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.

 

 

 

Well, here we are again looking ahead at another year and another chance to make positive changes in our lives and further progress toward our goals.

In the meantime, Christmas and New Years Eve were both spent in traditional fashion.

Christmas Eve with DH's family enjoying good food and good company.

New Years Eve was spent selling fireworks and ringing in the new year with some very dear friends. I also met a new friend...two of our faithful fireworks friends recently had a baby.

* * * * * *

Guess what I'm doing tomorrow?? My civic duty! For the first time in a suuuuper looong time, I've been summonsed for jury duty. Not sure how it's gonna go, but I guess I'll find out. I'll let you know in the next post.

* * * * * *

And looky--DD and I spent a lazy Christmas day working on our gingerbread row houses. It's not exactly like the picture, but that's okay. I really enjoyed spending time with DD and working on this together.

I was tempted to see what, if anything, Target had on clearance. :0) Alas, I have plenty of other projects I should get back to.

* * * * * *

Christmas Day was lovely. Santa and the fam were good to me. And we FaceTimed with the Brown-Eyed Girl and her soul mate to open gifts.

There was really no one "best" gift, but I was the recipient of this:

I've been hoping for this bad boy for a couple years now and now it's finally mine. I can't wait to buy some of those "plump-when-you-cook-em" franks and see how well they turn out. Thanks, Mimi!!

* * * * * *

And I'm going to sneak in a quick and dirty 4th quarter goals report....as per my 3rd quarter report, no grades again, and just an update (the full list is to the right):

1. letters and postcards to Grandma in Denmark still going out regularly
2. didn't finish the book; didn't even think about the book
3. my Hinge Health routine has been back in place
4. far surpassed the reading challenge goal
5. writers group duties happen when they happen :0)
6. no new patterns to Etsy shop except for customer requests
7. not much self care going on except the Hinge Health
8. no home improvement projects completed
9. no writer education happened
10. ate like crap--looking at you 2024 to make those changes
    
11. housekeeping was hit or miss, but looking forward to 2024
12. we're still blogging every other week; it's working for me
13. no articles for my writers group
14. didn't study the Personality Strengths
15. got through the whole Bible, with only a couple of missed days (which were made up immediately)
16. no more Goodreads habit

My Fresh Start Goals for 2024 will be along in two weeks.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Here's to a great 2024 for one and all.

 

The year is coming to a close and, as I've done every year for the last handful (at least), I’m going to grade myself on the accomplishments of the goals I set for myself.

I’m giving myself a pass or fail, but I’m not judging myself too harshly. We were (and still are, of course) living in a COVID world and the fallout from everything hits everyone at different times and in different ways.

I think I got hit with some depression and worry over the course of the year and that had an effect on my efforts. But there were other factors as well. Some within my control, others not. Having to prepare for my conference was also a problem.

But let’s get going, shall we?

1) Learn about and harness the power of my personality strengths.
--> Big fat fail. Just didn’t have enough brain power for it.

2) Actively cook 1 meal per week; work up to 3 per week.
--> Pass! Doing okay here. Still at it.

3) Lose the 3 pounds I gained.
--> Pass! I’m back within the four-pound swing I have.

4) Publish 3 books.
--> Big fat fail. One project got derailed because of another, and I just couldn’t get things back on track before prepping for the conference got in the way.

5) Get my home gym completely kitted out.
--> Pass… Now, I didn’t get new ceiling fans. But I have all the equipment I want / need, including a TV, so it’s usable and I’m satisfied with it for now.

6) Get a handle on my housekeeping.
--> It took the better part of the year, but I did finally make a list of tasks I wanted to be doing on a regular basis and am making progress with getting those few things taken care of each weekend. There’s still work to be done, but so far, so good.

