Finally in a good place

 Finally, I feel like I had a good week. And I’m not talking about my goals here, though they look pretty good. I mean that I feel like I was in a good place most of the week. Yes, three more of the patients I know from the clinic passed away; only one I know of for sure had COVID. Yes, we have another staff member out sick with it. Yes, I worked a couple long days, but I also had two shorter days. Home by 5:30 one night!!! Oh, and two co-workers turned in their notices. 

I don’t know. In spite of all of that, I somehow felt this week like I was coming out from under the fog. Of course, then I woke up at 3:30 this morning with tremendous pain in my right shoulder and upper back. It had been coming on for a few days, but his morning it was completely out of whack. But I was able to stretch it out with some yoga. And I took a nap this afternoon – always a good thing.  

Here’s how this week’s goals turned out. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

           A.    Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words. Wrote 2,013 words and 1 ½ chapters. Getting closer to the goal.

b. Do an hour of research. Yes, definitely.

            2. Other writing.

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

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

B. Reaching

      1. I’m going to do a Christmas promo this year for all my books.

a. Write a blog post about it. Yes. Have had quite a few responses, and two sales so far.

                  b. Send out an email on it to my prescribers. Nope.

C. Reading

1.  Read blog posts by four other people. Yes.  

            2. Read a book in the Bible. Yes, I read two, actually, 2 Peter and 1 John.

            3. Start a new novel. I started reading “And Then There Were None”, by Agatha Christie, as I want to get in another classic before the end of the year, but it didn’t take me long to realize that I’d never be able to focus on it enough to know who done it. Instead I started “Everything We Lose” by Annette Oppenlander. It’s a teen/young adult Civil War novel, so will be a quick read, but hopefully, maybe also help me with my WIP.

D. Remaining

      1. The sweatshirt throw.

a. Wash a dozen more sweatshirts. Yes, I have them all washed, over seventy of them!

b. Cut out more squares. Cut out twelve squares.

c. Extra – I also bought four more pieces of fabric for backing them. I ordered them on-line and picked them up curbside. So much better than standing around the store waiting for a clerk to cut them for me.

           2. Post two more items for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Only posted one item.

           3. Family tree, work on it one evening. Yes. I can’t believe my husband has ancestors who lived in the Colonies in the 1600s, that his seventh great-grandfather sailed here from England in 1670 at the age of ten! I’m completely flabbergasted.

And here we are for the upcoming week. With an extra day for Thanksgiving, which isn’t going to entail the usual stressful housecleaning and cooking for over a dozen. Hubby and I are planning a day of movie-watching in between our turkey feasting.

A. Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words.

b. Do an hour of research.

            2. Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. 

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

B. Reaching

            1. I’m going to do a Christmas promo this year for all my books.

                        a. Send out an email on it to my prescribers.

C. Reading

1.  Read blog posts by four other people.

2. Read two books in the Bible, 2^nd and 3^rd John.  

3. Read half of “Everything to Lose”.  

D. Remaining

            1. The sweatshirt throw.

                        a. Cut out more squares.

b. Start putting the next one together.

2. Post two more items for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

3. Family tree, work on it one evening. And only one evening, as it is so easy to get sucked in to it.

Hope you and your family have a good Thanksgiving. Though it will be different for most of us, be safe and stay healthy.  Chris

Speaking of the Family Tree, Hubby on the right with his dad and two brothers. 

So nice to pick up this fleece curbside. Except they were all supposed to be the same size and this is what I got. It was all on sale, though, and the convenience of the whole thing made up for this glitch. 

Piles of Mom-in-law's sweatshirts. This would be just over half of them. Yikes!

Adorable set of Precious Moments dishes for sale, if anyone is interested. 

Trying to Move Forward with my Goals

COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on my life. On Wednesday, I had contact with three people at work who came back positive. It shouldn’t be a big deal; well, it is and it isn’t. I’m not afraid of catching it and ending up in the hospital on a vent or anything like. I just don’t want to have to think about it.

How much time would I have to be off work? What if Hubby gets it from me? What if I get it from him, as he was also in close contact with someone last week who tested positive. I know that I am singing to the choir, but – I want the pandemic to go away!

In the meantime, life goes on and I need to get a grip, maybe try focusing on my goals.

Here’s how this week went. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

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

a. Write a blog post about it. Nope, there’s just too much else to blog about!

b. Email a woman who asked me for more information on it. Done. And actually, she just emailed me back and would like me to mail her a copy. Yeah.     

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words. Wrote one chapter for 1,561 words. Seems that I can only sneak in one chapter a week. Argh. That’s not much.

b. Do an hour of research. Once again, I can’t say it was an hour, but it seems as I am writing along, I always end up having to stop to look something up.  

