A Time For Everything

This is way late due to my unexpected trip out of town, but I had it written and ready to go. No sense in wasting already written words, so here is my scorecard...

1. Sending post cards to Grandma--I'm one card behind. The first one got returned due to a postage glitch and then I ran out of stamps and the local post office has been without its credit / debit card machine. So yeah... But, overall, I'm doing better...

*update...I'm on track now. I sent out cards right before I left and one right when I got back. So yeah.

2. Exercise regularly/up my game--With few exceptions (due to the super cold weather and one late night), I've gotten on the elliptical every day. I've only upped my game in so far as I'm up to 15 minutes worth of effort. I haven't switched out any of the other equipment or added yoga back into the mix yet. But 1st quarter, right? Get the habit established and then we'll add in and switch up.

*update...due to Mom's arrival and all the upheaval from getting her settled and into various doctors appointments, this one is on hold for a few more weeks.

3. Cook & eat healthy/stick to a food plan-- This has been a struggle. I'm a comfort/stress eater and issues with getting my mom here have caused some anxiety. I'm not doing terrible, but I'm not doing great. However, this is one area where I'm really giving ,myself some grace. We'll see how it goes in the 2nd quarter.

*update...due to Mom's health this is now a thing, we are working towards a balance between freshly cooked meals, meals prepped in advance, and easy but healthy "scrounge" meals.

4. Housekeeping--I've stayed on track. I hit the marks each week, but I haven't yet upped the game to any real degree, unless you want to count picking up dog poop regularly. I'll need to decide what to add for the 2nd quarter.

*update...this became a priority for various reasons, but execution will take some time due to the aforementioned arrival / upheaval...

5. Writers Group Treasurer Duties--A+ on this one. I've caught up and kept up.

*update...got a little behind while gone, but now that I'm getting caught up with day job duties, this is back on the priority list.

6. Publish One Book--I'm on track for this. I finished the last of the editing and got the epilogues written this past month. April is for getting all the files created, reviewed, and uploaded to retailers and aggregators. ISBNs have been assigned. Release day is June 24. I'll start working on one of the other two Works In Progress in April, just to dip my toe in, get re-acquainted with the characters and the plot. Then I'll go from there...

*surprisingly, still on track. I had scheduled a lot of lee way here, so barring anything catastrophic, this looks good to go...

7. Hone/Learn My Craft--Doing okay with this so far. I've listened to several of the webinars from one of the online conferences I paid for. But this item is low priority and has gotten bumped a time or two so that I could do other things. But I recently read an admonition that resonated. Any epiphanies in and of themselves from books or webinars or blog posts aren't going to do much. I have to put in the work. I'm not sure what the work is just yet, but I need to figure it out.

*update...not as critical considering everything else right now, so on hold for the time being. There are too many other things on my plate at the moment to worry about this, but because emails don't expire and the conferences I registered for allow me three years of access, I have plenty of time.

8. Double My Etsy Inventory--So far so good. :0) Surprisingly. I took a few minutes a couple of weeks ago to assess my progress, and noting that I was only a little behind, set out a schedule that allowed me to get caught up.

*update...another thing that's fallen off the priority list altogether. On the other hand, due to drama in Etsy circles, I'm looking at creating my own store platform not via Etsy, so I'm researching store templates. But still not a priority--just a thing to do when I need something "fun" to think about/do.

9. Read, read, read--On track. I set my Goodreads Challenge at 104 books and I'm pretty sure I'm ahead of schedule. Granted, my pace has dropped off a little, but that's okay.

*update...I might have gotten behind because I didn't read at all while I was gone. OTOH, I was ahead before I left and I'm a fast reader, so catching up/getting back on schedule should not be a problem.

10. Keep up with Goodreads admin--missed a few check-ins this month, so I need to do that and then write that bi-monthly appointment in my planner.

*update...completely dropped the ball on this, but again, not a priority. I think I'll just put that on hold until the start of the third quarter.

If you set goals for the year, how are you progressing??

Have a great week...

My chore chart is doing what it's supposed to--get me to do things and make new habits.

It's amazing that a hand-drawn chart and a random sticker can motivate me to get stuff done. See those stickers above--those are from my planner. You know, they give you stickers for birthdays and vacations and appointments. Yeah, I never used them for that. And then I thought why waste them? They're perfectly good stickers and will serve my purpose. So, yeah... 