7) Brainstorm characters and plot arcs for new series.
--> Big Fat Huge Fail! I started off with the detailed character worksheets. I got a worksheet created for all the main characters of a specific series. I was missing a lot of information for each person after the first pass, but I’d planned to revisit each worksheet a couple of times and flesh the characters out more and more with each pass. But I never went back to a single one. I sketched a basic plot for exactly one book. And now I’m not sure I’m ever going to write any of those six books I’d planned for the series. I learned that that’s not a good process for me to follow.

8) Send a postcard to my Grandma in Denmark monthly.
--> Fail. I managed maybe once a quarter rather than the once a month I was aiming for. Part of the problem is—not much happens around here, which is why I went to post cards in the first place.

There you have it. I passed half, I failed half. Not great, but better than I expected going in.

I started thinking about my 2022 goals back in November, and I made a huge detailed list. It’s been a work in progress, but I’ll share the ones that made the cut next week.

Have a super holiday weekend, and I’ll catch you in the new year!

For some that means the horrendous year of COVID has passed. Of course, we've still got a ways to go until the return of many normals or the cementing of new normals. By mid-year, vaccines should be available to all who want one. Hopefully, businesses will be reopening and the economies of cities, large and small, across the country will grow and thrive once more.

For the FitzGeralds in general, that means the slowness of the holidays has come and gone, and plans for the business can once again be ratcheted up and set into motion.

For me specifically, it means a fresh start on the accomplishment of my personal goals. Some goals will be recycled from previous years, some will be new, some will be variations on a theme.

Last week, I revisited my goals from 2020 and rated my efforts in achieving each one. I didn't do nearly as well as I hoped. Part of the problem, I think, was that I didn't set actual plans in place to accomplish the individual goals. I also plan to institute rewards. Because who doesn't like to be rewarded?

I'll have my list of goals along with my strategy for accomplishing each one and hopefully the reward soon. I was hoping for Friday, but action plans require a little more thought a time.

The new year also means hockey. The season start in a couple of weeks and if I can be in attendance, I will be.

Have a great first week of the new year. And remember...

 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!

May 2020 be filled with good memories and prosperity for all of us. Whatever that means to you, best wishes on achieving it.

I do not yet have my list of goals ready for you. I took a break from thinking about it for a couple of days because, well, I had no choice. On New Years Eve, as you know, I help hubster sell fireworks. And on New Years Day this year, as you also know, I attended the NHL's Winter Classic. And it was...in a word:


That's not to say there weren't issues for people, I was just lucky enough to have not encountered them, except once, and it was bound to happen with 10s of thousands of people in once place.
First of all, there were officially 85,630 in attendance, the second best Winter Class attendance on record. Venue plays a part, of course, but considering the initial number of tickets they made available was only 60K, the packed house was fantastic. No one expected the response we got in a non-traditional hockey market--but whomever makes the decision, smartly decided to open up the rest of the seats and we had a sold-out Cotton Bowl Stadium.

And the weather which is always a crap shoot in Texas this time of year--and one of the biggest concerns--cooperated. Cloudy skies, 54* at puck drop shortly after 1pm, and no rain.

But enough of the blather. Here are, as promised, pictures:










Have a great weekend and all the best in the coming year!!

Today, my hockey partners in crime are one of the biggest events of a hockey season:

The Winter Classic -- an outdoor hockey game played on New Years Day.

This year it just so happens to be in North Texas and my beloved Stars are playing host to the Nashville Predators.

I will have pictures of the actual event on Friday.

Have a great day and a blessed 2020!

It hasn't been a bad year. In fact, it's been quite good in many respects if just plain busy--too busy for my liking. It sped by much too fast, as I've whined about often. But I'm glad it's coming to a close if only so that I can plan for being less busy at some point in 2020.

In years past, I've graded myself on the accomplishment of my goals as listed to the right, but I'm not going into details this year. I'm giving myself Ds and Fs across the board. I didn't do well at all at much of anything.

