A Time For Everything

I'll be home again early this afternoon from the Gateway to the West aka St. Louis, Missouri. Had a wonderful time driving through Oklahoma and Missouri, in the city itself, and at my conference. More on all of that to come.

St. Louis is the home of the Arch (see above), the 2019 Stanley Cup Champions (who defeated my Dallas Stars on their way), toasted ravioli (see below), and boatload of history. Did you know that St. Louis was originally a French settlement?? I didn't, but I'm intrigued. I'll read up on that more later.

Had toasted ravioli at the Riverboat Cafe and it was good, fine. Tasty. Very much like a cheese stick, if you ask me, just in a different shape. :0)

Now that the conference is over, I can look ahead to the rest of the year and to next year in earnest. More on all of that as well.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Have a great week.

Not to any "very important dates," but I kept meaning to do a report card on my 2021 goals as of the end of the 2nd quarter, but I just hadn't gotten around to it until now.

But honestly there's not much to say...I didn't make much progress on any of them. It was a rough quarter, topped off by a crazy 4th of July.

I'll be sending my Grandma a post card this week though. I'm doing okay there--not quite monthly but averaging every other. I think. Also August is her birth month, so some flowers will be ordered. She gets an arrangement for her birthday and Christmas.

Oh-wait-- I accomplished one thing! My home gym is complete as far as equipment goes. There are some empty boxes that have piled up that need to get tossed and a couple of random items that need to get taken to the warehouse.

I also need to figure out if I can get on the internet on the TV. I can do YouTube and watch my yoga channel, but I also bought another program that I want to try to access from out there.

The three pounds did get gone, although the inches did not. But that's a project for another day, well, another quarter probably. lol

The three I really failed on were learning about personality strengths, getting a handle on my housekeeping, and the brainstorming of characters and plot arcs for a specific series...

I continue to learn peripherally (via a newsletter and a Facebook group) about the Strengths, but I haven't taken that deep dive into *my* top ten as I had intended. And I probably won't get to it this year.

Now, housekeeping I'm working on. I've got a chore or two to do every day this week and we'll see how that goes and ramp up from there.

As for the brainstorming of characters and plot arcs...that series is still a ways down the road, so it wasn't critical that it all get done, but I am disappointed that I didn't make better progress. On the other hand, other things cropped up and that's okay too. I may re-evaluate that plan, spread out the due dates a bit. I can't plan too much of it all in advance though. If I know too much too soon, then I won't have much interest in writing any of the stories.

In other news--it's been a crazy summer for hockey. There was an expansion draft and then there was the regular draft and then there was free agency frenzy. And it was wild across the board. I'm scratching my head about a couple of the moves my Dallas Stars made. But only time will tell how those trades and signings will pan out.

Future road trip plan: Tennessee in 2023 to check out the nations largest Buc-cee's!! Of course it needs to be built first. Hence the 2023. And there are other things to see and do in Tennessee as well. :0)

Hope you're well. Have a super week.

Back when I first registered for last year's GRL (2020), which became this year's GRL (2021), I did so as an "author" because the "featured author" tier sold out, as it usually does, in a matter of minutes. I'm not kidding. So I put myself on the waiting list for a featured author slot should one become available. That was a year and a half ago and I don't remember doing so.

However, I got an email from the organizers on Wednesday saying there was a slot available. I had forty-eight hours to let them know if I wanted to upgrade.

Did I?

I had to weigh the cons--the additional $100--against the pros: additional exposure by way of added opportunities. I talked to a few fellow authors, one in my genre and also attending and two online friends, not in the genre, as well as to DD. Three of the four were of the opinion I should go for it.

So I'm going for it. I let the organizers know I wanted the slot and am awaiting instructions for upgrade.

One of the additional opportunities is to participate in an author Q&A or in a storyteller panel (topic TBD by me or by someone else). Both of these make me nervous. Not because I'm nervous about talking in front of people. As long as I know what I'm talking about, I'm fine.

But because the Q&A is "on the fly" and my brain doesn't always process immediately or well until I've had time to think about things. Now I'd be talking about myself mostly, so that shouldn't be terrible. I know myself pretty well, right? But I attended some of these when I went to Albuquerque and Portsmouth to see what they were like and sometimes the questions do require more processing. Maybe I take a notepad and write down the questions to circle back to...

I'd prefer a storyteller panel because I could research and be prepared, but what could I possibly offer except a primer on hockey and the interest in that would probably be pretty small. And panel means more than one person and that means me soliciting others or others soliciting me to participate. The challenge there is that I'm new. No one knows me, I don't know anyone. Most of the attendees have been going since the conference started and they all know one another. This crowd can be a bit intimidating.

DD suggested I just not participate. Which is definitely an option. But I'd hate to let it go to waste...

