My Average Goes Up

 I appear to have had a pretty good week. Nothing too exciting, no extra activities, only an eye doctor appointment which went well.

A. Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Re-read what I’ve written so far, as it has been a while since I’ve looked at it. Finally started reading it, but only got through chapter 13, or 66 out of 99 pages. 66% 

            2. Other writing.

                        a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. Yes. 100%

                        b. Write three posts on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. Yes.                            100%

c. Write a weekly update on this blog. Yes. 100%

B. Reaching

1. Submit that poem to “Voices on the Wind.” Yes, I did. I’ve submitted poems to this journal in the past and the wonderful thing is you always hear back within a couple days. Sooo, yes, it was accepted and will be in the February issue. Yeah! 100%

C. Reading

1. Read four blog posts by other people. I think so. 99%

2. Read eight chapters in the book of Genesis. Read six chapters. 75%

3. Read a daily devotion. I once again forgot quite a bit. It’s one of those things which I have to figure out how to add to my routine so I can’t forget; like the devotional has to be in the middle of the kitchen floor so I trip on it three times a day. We did order a new book of devotions, which came in the mail yesterday, so maybe just that newness will help me remember. 70%

4. Pick another novel to read and read 20% of it. I started reading “Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie and have read 23%. 115%. (I am really starting to embrace this percentage tracking.)

D. Remaining

            1. Sewing.

a. Finish the sixth sweatshirt throw. Done. 100%

2. Clean and purge.

a. Clean one kitchen cupboard. Done. 100%

b. Clean out one drawer in my office file cabinet. Wow. Totally forgot about this, but I did clean out my underwear drawer . . . E for effort. 80%   

            3. Remaining house.

a. Call our contractor about our home repair projects. No. Was waiting to get that cupboard cleaned, I guess. 0%

            4. Family tree

a. Work on my family tree one night. Hmm? Just for a few minutes.                     31%

b. Scan twenty old family pictures. Yes. Scanned like 32. 100%

There it is. If I average that, it comes out to 75%.  Which is a tick better than last week, so assigning each goal a numerical value and averaging it out, I think is a success as far as meeting my goals.

 This coming week, I need to cut back a bit. I have a trip planned for out of town to visit an old friend. Of course, with the pandemic, nothing is set in stone. Plus it is winter here in the upper Midwest, so there is always that as well. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, though, that this works out.  

 A. Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Finish re-reading it.    

            2. Other writing.

                        a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles.

                        b. Write three posts on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”.

c. Write a weekly update on this blog.

B. Reaching – no plans for this week.              

C. Reading

1. Read four blog posts by other people. 

2. Read eight chapters in the book of Genesis.

3. Read a daily devotion.

4. Read up to 75% of “And Then There Were None”.

D. Remaining

            1. Sewing – not this week.

2. Clean and purge.

a. Clean out one drawer in my office file cabinet. The one I’m thinking of has a ton of papers that are now completely irrelevant.  

            3. Remaining house.

                        a. Call our contractor about our home repair projects. 

            4. Family tree

a. Work on my family tree one night.

            5. Drive to my friend’s, have a nice visit and drive back, safe and sound.

 Looks like it should be an easy week. We’ll see. Have a great week, stay safe, stay healthy, stay sane! Chris

Throw number 6

Old picture of a sunset. Sometimes those old pics scan well and sometimes they look - surreal. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. 

Had to add one of my son's senior portraits from 2004. He was a handsome boy at one time . . . not sure what happened . . .

 

A New Color-coding Scheme

   Here we are, half-way through the first month of the new year. How is that all going with everyone? Me? Not so good. I’m going to try to focus on whatever good I can. Even the bad things going on in my personal life (which I can’t write about here) have some bits of positive. I just need to find them and focus on them.

One last thing before moving on. I did get my first COVID vaccine on Friday. Oh, yea! One of the perks of being a health care worker. I wasn’t truly excited about it and had thought long and hard before getting it. Luckily I have had no side effects. Yet. We’ll see when I start growing extra fingers or get a weird kind of cancer in ten years. But it’s worth that sacrifice if it means we are all closer to getting rid of the masks and going back to hugging each other.  

Back to goals. I mentioned last week that I was going to try to grade my success each week, instead of just highlighting them. Let’s see how that works out for me.

100% - blue highlight; 80% to 99% - green highlight; 30% to 79% - yellow highlight; less than 30% - red highlight. (I had to totally change my color scheme, because, well, just because.)

A. Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Re-read what I’ve written so far, as it has been a while since I’ve looked at it. Have yet to look at it. Bleah! 0%  

            2. Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. Yes, two actually. 110%

b. Write three posts on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. Yes. 100%

c. Write a weekly update on this blog. Yes. 100%

B. Reaching

1. Research markets to submit short pieces or poetry to. I looked at a few websites, somewhat without commitment. Then this morning, I pulled up “Voices on the Wind” online poetry journal, where I have submitted to in the past. This round’s theme is challenges, as if I haven’t had any of those in the past eleven months. As luck would have it, the deadline for submission is the 20^th. I am on this. 100%   

C. Reading

1. Read four blog posts by other people. Yes, more I think, and commented on several. 100%

2. Read eight chapters in the book of Genesis. Yes. 100%

3. Read a daily devotion. Hmm? I missed more than a few days. 50%

4. Finish the novel I’m currently reading, “Afraid of the Light” by Cynthia Ruchti. I finished it just before writing this post. I had an hour or two this afternoon and was debating about finishing this book or reading my WIP. This one won out. 100%

D. Remaining

            1. Sewing.

a. Finish the next sweatshirt throw. Finished the fifth one and started the sixth. 110%

2. Clean and purge.

a. Clean one kitchen cupboard. Not a cupboard, but did clean out the DVD shelf. 80%

b. Take a load of stuff to Goodwill. Yes, took three boxes. 100%  

            3. Remaining house.

a. Call our contractor about our home repair projects. Nope, did not. 0%

            4. Family tree

a. Work on my family tree one night. Only for a few minutes while I was talking to my brother on the phone. 20%

b. Oh and then there are the pictures! I didn’t mention in my long-year long list that I need to scan and dispose of old family pictures. Argh! Who am I kidding???? 0%  

There it is. If I average that, it comes out to 71%. Yikes! That’s dismal! Ok, so that basically tells me I need to get it together.

A. Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Re-read what I’ve written so far, as it has been a while since I’ve looked at it.  

            2. Other writing.

                        a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles.

                        b. Write three posts on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”.

c. Write a weekly update on this blog.

B. Reaching

            1. Submit that poem to “Voices on the Wind.”   

C. Reading

1. Read four blog posts by other people. 

2. Read eight chapters in the book of Genesis.

3. Read a daily devotion.

4. Pick another novel to read, I’m leaning towards one on my classics list. We’ll see. Those can be long and painful. Whatever I choose, read 20%. (I need to make these goals concrete and measurable.)

D. Remaining

            1. Sewing.

a. Finish the sixth sweatshirt throw.

2. Clean and purge.

a. Clean one kitchen cupboard.

b. Clean out one drawer in my office file cabinet. The one I’m thinking of has a ton of papers which are now completely irrelevant.   

            3. Remaining house.

                        a. Call our contractor about our home repair projects. 

            4. Family tree

a. Work on my family tree one night.

b. Scan twenty old family pictures.   

Hope you’re getting after your goals for the year. At least there’s still plenty of year left. Have a great week, stay safe, stay healthy, and mostly – stay sane! Chris

The finished fifth one, for one of Hubby's nieces. 

The sixth one, in the works. 

Ten Days into the New Year

   My first blog post here this year offered a long list of ambitious goals for this year. What was I thinking? I was thinking that – you know – this year is going to be better than last. How’s that working out for the rest of you so far? Me? Not so much.

But you know what? We are going to power through this. Let me start by paring down that big ol’ list into a weekly attainable plan

A. Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Re-read what I’ve written so far, as it has been a while since I’ve looked at it.   

            2. Other writing.

                        a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles.

                        b. Write three posts on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”.

                        c. Write a weekly update on this blog.

B. Reaching

            1. Research markets to submit short pieces or poetry to.  

C. Reading

1. Read four blog posts by other people.  

2. Read eight chapters in the book of Genesis. I finally looked this up. There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible, but let’s round it up to 1,200. It took me three years to read through the whole thing last time, so I’m sticking with that three year goal, which comes down to 156 weeks, right? Or again, let’s round up to 160. That all comes down to 7.5 (or rounding up again, 8) chapters a week. How hard could that be? A chapter a day and an extra one on Sundays, right?

3. Read a daily devotion.

4. Finish the novel I’m currently reading, “Afraid of the Light” by Cynthia Ruchti. I’m just over half-way done with it, so I might be able to make it.