Now, I'm not sure if I post my goals for the new year prior to or following New Years Eve & Day, but this year they're coming after. I've been thinking about them, but I haven't got the specifics nailed down yet, so probably next week. I know--you can't wait. :0)

My Christmas was good, how about yours? As we do, we gathered at my in-laws home for Christmas Eve. Food was delicious as always, company was a treat, and gifts were awesome. I got the two things I wanted most, so whee... Thank you to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for those.

And then, I got a thing I would have wanted had I come across it myself. Whether I would have bought it for myself depends entirely on the price, although I'm thinking, considering the giver, I could afford it.

Anyway, it is priceless gift for several reasons, and one I'll love and treasure for years.

Are you curious?

Okay, well, here it is:


In case it's hard to tell, it's a matted collectible photo of Sidney Crosby--my absolute favorite player--three-time Stanley Cup champion, kissing the Stanley Cup in June of 2017. That was the second of back-to-back titles--the Penguins also won in 2016. That was the first time it'd happened since 1997/1998.

Thank you, Kayla, for this gift--you're a girl after my own hockey-loving heart. 

 So dear readers, may the new year bring peace, joy, and prosperity to you and your families.

See you in 2020.

Happy New Year!!

Hope you had lovely and fun celebrations. As usual, I was helping DH sell fireworks, but this year we had Sonshine with us so it was just like old times. :0) I'm not looking forward to putting him back on a plane bound for Seattle, but once he's gone, it'll be time to knuckle down, get back on the wagon, yada yada yada.

But what does that mean for me in terms of specifics?

1) I absolutely have to write my Grandma on a regular basis. I still have the post cards I bought last year, and it was a good idea, so I'll stick with it. I mean, sometimes writing a letter seems both daunting and tedious when nothing much changes from month to month. The specific goal is to send a post card monthly and a letter quarterly.

2) Still gotta call my mommas too. The once a month timing seems good for this task too, so we'll stick with that.

3) Walking the dog...yup. She needs the exercise and quite frankly so do I. The specific goal to start is to walk her Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I generally work from home those days, so I will take a 15-20 minute break and get the dog and myself out of the house unless it's raining.

Looks like most of last year's goals are being carried forward. But, as I've done for the first three goals, I'm going to set specifics. On we go...

4) Cook and eat better. Meaning no more bread-based carbs for awhile. And then just maybe my carb-lite tortillas at some point. Other than that, more protein and green veggies. More fish if I can track it down in my WalMart that has been re-arranging foodstuff again. Less red meat. More keto, maybe.

5) Re-institute the cleaning plan. I really wanted to hire someone to come in and do some stuff like mop the floors and scrub the bathrooms, but that's not going to happen anytime soon, so that means I have to make a concerted effort myself. So I'll be digging out the box of index cards and scheduling chores. This system is from a book called "Sidetracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise" by Pam Young and Peggy Jones. It was recommended by a friend many moons ago.

6) Reduce body fat and maintain current body weight. Losing the four pounds I've gained over the holidays isn't going to be too difficult, so I'm not overly worried about it. Losing the inches is going to be a challenge. The first little bit probably won't be too hard, but once I reach that plateau again...ugh.

Part of the plan involves not eating after 7pm and not eating before 9am. I might extend that daily fasting stint by an hour for a week or so to jump start everything. I don't often eat after 7pm regardless, although I have cheated a bit and have eaten my morning meal anywhere from 7:30am onward. Warm water is a really helpful way of feeling full and defeating the hungries. I'll be drinking a lot of warm water in the next couple of weeks.

7) Work on the writing career, such as it is. I'm not trying to make a living wage off the writing, but I would like to make enough publish a couple of books each year as well as travel to the GRL Conference each October. So the goal for 2019 is to publish at least two books. I have book 7 of the Ten Rigs Texas series 1/3 to 1/2 complete. I also have book 1 of another three-book series at some partial point of completion, not to mention an epic historical (that does need a lot of editorial work) at about 75% completion. I also need to flesh out all the recurring characters for the next 6-9 book series I'm planning.

