A Time For Everything

 

 

Doin' pretty good at this point... :0) And I'll tell you why at the end. But misc updates in the meantime:

Most of the country was besieged by various levels of UGLY COLD weather when the last post came out on January 15th, but we survived. I read that 80% of the country had temperatures below zero degrees that day. WOW!

DD and I had started a Harry Potter re-watch right before the end of the year as Peacock was showing the extended versions of the films. We got through the first days of the nasty freezing weather by finishing up our HP fest. DH even joined us each evening.

Speaking of Harry Potter...last weekend (the 20th/21st) I took the official sorting hat quiz and was officially sorted into Hufflepuff House. DD and I are House mates... :0)

* * * * *

So the "year of doing" started off pretty good...

I began a couple of 30-day challenges to help me stay motivated. One challenge is to do yoga every day and the other is to do (or start, for longer tasks) one of those to-do list items I've been meaning to get around to. I've only missed two days of yoga (both Saturdays) but, sadlyy, I've missed too many days of to-do items thanks to the weather.

If my stride gets thrown off too soon, I struggle to get back to it. Having to hunker down because of the cold pushed me off track, so I'm trying to get back on it. I did, however, get one thing done...

The junk drawer next to the back door has been cleaned out, and inexpensive shallow baskets have been purchased to keep the remaining items tidy. I have no before picture because that drawer was nasty.

On a side note... Several months ago I bought some contact paper to cover the ramen boxes I save to use as organizers.

Although now that I'm thinking about it...buying the inexpensive baskets at Dollar Tree is cheaper than the contact paper and I get more of them for the price of the contact paper that only covers three boxes... Hmm... I was gonna use up the remaining contact paper but it's not sticking well to the one box I covered, so into the trash it went. I'll just go straight for the Dollar Tree baskets next time I need to sort and organize anything.

* * * * *

On a random note--I've discovered the ease / convenience of depositing checks via my cell phone. In the last six months, my bank, which is centrally located between the office and the house, did away with one of its ATMs. Now, that branch gets a decent amount of traffic, especially around paydays, so you can imagine one ATM with tons of traffic. And, occasionally, it's just plain out of order. The next closest branch isn't far, but it's definitely out of the way so it's very inconvenient.

A week or so ago, when the ATM was out of order again and I just didn't want to drive to the other branch, I tried out the mobile deposit and -- easy as pie -- I'm a convert!!

* * * * *

Last but NOT least and the reason I'm feeling pretty good is that my mom's house has finally sold. I'm so relieved that the house and the property will have someone to take care of it and find pleasure in its beauty.

The selling price is way below the original sales price, but between Oregon state property tax invoices and one very thorough appraisal, I've come to the conclusion that we were asking too much. The final sales price was a couple grand below what the state said it was worth, so I'm going to count my blessings and wish the buyer well and happy trails.

And that's all for now folks... Have a super couple of weeks.

N--looking forward to seeing you!!

 

 

Image courtesy of IMGBIN.

While I'm not quite swimming in gold coins yet, January was filled with some abundance:

• time
• energy
• productivity
• wealth

Are you wondering how? Well, certainly not in the way you would expect. But let's see...

I certainly wasn't pleased about getting woken up a full hour before my alarm went off several mornings from mid-month onward, but I got up and put that time to good use. I also found myself with small pockets of time to do random things.

For example--I took the "pre-lit" lights off my Christmas tree. They all died over the course of the last two Christmases, but the tree itself is still perfectly fine.

So before I put the tree into storage for the year, I decided to remove the dead strings of lights.

There were several days where I had time to kill, so I started in on those lights. I figured out the pattern of how the lights were strung and then gleefully took some sharp cutters and started snipping wires. It's not as tedious as I imagined, but it is mindless, so I just put on some TV and got several branches done in 45-minute increments.

Despite the early mornings and occasional later nights, my energy levels have been good. That one I can't entirely explain right now other than to say good sleep, good food, some exercise, and good productive days make you feel good and it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

As for productivity...well, the lists and the planners and the chore chart all helped, but so did the extra time, which fed the feel-good vibes from getting stuff done, which feeds the energy levels, which makes you want to cross more stuff off that to-do list and well, it's a self-perpetuating cycle...