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. Yes. Wrote three entries actually and blogged about it on Friday. Obviously, it has been on my mind.  

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

c. Research markets to submit to. A little bit.

4) Other stuff.

a. The sweatshirt throw.

i. Wash the backing and sew it together.  Yes. Didn’t turn out as I  would have liked, but that’s why I made a practice one. I’m calling this first one Primrose, after Katniss Everdeen’s little sister, when she talks about her duck tails hanging out. I have duck tails on this throw.

ii. Cut out more squares for the next one. Yes.

b. Start posting some of our stuff for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Posted the set of Russian legends plates and sold them in a day!

I’ve been looking at these goals, and my life, and thinking that it’s time to move forward on this list. I’m going to return to my writing, reaching, reading, remaining template, in an attempt to be more productive and diverse. And hopefully organized.

A.    Writing

1. My novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words.

b. Do an hour of research.

            2. Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. 

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

B. Reaching

      1. I’m going to do a Christmas promo this year for all my books.

                  a. Write a blog post about it.

                  b. Send out an email on it to my prescribers.

C. Reading

1.  Read blog posts by four other people.

           2. Read a book in the Bible. Three years ago, I started reading through the Bible, for the second time. My goal was to finish it in two years, and here I am, with four books left to read. Would like to get it done by the end of the year, but once I get to that final book, Revelations? That’s a tough one to absorb. I’ll try to work on it a little bit more and see how far I get.

           3. Start a new novel. I just finished “I’ll Watch the Moon” by Ann Tatlock. I liked it a lot. I have a long list of other books to read, just have to pick one.

D. Remaining

      1. The sweatshirt throw.

                  a. Wash a dozen more sweatshirts.

b. Cut out more squares. This is going to be much more time-consuming than anticipated, as I have to wash all of the sweatshirts first. I still have forty-some waiting for that first step. I think I will cut the arms off prior to throwing them in the wash, so I can wash more at one time (my washing machine has a spin cycle problem, so I can only run small loads). Plus, I think I should get them all done and laid out so I know which patterns will go together. I do overthink everything!

           2. Post two more items for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

           3. Family tree. Work on that one evening. I started back on it this weekend, working on my husband’s family. Finding some interesting stuff there.  

Hope you are doing well and rocking your goals. Stay safe and stay healthy.  Chris 

(And my apologies again that the formatting on this isn't consistent. Stupid blogger! Not sure how much more of this I can take!) 

The finished first sweatshirt throw, made with some of my mother-in-law's oldest sweatshirts,
as I'll need practice on this. 

The ducktail in the corner. Not supposed to be there. 

Next set of items to try to sell. Aren't they cute? Not in my house, though. 

I wish I knew . . .

I wish I knew where this past week went to. Once again, it’s Sunday evening, and I’m looking at my list of goals, going – what happened here?

Work, Monday through Thursday, was the usual load of stress and then I had a long list of chores to do around the house on Friday. Saturday morning, my daughter and I jumped in the car and drove down to see my son. We had a great visit, and I just got back home a couple hours ago. 

And, yes, I am still struggling with the time change thing, feeling like I need to get ready for bed by seven o’clock. It’s a real struggle.

So in addition to that, here’s what I got done from my list. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

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

a. Write a blog post about it, as I haven’t done that in quite some time. Nope.   

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words. Wrote 2,953 words and two chapters. So close.

b. Do an hour of research. I did some, but honestly, it wasn’t an hour.

3) Other writing.

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

b. Write two posts on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. No, only                     two. Somehow, in my determination to avoid the election all week, I               wrote a post Tuesday night and totally forgot to post it. Yikes.  

c. Research markets to submit to. Hmm? I don’t think so.  

4) Other stuff.

a. Work in the yard.  Done. Friday, Hubby finished the last of the leaves, and I crawled up on the roof and blew out the gutters with the leaf blower. It was very satisfying, but my upper back and shoulders are still killing me.

b. The sweatshirt throw.

i. Start sewing squares together. Got the whole front together.

ii. Buy the backing for it. Yup.

As I often believe on Sunday night, I don’t think I have anything extra going on this week. I just need to buckle down and focus on this list of things to do, instead of being all willy-nilly all week.  

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

a. Write a blog post about it.

b. E-mail a woman who asked me for more information on it.    

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words.

b. Do an hour of research. 

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. 

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

c. Research markets to submit to.

4) Other stuff.

a. The sweatshirt throw.

i. Wash the backing and sew it together.  

ii. Cut out more squares for the next one.