So if I can come up a really cool idea for a panel topic, I'll go that route. If I chicken out, I'll default to the Q&A...

Topic suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great weekend!!

As promised--here are my goals for 2021. Finally. I know you've just been on tenterhooks waiting, haven't you, lol...

Last year, I had eight, and in previous years, I've had ten. This year...down to seven! But I've got a separate list of behaviors that need to become daily habits, if they aren't already. I won't bore you with the details, although I've instituted a reward system for completing them that doesn't involve food. Right now, I have 6 items on that weekly chart.

If I complete all 6 tasks for four out of six days, I get a puzzle from the Dollar Tree. They cost $1 and come in 350 or 500 piece sizes. They good for my brain and they're fun. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed doing puzzles.

If I complete all 6 tasks seven out of seven days, I've earned myself a trip to Buc-cee's which is a local-to-Texas travel store/gas station chain. They have all kinds of cool things and a wall of beef jerky, trail mix, and a "food court" of sorts with all kinds of deliciousness. Not that I'm after the food. I just love to look around.

In reality, the habits are referred to as Cowtown Commitments because my group of girlfriends (originally Cowtown Critiquers) and I meet via Zoom each week, and we all usually commit to a handful of things to accomplish for the week. Mine are usually the same things every week because one of my personality strengths and comforts is consistency. :0)

I also get stickers, so I have a fun visual reminder of my progress and my goal.

And now drum roll please...

My goals for the year, in no particular order, are:
 
1) Brainstorm characters and plot arcs for bar & grill series. ~ I've penciled in filling out one character worksheet per week. I'll answer what I can answer during the first pass (it's a really long questionnaire) and revisit each one at a later date. I have eighteen characters to flesh out and eight romance plot arcs to come up with. I have fifty-two weeks to fill, and I'm not starting this series in 2021, so it looks like I can revisit everything at least once. Woot.

2) Publish three books ~ Along with needing to write hockey book #5, I have two historicals to work on. One is complete and needs some strategics revisions; the other is almost done, and will need finishing as well as editing and polishing. The plan for these is to show up at my computer every morning. I’ll have to come up with some sort of schedule, but I won’t bore you with that.

3) Harness the power of my top ten personality strengths to do things better and faster. Specifically, to write better faster, but I imagine all aspects of my life will be improved. More on personality strengths on Friday.
 
4) Last year I wanted to complete a household project, namely the home gym in the garage. That didn't happen, but it's happening this year. I only need a few things to complete the project at its most basic level. Of course, two of those things (TV & rowing machine) aren't cheap, but I'll get it sorted out with DH.

5) Lose the weight I gained since Halloween. ~ That's three pounds. As long as I stick with eating low carb/low sugar consistently, it shouldn't take long. I'm not setting my sights on being 100% Keto for a few months though.

6) Get back to the family meal schedule & plan. ~ This equates to three prepared meals a week. Each meal will include a protein and a vegetable or two. Some of these will be on the easy side, like pre-made frozen meatloaf and microwave veggies, but I also want to make the effort to cook something scratch as well. I'm staring with one meal per week and working my way up. This week--beef stew. Yum! 

7) Get a handle on the housekeeping. ~ I keep the basics done, specifically bathroom and kitchen. It includes sweeping, but not mopping. So mopping is going to be the first thing I somehow implement. Dusting comes after that. I’ll decide what’s next once those become routine.

I keep thinking I need to start walking the dog. You may remember this goal from several years ago. She's a chubster and could definitely use at least 3 or 4 outings a week, but I have no idea where in my schedule to carve out the 20-30 minutes needed. I'm not adding it to the official goal list, but I'm keeping it on the radar because it really needs to happen. So the goal is to figure out how to make it happen.

And there you finally have them!!

Hope you're having a great week. Catch you Friday.

 Happy 2021! We made it.

2021 has finally arrived.

Our New Years was a quiet one for a change as, due to COVID, we did not open the fireworks store.

It was nice change of pace and, as I mentioned, I'm planning to enjoy the three day weekend.

Have a super weekend and here's to a better year!

I know we're all looking forward to 2021 for obvious reasons (looking at you, pandemic)--but I'm also excited about things I've got coming down the pipe...

I'll do a review of my 2020 goals closer to the new year and I'll post my goals for 2021 early in the new year as I usually do.

I'm hoping to ramp up the blog topics a bit and have been percolating ideas for a couple of months now. I'm not saying every post, every week is going to be a scintillating read, but I'm shooting for some themes. Remember Fort Worth Friday? They'll be of a similar nature although no theme will present on a weekly basis.

Hope you're having a good week; and that you're ready for the holidays. I'm just counting the days at this point.

 See you Friday!