And the literal wealth...well, that's kinda separate. We started a new investment program, which I won't go into detail about right now, but suffice to say, the value of our portfolio has increased. Which tickles me pink, which cycles that good energy back into the other things.

But this all needed a catalyst, right?

I think I figured out what it was. And it may cycle back to...

If you said Personality Strengths, you'd be correct. :0)

A couple of weeks ago, I received a newsletter from Chief Strengths guru, Becca, and she does a thing called "Dear Becca." People who are a part of her Strengths family, at any level, can send her questions and she'll answer the really impactful one or the mass-applicable ones in the newsletter.

Someone asked if particular Strengths, especially ones that are lower in the top-ten lineup can be more hungry than higher ranked Strengths. The question-asker said that she'd doubled her reading volume and, as a result, her writing output rose by 30% and asked if that tracked since input for her was "only 9th" and she had all those other really dominant Strengths at the top. The specific Strength she asked about was Input, which ranks 9th for her and which ranks 8th for me. We shared two other Strengths in the top ten...

Anyway, both the question and the answer really hit home for me. The answer was basically yes.

Now, Input as a Strength manifests itself in just the way you might think--it wants input. TV, radio, pod casts, books, articles, movies, etc...

I tend to read a lot and I listen to a lot of pod casts and I read a lot of hockey-related articles. And lately, I've been Inputting a lot more than I have in a while and certainly more than I was able to last year. Not only that, but my head space is clearer now. I can better absorb the information I'm taking in as well.

As a result, I'm feeling more energetic and more myself, which feeds the productivity, which feeds the feeling of well-being, which feeds the...

Well, you get my drift. :0)

I really need to get to those Strengths books I have lined up to read, don't I?

Have a great weekend. Catch you Monday.

 

 

Along with my chore chart, which is for personal accomplishments (mostly), I have a to-do list that sits on my desk at work... The same tasks are on it from day to day and then there's another list of things that appear at certain times of the month...

Anyway, the point of this is to say...I broke down a few tasks to very specific details...

For example, I'm creating a series guide for a writer friend of mine. And rather than just saying I'm going to work on it everyday, I've specified that I'll read through fifteen pages each day. It's a measurable thing and I know when I'm done and can move on to another task.

It's been soooo helpful. I'm planning to break as many things down to a doable/measurable amount. The challenge will be figuring out all the things I need to do this for and then finding the time to break them down. But maybe one thing at a time eh?? Measurable! That means I need a list. Another list. Or to find the one I probably started somewhere...

Hope you all had a lovely weekend... I'm almost done with the Christmas shopping. I just need some ideas for my father-in-law, and I'll be done. Then I can sit back and enjoy the season.

The weather has been lovely as it usually is this time of year...and it's good to be alive.

Take care. Catch you later.

I'm thinking about trying the Bullet Journal system for being more organized and more productive. It looks to be the advanced version of my general list making and requires a little more pre-planning and forethought and organization.


That's not a bad thing, but is it going to be more trouble than it's worth? I have one friend who uses a physical journal but has tweaked it to suit her needs and I have another friend who is more electronically minded.

Now I'm all for electronic but there's something to be said for grasping a concept with a physical book, tweaking it to my needs, and then going virtual. Possibly. Depending on my needs and the tweaks--going virtual might be "out of sight, out of mind." And I'm thinking this might also help me get back on track with daily tasks.



I have yet another friend who uses the happy tracker. She has a physical notebook with printed pages, sorted into various categories, and she rewards herself with stickers on the days / for the tasks she completes. I did that for a while and it worked for me as well, so I'm thinking I could combine the concepts.

Which means going virtual might not be the best option because if that journal--whatever form it takes, and right now it's a composition book I had lying around--is not in front of me, reminding me to open it, to read it, to look ahead, to plan, and to reward with stickers, then it might not happen. And that would defeat the whole purpose.

This year has flown past and the beginning of next year is going to be busy, busy, busy, and I feel like I could use some help in staying on top of all the moving parts.

And so here is the beginning of my journal...



