resort.

Hope that you are doing well and are able to make plans to get away this summer. Get outside at least and soak up some rays!