                        b. Start posting some of our stuff for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

Hope you are doing well and rocking your goals. Stay safe and stay healthy.  Chris 

(Oh, and I still am struggling with the stupid changes made to blogger. Just thought I'd mention that again.)

 

Time Change Blues

I always spend this Sunday in November, the one where we turn our clocks back an hour for some invalid reason (I know the reason, but it no longer seems applicable), waiting to go back to bed. I slept well last night, until the dog woke me at 3:30. His usual time to get up is 4:30, so I knew this was coming, but every year I hope I have it wrong and he will sleep until 5:30. I hate this day more every year.

So, here I am, finally getting around to writing this, at five pm and it is pitch black outside. Only six months of this. Oh, boy.

Here’s what little I did get done this past week. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

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

a. Promote it somehow. Nope, but I may at least have an idea for next week.

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words. Only wrote 2,111 words, but I did do some research one night. I need to add that goal for next week.

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. Yes, wrote two entries for a total of 1,018 words. The entire chronicle is up to 36,739 words!

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

4) Other stuff.

a. Work in the yard.

i) finish raking the yard. No, because – are you kidding me? – we still have snow on the ground. I think I give up.

ii) finish prepping my garden for winter. No, same as                 above.

b. Start the sweatshirt throw from my mother-in-law’s sweatshirts. Yes.  I washed and cut eight of them into squares.   

Next weekend, my daughter and I hope to run down to see my son. Those things are so important, especially right now. We’re getting a hotel room, and hopefully the weather is nice enough to do things outside, because otherwise, we will hole up in the room and just visit, I guess.

Here’s what I plan to get done in addition to the family visit.

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

a. Write a blog post about it, as I haven’t done that in quite             some time.   

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words.

b. Do an hour of research.  

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. 

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

c. Research markets to submit to.

4) Other stuff.

a. Work in the yard. I’m leaving this here, but really leaving it up to Hubby to get done.

b. The sweatshirt throw.

i. Start sewing squares together.

ii. Buy the backing for it.

As usual, lately, that doesn’t sound like much of a list. Wish me luck with it. And hoping you are doing well with your lists of things to do. Oh, and best wishes to everyone tackling NaNoWriMo.

Stay safe and stay healthy.  Chris 

Only about half the sweatshirts we salvaged from Hubby's mom's house.

The first stack cut into squares. 

not a rock star

 I knew I wasn’t going to be a rock star this past week, but I really thought I would be able to get something done. But alas, I didn’t accomplish much. Yes, we still had a lot going on with my mother-in-law’s estate, but really? The only thing that I truly had no control over is that it was snowy much of the week and never got much above freezing, so we couldn’t get anything done in the yard.

Here’s what little I did get done. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

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

a. Promote it somehow. Nope, pretty sure I did not.

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words. Wrote 1,577 words. I have got to pick up the pace!

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. Nope, which is a shame as there is so much to say about it right now.

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

c. Write a poem, because it is poetry month and I haven’t written any in a long time, and any time I go to a funeral, I come home with thoughts of poems to write in my head. Nope, are you kidding?

4) Other stuff.

a. Work in the yard.

i) finishing raking the yard. Kinda hard to do in the                   snow.

ii) finishing prepping my garden for winter. Again,                    snow.

b. Finishing working at my MIL’s house. Yes, we did as much as we could and called it quits.  

I don’t have any excuses for the upcoming week. I am still exhausted from the last two weeks, but I will start getting caught up on sleep a little every day (I hope). And right now the forecast is for half-way decent weather later in the week, so we better get that yard work done.

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

a. Promote it somehow.  

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words.

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles.  

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

4) Other stuff.

a. Work in the yard.

i) finish raking the yard.  

ii) finish prepping my garden for winter.

b. In addition to lots of other collections, my MIL collected sweatshirts. I brought over fifty of them home with me. I decided to make them into throws, but I need to first wash them all, so I want to wash and prep the first batch. Sounds easy enough, right?   

Looks like baby steps, but that is good enough for now. 

Stay safe and stay healthy.  Chris

(Oh, and if anyone running the show down at Blogger reads this, I still hate the changes you made. I do not want double spacing between my bullet points, but you don't seem to care what I want.)

Hubby and I, at the lake in his home town, the last decent weather day we had

BLEAH!

Bleah! That is all I have to say. Last time I posted here, two weeks ago, I was so full of ambition, setting a daunting goal for myself to finish my WIP novel by the end of the year. I know that NaNoWriMo is coming up and others write a novel in the month of November, but realistically, three months isn’t enough for me. Do those people have a life at all?