I doubt I'll get too artsy with it...some people like to do decorate their journals, and whatever works for them. But for me it's wasted time. I'd rather be reading. :0)

It's an interesting concept and we'll see how it works for me.

Have a great weekend...

I do still have to work today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, but I image it'll be fairly slow since I bet many of our clients will also be slow and / or have shut down their offices for one or more days. Which is good because I have a couple of projects to work on. I had a really good weekend though--

As I mentioned Friday, I went to a Stars game. The antics to get there as early as possible were Keystone Cop-worthy, but DD and I made it in time to score a pair of tickets to a game in January that I don't already have (partial-season) tickets to, so YAY! Also, the Stars won against a really good team in which there was only one goal--ours in overtime--and three fights and a ton of penalty minutes during regulation play. They also won Sunday afternoon's game which I did not attend as it was in New York. :0)

While watching Sunday's game on TV, I wrapped what Christmas presents I have and placed them under my new tree with colored lights.

It's been a while since I've had colored lights on a tree and it takes me back to my childhood when we always had colored lights.

At this point, the poor tree only has two ornaments and only because one never got put away last year and I came across it in a drawer when I was looking for something else and the other is an ornament I made for Sonshine a few years ago and kept hanging in my office for some reason.

I didn't make the trek out to the shed this weekend to find the rest, but that'll happen sometime between now and next Monday.

What I did do this weekend was load up all those "things" I've been clearing out the house and staging in the garage into the car and take them to a local donation spot. Man--that felt really good.


Getting rid of stuff is rather addicting. One hallway closet is pretty much purged now. Remember I said I'd gone green and was using tote bags now instead of plastic store bags? Yeah, I went through the rest of the tote bags I had--(I'm a tote bag ho.)--and picked out the best ones for holding groceries and, with three exceptions, got rid of the rest of them since I can only use so many tote bags and have my favorites. The other hall closet needs to be culled still, but, honestly, there isn't much left in there either.

I had to start a new pile in the garage, however. :0)

Lunch on Saturday with my dear friend, N, was delightful as usual. And she made me this--which was perfect even though she didn't know about the hockey tree when she chose designed the pattern...



I also got to visit with DH's family on Saturday and specifically with that family member with the medical issues and she's better. There's a ways to go and hurdles to surmount, but she's better. If you're the praying sort, please lift her up.

And that, my friends, is all for today. Have a wonderful day and a wonderful week and a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I have successfully set a new routine in place...

I prefer to get my trip to the gym done in the mornings. I also write best first thing in the morning, but for the longest time, my trips to the gym were chewing up two hours. That was also back when I was in weight loss mode and I needed to burn enough calories in a day.

Now, though... I'm in maintenance mode and fat-utilization mode, so I don't need to work out as long or as hard. I've cut the length of a trip to the gym almost in half, leaving the rest of that early morning quiet available for writing.

It's been working out (heh) really well. I get my workout in, get my energy for the day, and I get my brain online enough to write. So I'm getting writing time in every day as well. And now that I'm in writing/editing mode, that's a wonderful thing. No matter what happens during the day, I've spent time with the words already.

Remember when I said it was crunch time almost two weeks ago? Well, now it's really crunch time. At that point, I hadn't fully grasped how much work was needed to get this book done. Now I do. I told my editor I'd have it to her by September 15th. That gives me three and a half weeks to get the book sorted and cohesive and finished.

I think it's going to take more than just the hour I have each morning. Granted, on Saturdays, I can work for three or four hours, so that's good, but I might will have to start carving out time here and there during my workday (the boss is lenient that way) to make sure I can send the book off by the deadline. Starting today...

Have a great day. See you Friday. :0)

Not in the writing sense, but in the prepping for the writer conference I'm attending in October.

I've talked about swag a couple of times and I've known what I wanted: pens and cardboard bar coasters.

Almost everyone loves pens, so that's almost a given. As for the bar coasters...I didn't come across any last year at the conference, so I may be a trendsetter. I have a handful from a con I attended years ago. I do use them.