D. Remaining

            1. Sewing.

a. Finish the next sweatshirt throw. I’ve finished four of them so far and am halfway done with the fifth one.

2. Clean and purge.

a. Clean one kitchen cupboard. I don’t want to get too crazy cleaning just yet.

b. Take a load of stuff to Goodwill. There are three boxes waiting in the basement already.  

            3. Remaining house.

                        a. Call our contractor about our home repair projects.  

            4. Family tree

a. Work on my family tree one night.

b. Oh and then there are the pictures! I didn’t mention in my long-year long list that I need to scan and dispose of old family pictures. Argh!  

There it is. A short, sweet list for the week. I also get my first COVID vaccine on Friday. Oh, yea! One of the perks of being a health care worker. I’m truly not excited about it and rather not get it, but if this sacrifice means we are all closer to getting rid of the masks and going back to hugging each other, I am on it.

Have a great week, stay safe, stay healthy, and mostly – stay sane! Chris

Second sweatshirt throw that I finished. Side note, in case I never shared this, when we cleaned out my mother-in-law's, we brought home 76 of her old sweatshirts (since then Hubby has found even more and I made him promise to never bring them home). I've started sewing them into throws for her sons and grandchildren. All the shirts are cut into squares now, I just have to finish putting the rest of them together. 

welcome to the new year, when things will be better, or not

 After having a few setbacks in the month of December, I had high hopes of hitting 2021 with a new commitment. Instead, I’ve feeling more like I should be committed.

 For the past ten or eleven months, all we’ve heard is, “I can’t wait for this year to be over; next year has to be better.” I realize that we are only a few days into 2021, but there’s not been a single improvement in things. Six people I know have passed away since Christmas day – four of my patients that I was close to and two others, a friend of my husband’s and a friend of my mom’s. There’s been a few other more personal crises already this week as well. Argh! I know that the turning of a page in the calendar doesn’t magically change anything, but I think we all need a break.

 I’m not sure where I’m going to go with my goals for this year. I think the greatest goal needs to be to keep the stress out of my life. If 2020 taught us anything it should be that life is short and we need to keep our priorities straight. But since life is short, we can’t spend our days being sluggards either. All about balance, I guess.

 I’m not sure what I am going to be able to accomplish week by week, but I need to start somewhere. Here is my list of goals to keep in mind for the entire year.

 A. Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”, which is a post-quel in the RASA series.  

a. Finish writing it by May.  

b. Self-publish it by August.  

            2. Next novel, which is actually book 1 in the RASA series.

a. Finish writing it by December. (Sounds lofty, but I am 14 chapters into it.)

            3. Other writing.

a. Finish my Covert Corona Chronicles, hopefully sooner than later, meaning this pandemic ends, right? 

b. Write three posts weekly on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”.

c. Write a weekly update on this blog.

d. Write a few random short stories and poems. Hard to commit to this, not knowing what will strike me.

B. Reaching

            1. One month prior to publishing “Rewrite the Now”, begin promoting it.

            2. Submit ten short pieces to various markets.

C. Reading

1.  Read an average of four blog posts by other people a week.

2. Read up to one-third of the Bible. I just finished reading through it the end of the year, took me three years, so sticking with the fact that it will take three years the next time around.

3. Read four books considered “classics.”

4. Read a daily devotion.

5. Read two other nonfiction books, either as research for “Rewrite the Now” or writing advice.

6. Read twelve other novels.    

D. Remaining

            1. Sewing.

a. Sew four more sweatshirt throws from MIL’s sweatshirts.

b. Finish my Snoopy quilt.

2. Clean and purge.

a. Clean all the closets in my house.

b. Post as many things to sell on Facebook Marketplace as I can.

c. Dispose of the remaining junk either at Goodwill or landfill.

            3. Remaining house.

                        a. Remodel the kitchen.

                        b. Tile bathroom.

                        c. Fix dining room ceiling.

4. Family tree

a. Finish my family tree.

b. Finish Hubby’s family tree.

5. Travel.

a. Go to Cambodia in the fall. Big life-long bucket list goal, which was cancelled, naturally, in 2020.

b. Travel anywhere and everywhere else which time and money allow.

 It’s rather unnerving looking at the whole list for the year. YIKES! Hopefully by the weekend, I’ll be able to pare it down into one-week increments. Depending on what other chaos develops between now and then.

Hopefully you finished off 2020 with more cheers than jeers and here’s wishing you a wonderful 2021. Chris