As you can see I had five tasks that I completed all seven days. The green hand-drawn stars mean I was excused from those tasks because of hockey. Meaning, I slept in because I attended a hockey game the night before. I do not cheat myself of sleep.

I've been trying to do better with my housekeeping...so I have three things listed in each of the Sat & Sun square for "chores." And I don't get that sticker unless I accomplish all three items.

One of those things is dusting. Along with just running my feather duster around picture frames and along the tops of door casings and the like, each week I'm adding a bit extra. Like... I have this multi-compartment decorative shelf, with a handful of knickknacks filling the compartments. This week I dusted that whole thing. Took each item out and cleaned it. Going forward, I can just feather it clean. I have also been taking down a few of my collectible plates and washing them as well.

Yesterday, I almost pushed off cleaning the bathroom to today. But I wanted that stupid sticker for Sunday, so I sucked it up and got my toilets scrubbed.

I still have a bit of work to do, and I'm not striving for 100% every week forever. That's unrealistic due to life events and the random circumstance that presents itself. But I do need to get back into certain habits, and this is doing the trick.

Remember back in the summer I was rewarding myself with $1 puzzles from Dollar Tree for accomplishing so much? I have no reward system in place at the moment, but surprisingly, the doing of the thing and getting the sticker has been its own reward. :0)

Hope you had a great weekend, and here's to a wonderful short week.

This past weekend I attended my annual private writers retreat at Lake Conroe. It's a private house and not a public venue, so the risk of COVID exposure is minimal, but I will be hunkering down for the next couple of weeks to make sure I don't have anything and to make sure I don't catch anything as I have my annual trek to visit my family coming about a month out. There's a new baby in the house I'm itching to get my hands on, so I have to ensure my health to ensure hers.

ANYWAY

A good time was had by all as usual. I went in expecting to get the issues with my current work-in-progress sorted and I did. Does it still need some work? Yes, quite a bit still, but the missing pieces were found and another 5K words were added.

But I'm ready to get at the heavy-lifting called editing and work in the emotional story arcs and the internal narrative.

Lake Time is a favorite daily activity:




Hope you had a great weekend as well.

Of course, it's spring in Texas and we do tend to get a lot of rain. But, man, with all the COVID-19 happening, sunshine would go a long way to keeping our spirits up here in North Texas. *sigh*

So update on the Chili Cheese Corn dog Casserole... It was okay. It was good. It was fine. But it wasn't great. 'Cause, here's the thing. Corn dogs are deep friend in their batter, right? And our cornbread batter was not deep friend, it was merely baked. And corn dog batter is usually a bit sweet, too, yeah?

Now the sweet can solved, but the deep friend, not so much, unless we use real corn dogs. Which I'm not opposed to. But here's the thing--I'd rather just have a corn dog with mustard and not all that chili and cheese. I guess the FitzGerald household doesn't have a new recipe to incorporate into the rotation. Shame. But, as you know, I try not to eat too much with high bad-for-you content these days, which corn dogs most assuredly have. So is it really a bad thing that the recipe didn't work out?

Logging food and being aware of calories and all the other bits and bites that the Fitbit keeps track has helped me actually drop a couple of pounds. Might all be water weight for the moment, but it's a start. I still have a few pounds to go to reach the target weight again, and I'm almost dreading it because that means my workouts have to become more targeted in order build the muscle. That also means my daily pretzel habit may have to go bye-bye. Will probably have to go bye-bye so I can replace the calories with more protein to help build my own muscles and reduce those carbs>sugars>body fats.

The garage project will continue this weekend with another car load of stuff to be transferred to our warehouse. I might also start some cleaning now that a stretch of (unfinished) wall will be revealed.

Have you got big, exciting plans for the weekend?

Hope it's a good one. Take care.

After way too many hours sitting and sorting spreadsheets and numbers this weekend, I was feeling antsy on Sunday. I really wanted to read, but my eyes were bothering me and I needed something that didn't require glasses. So I finally got down and dirty in the garage.

Sonshine left behind about a dozen boxes full of stuff and they've been stacked in a corner gathering dust and cobwebs for five years now.

DH and I want a little more space in the garage for some elbow room as well as one more piece of exercise equipment, which means Sonshine and DD's boxes need to be relocated. Well, Sonshine is not here to go through his stuff, so the job falls to good ol' mom.