~*~

Okay, so, the first seven goals are carry-over/repeats from 2018 as well as one or two that are from as far back as 2017 or 2016. I don't need to make "attend more Stars games" a goal again, because just finishing out the season with the current tickets I have will be enough and I can't imagine that we won't remain partial season ticket holders for next season. :0)

That means I need three new-for-2019 goals. Let's see what we can come up with...

~*~

8) Get some stuff around the house done. Aside from the general housekeeping of #5, I have a few projects that I'd like to get done. One such project is the hallway bathroom. I think I mentioned I want to paint all of the tile eventually. Unfortunately, there's a lot of tile so it will have to be done in stages. The toilet will probably have to come out because there's tile halfway up the walls. Most of the other projects are smaller and require less effort, but it would be nice to finally get them taken care of. I can enumerate them all later so I have a place of reference.

9) Expand the sampler pattern offerings at my Etsy store. Let's shoot for minimum of one new pattern a month. It helps that I have a handful at various stages of completion and quite a few additional ideas. The biggest hurdle is that I like to have real life samples to take pictures of instead of just the image the pattern program generates. As you can guess, that's the most time-consuming part.

10) Spend more time together as family, including DD. I was recently reminded of how much fun it is to play board games. As a result, I bought a new one--and funny enough it was one we had years ago but that we never apparently figured out how to play. DD and I both got games for Christmas as well. So I'm going to shoot for one game night a month to start an we'll see how it goes.

So those are my goals, with specific measurables, for the new year.

How about you?

First, here's the obligatory celebratory fireworks image:


Now, it's time to rate myself on my goals for the year 2018.

1) Regularly write to my Grandma in Denmark. -- BIG FAT FAIL. I completely dropped the ball on my poor Grandma. She got one letter from me this year for Christmas.

2) Call my moms monthly. -- I didn't do it monthly, but we connected often enough. On the other hand, the phone works both ways. Anyway, I give myself a C.

3) Walk the dog three times a week. -- Another big fail. I don't think I walked her but a handful of times.

4) Cook and eat better. -- I think I did alright, but not the better I had been intending. And I really fell off the wagon once the holidays hit and Sonshine came home. So giving myself a B-.

5) Re-institute the cleaning plan. -- Another F. I didn't even pull the box of cards out of the draw.

6) Work on my writing career--such as it is. -- Not as much as I should have. I stalled out in the writing in February and was never able to get back into the swing of things. I tried over the summer, but then prepping for the conference in October took precedence and that was all she wrote. Or didn't "wrote" as it were. Grade D.

7) Reduce body fat and maintain current weight. -- I actually did okay on this one. Again until the holidays hit. I've only gained maybe three pounds, but too many inches. Grade B-.

8) Take dance lessons with DH. -- Didn't happen. I can't take the full blame for this because DH wanted to wait until he lost some weight and, well, that didn't happen. So we'll call this ... I don't know what to call it.

9) Do more crafts! -- I cross stitched more and expanded the offerings of my Etsy store, but I didn't branch out and do stuff other than that. So D?

10) Take ballet and/or ice skating lessons. --  Didn't do this. Didn't even research it. Grade F.

11) Attend more STARS games. -- The only thing I exceeded at and that was because DH bought me partial season tickets. So A+++ .

What a horrible report card.

I'm sure y'all made better progress on your goals.

Have a great New Year's Eve. Stay safe and all that jazz. I'll see you here on Wednesday.

For the last five years, I've run one of my writing group's contests. Things ramp up in the middle of January.

For the last two years, I've been in some phase of getting books written or ready for publication.

At my day job, January is always hectic because it's the start of the new year and there are things that need to happen not only as a business, but as an employer.

And then there's fireworks season to wrap up.

Several times, I've been neck deep in proofreading jobs. Not this year, though, thank goodness. Although I do have a couple on the books...