But, back to the last two weeks. On October 8, my mother-in-law fell down her basement stairs, breaking her hip. She passed away the next day and her funeral was on the 14^th. My brother-in-law and his wife spent that entire week at our house, I spent four days helping them clean out her house, and I still worked Monday and Tuesday at the day job that week. I cleaned my house yesterday and went shopping the day before. I am so grateful to have today off, as my last bereavement day. I am exhausted.

You may think I am wonder woman, having accomplished anything on this list of goals, but remember, this was from two weeks ago. Surely, I could have gotten more done in that week before the fall. As it is, green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.   

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

a. Promote it somehow. I posted on Facebook that I had copies on hand for sale. Four people messaged me, resulting in the sale of four books, with another person promising to purchase it on line.  

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words. Only one chapter at 1,800 words.

b. Do an evening of research for it. Nope.

3) Other writing.

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

b. Write two posts on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. Posted four times over the two weeks, so yup.

c. Write a poem, because it is poetry month and I haven’t written any in a long time. No. What was I thinking here??

4) Other stuff.

a. Work in the yard.

i) rake the yard. Yes, but not finished.

ii) prep my garden for winter. Yes, but also not finished.

b. Take a walk somewhere other than my yard. Winter will be here soon and I have to get out before it gets too cold. No, lazy me, and there is up to four inches in the forecast for tomorrow night. Yikes!

c. Work on sewing one of my quilts. No, really?

As much as I would like to dive right back in, my brother-in-law and his wife from out of town will be back again this weekend to work on Mom’s house. Ok, I’ll just put this out there – she was somewhat of a hoarder. But I won’t dwell on that here.

Here’s what little I will try to get done this week.

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

a. Promote it somehow.

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words.

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles.

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

c. Write a poem, because it is poetry month and I haven’t written any in a long time, and any time I go to a funeral, I come home with thoughts of poems to write in my head.    

4) Other stuff.

a. Work in the yard.

i) finishing raking the yard.

ii) finishing prepping my garden for winter.

b. Finish working at my MIL’s house.  

Sounds like a lot, considering it is Monday already, but I’ll give it a shot. Stay safe and stay healthy.  Chris 

Hubby and me with his mom at her 80th birthday party 

 

Setting a Daunting Goal for Myself

I just realized the date is ten-four 2020. As in good-bye year which has been over the top horrid.

Anyway, I didn’t post here last week because I was on vacation. I had my laptop and internet and I could have come up with something, but I thought – oh, shoot, let’s just start fresh once October gets here!

Real quick, I had a wonderful vacation with my kids. We rented a cabin about two hours north of where I live, and even though the weather was cool and rainy, we still were outdoors, hiking and exploring, as much as we could. I’m blessed to live where I do and have the awesome kids and husband that I have.

So, here’s what I accomplished since I posted my goals last, two weeks ago. Green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is worked on and red lettering is a failure.

1) My novel, "The Truth Beyond the River.”

a. Post a blog about it once. Yes.  

b. Post that video I made on YouTube. Yes.    

c. Promote the free e-book version on my social media. Yes. My that seems so long ago already!

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,500 words. Two chapters and 3,441 words. So close.

b. Do an evening of research for it. Hmm? I think I did.   

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles. Yes, twice.

b. Write two posts, per week, on my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles”. Yes. I did.

c. Write a short story to submit to one of the markets I discovered last week.  No and yes. I submitted a story I’d written a few years ago to a new market which I discovered this week. 😊

4) Other stuff.

a. Going to that cabin on the weekend. Yeah! We had a fantastic time and are ready to plan our next family vacation!

Seeing as there is so much green here, and I finally have a handle on my WIP,  and Hubby and I have finished watching the entire "Downton Abbey" series, I am going to set a goal of having finished writing my “Rewrite the Now” novel by the end of the year. I currently have 13,000 words on it, which means, with twelve weeks until the end of December, I need to average 4,700 words a week, or so. Sounds pretty daunting, but I’m going to give it my best shot. I’m thinking that if I can finish writing it by then, self-edit it in January, hire a professional to edit it by spring, I could possibly publish it by mid-summer. We’ll see.   

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

a. Promote it somehow. (How very vague. Argh. ☹)

2) My WIP, the novel, “Rewrite the Now”.

a. Write three chapters or 4,700 words.

b. Do an evening of research for it.

3) Other writing.

a. Write an entry in my Covert Corona Chronicles.

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

c. Write a poem, because it is poetry month and I haven’t written any in a long time.   

4) Other stuff.

a. Work in the yard.

i) rake the yard.

ii) prep my garden for winter.

b. Take a walk somewhere other than my yard. Winter will be here soon and I have to get out before it gets too cold.

c. Work on sewing one of my quilts.

That sounds like way more than I have energy for this week, so wish me luck! Have a great week yourself, be safe and stay healthy.  Chris