I threw away all the clothes. Bugs had gotten into one box and they were icky. I also figured if he'd needed them, he would have dug them out in the half dozen visits he's made home since he left. The boxes that will be heading his way, some way somehow, got relocated to an empty cabinet--may as well not clog up twice the floor space, right?

There are still a few boxes to rummage through and there's some cleanup to be done, but it felt good to be physically active (aside from the twice-daily bike ride) and I felt like I accomplished something.

Most of the Christmas decorations are in a pile and I was half tempted to start decorating...but I wasn't quite ready for that project just yet.

I gotta say, it feels really good see that funk in the rear-view mirror. :0)

Hope you had an enjoyable or productive weekend as well.

Not that I'm late. Not yet, anyway, but I have a lot of things to do and I could easily get behind as I have little get-up-and-go at the moment. But I will dutifully update my to-do list and do my best to plow through everything as the countdown to my road trip/conference begins in earnest.

Still struggling with the second to last weight loss hurdle--getting completely under the 130lb. mark and staying there. I'm still see-sawing back and forth, but mostly back. And, of course, the last hurdle is reducing the amount of flesh that jiggles.

I know there's some muscle underneath, because how couldn't there be? Fat does not transform into muscle. Muscles become stronger and get larger as they're used and worked. Fat gets used as energy if you balance what you eat and the number of calories you consume with how much energy you expend on any given day and eventually reduces in volume. Yes, this is a very basic description of the process, and everyone has different challenges that work against them, but this is my process, and my challenges, thankfully are few. They consist mostly of my willpower to resist refined carbs and to resist my warm bed on a cold morning.

So last week, I gave up refined carbs altogether. Any carbs I consume come in the other things I eat like vegetables and beans. There are a few carbs in salad dressing, unfortunately, but I'm not gonna sweat those. So no more tortillas and no more pretzels. Cereal and milk have been out of the house for several weeks although they call to me like a siren.

I also changed up my workout. Threw my body for a bit of a loop. It was getting complacent there too.

And the changes seem to be working. They're working so far at least. The weight is still see-sawing, but I'm staying under 130lbs. more often than I'm over it and the amount I go over is getting less and less.

Not sure about the jiggly bits just yet...but I'm watching and waiting. :)

Hope your week is going well.

It's that time to revisit the goals and see how I'm doing... I'll just go down the list (which can be found along the left hand side of the blog..)

1) be a better website person--YES! I've stayed on top of updates and have even done some reviewing for broken links and the like. I'm almost caught up everything.

2) be a better treasurer--YES! I'm pretty much caught up and have instituted some positive changes to the job.

3) get physically healthy and well--I'm feeling good.

4) walk the dog/walk to the post office--No and yes... I was walking the dog, but she's not very well trained anymore so I was having a hard time keeping her under control when we came across other dogs. I had to give up on that for now. I'm going to see about getting a chest-harness thingy to see if that will help. But I do walk to the post office every day that I work at the office, which is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And most days it's too short a walk. I might have to find a longer route there and back!

5) reach 120lbs.--I'm making great progress. Only ten pounds to go.

6) get the house clean(er)--I've done some stuff. Not as much as I want to, but it's happening, which is actually progress.

7) keep crafting--I'm still cross stitching even though the epic birth sampler of love is now complete. I haven't branched out yet as there's nothing that's caught my attention to try. I may go back to rubber stamping. Goodness knows I have plenty of stamps and paper and ink to play around with.

8) create podfic--I've played around with this a bit but haven't done or posted anything official. I've just been too busy to take the time a project needs. Hopefully, the second quarter will allow me some give in the schedule.

9) read and re-read--Yes, of course. I haven't re-read much from last year yet, but as you can see on the right, reading in March picked up a bit.

10) write 10K to 15K word book for a Christmas box set--YES! I wrote 17K words in February. The book is currently out with the other box set writers. It needs a bit of revision, of course it does, but I did it. I've continued working on the epic highlander Sherlock fic and have also returned my attention to a book I wrote last year. After the Christmas book, we've got a Valentine cruise book planned, so I'm going to have to come up with an idea for that soon.

Doing better this year than I have in years past at the 1st quarter mark. Now if I can just keep up all the momentum.

How about you?

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...