I'm not keen on the beginning of my new year being quite so crazy, but what can I do?

I've tendered my resignation as contest coordinator, effective as soon as this year's contest is complete--sometime in June.

The writing/publishing thing is just a matter of timing. I'm the boss there, so I can decide if I'm taking an extra long holiday or not. But now that the first five books are out in the world, I don't think I'll have that level work going on at any given time anymore. That's kind of a mixed blessing though, yeah?

Unless I get fired or quit, there will always be the day job. And my tasks are generally spread throughout the month, so it's not really terrible.

I guess all I can do is roll with punches!

Hope your new year is starting off well.

On this last blogging day of 2017, it's time to do a final review on the goals I set at the beginning of the year. I've done quarterly check-ins, but now it's time for a final grade.

1) Write to my Grandma in Denmark every six weeks or so. I'm going to fail myself. I've not sent my dear Grandma a letter since the summer. Bad Jen. I'll be recycling this goal for sure.

Grade F

2) Call my moms every month or so. Didn't quite hit every month, but most of them. This goal too is moving on to 2018.

Grade C

3) Cook/eat better. Didn't do as well as I wanted to on this one either. Finances make it harder to eat well, because healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food. But we'll keep on keeping on with this goal too because DH is ready to make progress on his weight loss endeavors now.

Grade B

4) Clean out and organize my writing room. I did a couple of things a couple of times, but there was no major overhaul here. Is this task important enough to carry over into 2018? Nah. The state of my writing room isn't bothersome, so...

Grade D

5) Re-institute the cleaning plan. I thought about it in context of my quarterly goal updates and at no other time. I still really want to do it, so this goal carries over as well.

Grade F

6) Publish six books by September 2017. Well, nope...didn't get six books by the ninth month. I did get four books out by the twelfth month though. No major extenuating circumstances to blame. Just ran into a bit of writing road block in completing the sixth book, so all deadlines and tasks required got pushed farther out.

Grade F

7) Reach 120lbs. to 125lbs. as a weight goal. Reached this one in October. I've kept the weight off. I only gained about 4 pounds on the cruise and lost that easily. I've been enjoying the holidays and will get back on the wagon come January 2.

Grade A+

8) Walk the dog three times a week. I reported that I'd started this back at the third quarter review, but got lazy about it rather quickly. This goal is definitely moving onto the 2018 list as it's become more important to the dog's physical health than it was originally. So yeah.

Grade F

Well-- I didn't do so hot this year, did I? Average grade is a D-. Gotta do better next year, eh?

Hope you have a safe and lovely New Years!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful and prosperous 2017.

2016 started and ended with a black cloud--there were a lot of big deaths this year. Here's hoping that in general we're see fewer big name deaths and that we'll all have a better year than this one.

It's better already for us in a couple of ways, so here's hoping the trend continues.

Happy New Year!!

Welcome to another new year! It's time to put the new goals out there for all the world to see...I usually try for ten, so let's see how many I can come up with. In no particular order...


1) call my moms once a month, both of them -- Yeah, I was really horrible about keeping in touch and now that I'm getting older and my kids are gone, it's hitting home a little harder--also one of my moms complained. :)

2) write -- specifically finish the BBC Sherlock/highlander AU fic, polish and submit the cowboy romance I wrote last year, write a 10K to 15K word story for a Christmas box set my critique partners want to put out into the world next Christmas.

I don't know...should I break these out? I mean, will I not get to count this one as reached if I don't complete any one thing? Technically, yes, I suppose. Well, I'll make them A, B, and C...

