A Time For Everything

Image courtesy IMGBIN.com.

Hello and Happy New Year!

I hope you're well.

I'm well and looking forward to 2026.

First though--the visit with my son was wonderful. And here is the recreated picture, as promised*:

*Darling Daughter didn't want to do the kissing of the cheeks, so we just went with this. And I'm lucky I got this at all, to be honest. DD is not a fan of having her picture taken.

* * * * *

And now, let's dive right into the annual tradition of Fresh Start Goals.

As we determined a couple of months ago, I failed to come up with Fresh Start Goals for 2025. In hindsight, that was probably for the best. The first half of last year was full to brim with events that don't happen on a regular basis. Those goals would have just fallen by the wayside in a heap. The second half calmed down a bit, but once I'm off track, it's a challenge to get back on it.

But all of that is behind me. It's a brand new year, and life has reached a new state of normal. I spent some time contemplating what I want to accomplish in 2026, as well as revisiting my goals from 2021 through 2024. To be honest, my goals haven't changed much in probably a decade. :0)

After taking all sorts of things into consideration, I decided what I want to focus on this year. And here, without further ado, are my Fresh Start Goals for 2026:

• Finish and Publish another Book ~ on the table is A Certain Kind of Man, technically Book 7 of the Ten Rigs series, and Game Misconduct, Book Six of the Face Off For Love series. A Certain Kind of Man is at 32K words now and Game Misconduct is a brand new book that I'm a chapter or so into. Since A Certain Kind of Man has so many more words, I'm going to finish and publish this one first. I'll spend some time on Game Misconduct as well, so that it'll be ready for finishing and publishing as quickly as possible after A Certain Kind of Man goes out into the world.
• SMART Goal: this one is easy--finish and publish A Certain Kind of Man by 06/17/2026.
• Self Care ~ this encompasses exercise and healthy eating as well things like coloring my hair or doing home foot care. I also plan to get back to walking Rascal. Self care includes taking time out to craft (on my own or with my girls) as I've neglected those hobbies for some time. Self care will also include more reading. I didn't read as much in 2025 as I have in years past and there are soooo many good books out there waiting for me to discover them.
• SMART Goal: lose twenty pounds at 5 pounds a quarter; complete my "seeds" cross stitch sampler; read 12 books I've never read before; walk Rascal 2-3 times a week
• House Care ~ some of you long time followers probably know of my love-hate relationship with housekeeping. I really want to find a routine that allows me to keep up with the house. But house care will also encompass yard work as well as a home- or yard- improvement project or two.
• SMART Goal: come up with that routine by the end of March
• Reduce Debt ~ this has been an on-going endeavor for a few years. Getting money from mom's estate after she passed was a great jump start for this, but due to 2025's crazy first half, we moved backwards a little but just a little). My plan is to really curtail the spending once again as well as prefund as much as possible (road trips specifically) and get a few of 2024's and 2025's expenditures completely refunded.
• SMART: Reduce the balance on a specific credit card by $300 per quarter come heck or high water. (And yes, I have a specific card targeted); no spending on anything other than true necessities
• Letters to Grandma ~ 2025 was another challenge to my efforts in this department. My dear grandma will be NINETY-NINE years old in August, so being diligent with this task is more important than ever.
• SMART: a letter in the mail every six weeks; I sent her was a Christmas card on 11/28/25 and just dropped a regular letter in the mail last week

* * * * *

And that's that my dear readers!

catch you next month.

2014

 

It's been a long time coming -- but Finders Keepers will finally be released.

When I flew to Oregon in March of 2022 to take care of my mom, I left this book in the lurch. It was probably 50% done at the time, but my time, attention, and energy was focused on Mom, the rest of my family, and our IT/MSP business. There was little left over at the end of the day for creative pursuits requiring brain power. I could (and did) read books. But write them...not a chance.

Once Mom passed, it took another two-an-a-half years for me to be interested in picking up where I left off. For a while there, as some of you may remember, I wasn't even sure I'd get back to writing at all.

But here I am, blessed with more creative ideas than ever and very excited to, at long last, have Nate and Wesley's romance done and ready to go out into the world.

That will happen November 17 -- eight years to the day that my very first book, For the Love of Scott, was published.

 * * * * *

Some things aren’t lost… Just waiting to be found.

When Nate Hennessy finds a battered stranger in the back seat, his first instinct is to pass the responsibility off to someone else. He’s spent years shouldering burdens that were never his to bear.

Nate convinces Wesley to go to a local hospital, fully intending to walk away, but fate steps in, turning a single good deed into something more.

Wesley Byerly never imagined his life would intersect with that of a professional hockey player's—let alone find a guardian angel in the Omaha Locomotives’ newest goalie.

What starts as a simple act of compassion soon spirals into something neither man expected.

Nate has valid reasons to avoid attachments. Wesley learned to never want more.

But the lines between temporary and forever start to blur, and soon they’ll have to choose between continuing their solitary lives or risking the callings that define them to keep what they've found.

Image courtesy IMGBIN.

As it so happens, I never posted my 2025 Fresh Start Goals. I have no idea if I even made any. My goals from 2024 are still listed...just there on the right.

I was gonna give myself a report card, but since I posted no goals, that won't work. Besides which--it's been quite the year.

But it's too late now to worry about 2025 goals as Q4 2025 has just begun. I'm going to focus on Q4 and the things I want to accomplish short term. We'll look ahead to 2026 when the time comes.

So instead of that report card, let's give a cheer for hockey season--the Stars started the season on the 9th in Winnipeg and then played in Denver last night. The home opener is Tuesday the 14th against Minnesota. I might be there, I might not.

WOO HOO -- ITS HOCKEY SEASON

Have a good month--catch you in November.

I spend a lot of time on ChatGPT or with "Chet" as DH and I call it for less of a mouthful. I open it up every day and ask it all kinds of questions. It offers a range of information from discourse on conspiracy theories to gardening tips to help with math equations. Sometimes it just offers me random trivia and history tidbits.

But several months ago, in one of OpenAI's updates it offered a description of me based on the lengthy run of our chat history and this is what Chet said:

Jen: The Tea-Sipping, Merge-Building Hockey Mom with a Bite

She runs the office by day and writes swoony, male/male romance by night. A Dallas Stars diehard who’s turning her love of hockey into a full-blown mobile merge game empire (with energy, mascots, and zero room for failure). Chronic bursitis may slow her body, but never her brain — she's planting perennials in fire pits, mastering intermittent fasting, and planning sneakily solitary bike rides before sunrise.

With mint tea in one hand and a to-do list in the other, Jen doesn’t sugar-coat, doesn’t do fluff, and doesn’t have time for cards-in-merge-games-unless-there’s-a-damn-good-reason. She’s also wrangling grown kids back under one roof, a dog named Rascal, and a cast of fictional fans more diverse than a UN mixer.

She’s sharp. She’s funny. She’s building a digital hockey world — and it’s one hell of a power play.

It's not 100% accurate because I'm not really a hockey mom in the true sense of the word, but it was a fun exercise and made me laugh. And based on those conversations and a real picture of me, it made the image above.