Here's what they look like:


I'll probably also invest in either postcards or bookmarks...people like autographs at this con, so it might be nice to have something sign-able. One thing I noticed was missing last year were QR codes to e-book versions of people's books. I prefer e-books and I have to think there are others who do as well, so for each book, I'm going to have a sheet with QR codes to each retailer...

On the book front, I've decided on getting only the first two books in physical form. This is mostly a cost-based decision because I have to buy them and then ship them, so yeah...

As I'm writing this, all the things I need to do are bombarding me--time to make a conference preparation list me thinks!

Tomorrow is writers group and I'm super excited to see my posse after a two month hiatus. In the interested of being fifty and fun and fabulous, I will be wearing my new hockey jersey to the meeting. :0)

Have a great weekend.

I dropped Sonshine off at the airport early Sunday morning...and yes I cried. Just a little. I hadn't expected to, but this years' visit seemed shorter and we didn't get any Mom/Sonshine alone time. But he did get to spend time with DH as well as one of his HS buddies, so that was definitely nice for all of us to just hang out.

We did go to a Stars game, so that was a fun experience to share with him. He is partially to blame for my newfound love of hockey so it seemed like a fitting activity. :) If only the STARS had won...


And so the real new year begins... Sonshine is back where he belongs (for now) and my leisurely start to the new year is over. It's time to get going on all my waiting endeavors.

We've survived another week on this journey we call life!

I've had a pretty productive week, except Tuesday. I was a slug on Tuesday and got very little accomplished.

But it's the weekend again and I have a handful of things I'd like to get accomplished.

What about you??? Big plans?

I have all these things I want and need to do, but -- like everyone else -- only so many hours in a day.

Many people, like DH, tend to give up sleep to gain some time. Unfortunately, that's terribly counter-productive for me as my body requires a certain number of hours of sleep every night to function properly during the day. I mean, I can stay up late every now and again, but if I stay up too late or do so too many nights in a row, I pay for it in the end and I find, unless there's no help for it, that it's really not worth it.

Over the holidays, my proofing jobs dried up. I wasn't that upset about it as there was a lot going on and I was glad to not have deadlines. Now, however, though I haven't advertised, the jobs are trickling in again. It's good since I can use the money, but I'm not ready yet! I have some ideas and some research to do, but, alas, time and work wait for no woman.

I guess it's time to really get serious about my schedule, especially the early morning. I need to make a detailed list of the jobs I need to work on and make a plan to get them done.

I'll do that first thing tomorrow morning!

The real title of this post is: Time to stop wallerin' and time to make things happen...

The last few weeks have been tough and I've struggled with getting things done. Especially the exercising, but it's time to shake off the funk and get back to work. (Says she whose eyes are gritty at 5:01 AM as she's writing this and wants nothing more than to curl up on the sofa for some additional sleep.)

I have grand plans of being up by five a.m. and ready to work by six on the various for hire projects I've got and am trying to generate. The reality isn't always so easy, but one day at a time.

Other projects are in the planning, as well. But they're going take time and research and a lot of writing.

Yesterday, however, was a really productive day--my living room got a much needed sweeping and dusting (although Sonshine did the dusting...). The furniture got moved and turned over and swept under and everything! All the laundry got washed, although there's a last half load in the dryer waiting to be put away. I played on the computer for a while. I read up on one of my projects, a sort of research, in addition to working on an aspect of the project that I already knew and understood. I was even able to take a nap. (Which is why I'm struggling this morning.)

On another topic, I talked about coconut oil a while back and again last week, I think. **checking... Okay, no, I didn't. I've been thinking about it, I just haven't written the post as it'll take some time--longer than a regular post--and I just haven't had it. But soon. I need to schedule time in my week for researching and writing blog posts.

Anyway, I've upped my coconut oil consumption. Not drastically, but I cook with it and I add a teaspoon to my morning oatmeal. I'll share all the benefits soon. For today, I'm just going to mention that my brain feels likes it's working better. I hadn't really noticed it until yesterday when I was playing Rock Band with the kids--it just felt as if the synapses were firing better. I was able to play the harder levels with more complicated parts with less difficulty. So that's a good thing.


And now, it's time to get the treadmill warmed up!

See you on Wednesday...