--> 2A) finish the BBC Sherlock/highlander AU fic
--> 2B) polish and submit the cowboy romance I wrote last year
--> 2C) write a 10K to 15K word story for a Christmas box set my critique partners want to put out there next Christmas

3) read -- I blew last year's goal out of the water. Final word count was 13,612,336 read. My problem is, though, that I read so dad-gum fast, I rarely remember a fic once I've gotten two or three more under my belt. Only the truly remarkable ones stand out. So I think part of my goal is going to be to re-read some of what I read last year. There's no way to not read new stuff though. And I'm giving up on the official Goodreads challenge. I don't think I've technically won that challenge since I started trying. This year's goal will be easy to reach because I can't not read. But let's give it a number--five million new words and then whatever I re-read...

4) create pod fic -- What's pod fic you ask? Well, it's an audio "book" created for a fan fic. I've been wanting to give it a try as a way of forcing myself to slow down and really read and contemplate a fic (see the above item). I suppose one pod fic would render the goal reached, so let's say I have to create five of them. (Even if I choose really short fics...)

5) reach the 120lb. mark (for real this time) -- I got into the spirit of things again finally at the end of October, but there just wasn't enough time left to lose the last 20lbs. I made great progress, but I just waited too long.
I'm on a roll now, and I've got a new Wii Balance Board coming from Santa so that I can change up the treadmill with Wii aerobics. I'm also planning on (see #8) walking the dog three or four times a week.


6) keep crafting, do a wider variety of crafts -- I did a lot of cross stitching in 2015, which was fine. I enjoyed it, but at Christmas it seems as if I always branch out a little and try new things, so instead of waiting till next Christmas, I'm going to try random things throughout the year. I've got a couple of friends who were inspired by my various Christmas projects, so I may try crafting dates.

7) get my house clean -- Yeah, it needs a thorough cleaning and bad. I mean it's not crusty or anything, but the windows need cleaning, the door jambs and base boards need wiping down, the floors needs a good mopping. One room a month? Eh...I don't know. If I get the living room and kitchen done, I'll call it a win. :)


8) walk the dog, walk to the post office -- Rayna needs more exercise too and I need to add some variety to my routine. I'm shooting for three or four days a week. In addition, the walk to the P.O. box on the three days I work at the office helps me get outside and get some sunshine. I credit it with keeping me on the right side of the line back in 2010. I've gotten away from it, but I think I need to add it back in. Not because I'm riding any lines these days, but because it's a mood booster and healthy.

9) be a better treasurer/stay on top of treasurer duties for my writing group -- I did okay last year, but there's always room for improvement. So this means catching up paperwork on a monthly basis rather than every few months in a flurry.

10) er...

I usually shoot for ten. It's a nice number. I'm drawing a blank, however. I've given up on fixing up the yard for the time being. Money has just been too tight for too long and my hopes have been dashed. :)

I guess I'll stick with nine for now and if I think of something, we'll revisit!

How about you? Have you thought about what you'd like to accomplish in 2016?? Do share!!

It's time once again to make goals for the brand new year...but let's revisit last year's goals first. I had ten goals. I achieved three of them. Came close on one other and completely missed the mark on the rest. I gotta admit, that's not a great track record.


The biggest problem, I think, is that I didn't make decisions on how to achieve the goals. In other words, stepping stones. For example, I wanted to ramp up my proof reading. But did I do any advertising? Nope...

Today, I'm going put the goals out there, and in the coming weeks, I'll work on figuring out how to achieve them and share a few with you.

So without further ado...

1) reach the 120lb. mark
2) read 3 million words
3) write 2500 words a week
4) get healthy and well
5) clean up/clean out the house--now that the kids are gone, gonna go through closets and cupboards and get rid of all the stuff that we don't use, don't need, don't want...
6) ramp up the proofreading business
7) work on the yard--this is vague and I'm going to decide what I want to do so that I have something specific to work towards
8) research degree programs
9) publish a book
10) do more crafts

Ten seems like a nice number, although I had ten last year and completed three and made progress on others. But as the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So taking that to heart, I'll work on a plan...


What about you?? Any goals you'd like to share before we hit the ground running in 2015?