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

 

Let's catch up a bit. I've been remiss in my blogging duties since the beginning of the year. Blogging wasn't high on my priority list while I was preparing to be gone on the cruise as well as while on the cruise, you know?

Once we came back, things went down with my daughter's life partner--which you saw in my previous post. Life feels like it's on fast forward right now--hockey playoffs aren't helping--and time is at a premium. There just doesn't seem to be enough time (or energy, quite frankly) to get ALL THE THINGS done. So I've had to prioritize.

I flew to Colorado mid-April to help my Brown-Eyed Girl get her car and her cat to Texas. She returned to CO to finish packing up the household stuff she wants to keep and transport it to Texas. My house looked as if a moving van vomited in it. And that wasn't even all her stuff. Just under half went into a storage unit!

So what have I been up to in between prepping for vacation, being on vacation, and dealing with a family loss?

A bit of home improvement!

I worked on one of my hall closets...all my random lap / dog blankets were in a stack in a laundry basket. But it was a huge pain in the butt to get to any of the blankets at the bottom of the pile. What you see are actually shoe racks. Walmart had them on sale, so I got two for the price of one. This is soooo much better.

On a smaller but similar vein, my charger cables were all hung on a single hook and I had to juggle up to 8 to 10 cables to find the one I wanted. So I made my own cable sorter. I already had the small clear hooks which are very small but have enough room for the diameter that most cables come in. I've since added a couple of extra hooks to this. This started off as a magnetic white board for lockers and cost me all of $3! This was very handy while on the cruise. Cruise cabin walls are metals, so my cable sorter had a place to live.

* * * * *

On another front, I've been wanting to plant flowers to bring pollinators back into my world. It took me a while to get to it, but I finally did so. I'm not quite done, but I started and I'm excited. I started with gladiolus bulbs several weeks ago and they're growing well.

Then a couple of Sundays ago I finally got my flower pots filled. I planted petunias and sweet william from seeds, but -- !! When I was picking up more potting soil from The Home Depot, I saw and bought pale purple vincas! I really like vincas. They're easy to grow and harvest seeds from, but I've only ever seen white and pink ones. The price was right so I bought three plants and replanted them in the American flag planter I bought years ago with...guess what?...vincas in it. :0)

* * * * *

And now it's playoff time, so DD and I have gone to games and watch parties.

Have a super week. Catch you later.

Sadly, my Brown Eyed Girl's soul mate passed away recently and life has been a bit focused lately.

Here's a picture tribute to Hank Barnes--the man who loved my girl so fiercely. You'll be sorely missed for years to come.

So let's start with the Stars...it took seven nail-biting games against a tough opponent to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That was a week and a half ago.

Now they're playing an even tougher opponent in the Colorado Avalanche... The Avs had a week+ of rest. The Stars had none. There's always the conversation of "rest versus rust" when a team has significant time off between playoff rounds... 

Now I don't know which way the pundits are leaning as far as that question goes because I'm losing faith in the so called experts for a variety of reasons.

Anywho, my boys in Victory Green played Round One, Game Seven on a Sunday, played Round Two, Game One on the following Tuesday, which they promptly lost. *sigh* Then they won Round Two, Game Two (so a split at home!) Then they flew to Denver (the mile-high city, dontcha know) and curb-stomped the Avs in their own barn.

So we're three games deep and the Stars are leading the series 2-1.

* * * * *

[there should be a picture here, but I forgot to have someone take one--argh!]

In happier news, I got see my Brown-Eyed Girl and her soulmate this past weekend. Soulmate's niece graduated from TCU so on Friday, we were invited to dinner with soulmate's family. And it was treat to finally meet his mother and two sisters. Our kids have been together (with a short hiatus) for close to a decade at this point.

And this past Sunday/Mother's Day, they came and stayed overnight at the house before flying home today.

* * * * *

And in equally happy news, it looks as though Sonshine will be able to come for a visit after all. He's supposed to call me on his day off and we're going to book his flight.

It's a been a few years--I need a new picture of me and my sonshine. :0)

*

And that is that for this edition of Jen's blog. Have a great week! Catch you in two...

...into the future...

...or...

Life Returns to Normal

The road trip is in the rear view mirror.

My friend's visit came to an end.

Life returned to normal.

And now I have things I want to accomplish.

My desire to finish books has returned. It didn't come back in a rush because you long-time followers know that I wasn't sure it would come back at all or that I even cared if it did. But it has. The feeling have been simmering for a while and broke into a boil more recently, but being excited about my books and about writing and telling stories feels good.

My first project is a re-vamp of the first series, including new covers and some Amazon A+ Content graphics, for which I got an amazing deal from my cover artist.

The books were originally written in some weird second person, present tense which is prevalent in fan fiction but *not* in commercial fiction.

Why I did that, I have no idea, but I've been meaning to edit all those books into proper third person, past tense for years, but doing that until recently has been a tedious chore. The advent of AI platforms means I can make AI do the hard work. I still have to edit and tweak what it gets wrong (dialogue), but that's a much easier and less time-consuming endeavor.

I also want to finish book seven, which has been sitting un-done and un-touched for too many years, so I've been re-reading and percolating those heroes and that story, as well as brainstorm a plot and character ideas for books Eight and Nine. :0) I'm ambitious, aren't I?

* * * * *

Just a quick shout-out to my friend's visit because I haven't done that yet...

My friend Angela is a fellow writer and a fellow hockey fan, and we agreed that it would be fun to attend a hockey game together and, long story short, we made it happen.

She flew into Dallas to see her team play my team in my team's barn. Now, her team isn't so good right now and we both knew the chances of the Stars beating the Coyotes were high--which they did--but it was more about the experience. Surprisingly, she wasn't the only Coyotes fan in the crowd. We spotted a handful of them.

And we had fun, both visiting in general and watching hockey. Well, I enjoyed it. I shouldn't speak for her. ;0) She also got to meet a shared online friend that she'd never met before, so that was cool for her as well.

Here we are, post game:

* * * * *

So Q2 starts today, and I've been ruminating on what specific goals I want to work towards and accomplish over the course of the next three months. I also needed to update my Vision Board to keep those tasks / goals front and center.

So here are the things I'm working toward this quarter: a new cross stitch pattern for the online store; planting a Chinese wisteria in the bird feeder bed to a) provide shade for the birds / bird feeder and b) provide food for bees; read two non-fiction books (about money probably); get my eating habits back on track; and lose at least 5 pounds. I also want to finalize the converted text of the first two books I mentioned above.

* * * * *

I've also spent some time out in the yard -- HELLO SPRING -- cleaning out the squirrel buffet area of the yard. I churned up the old mulch and pulled the weeds. The weeds I tossed, but I relocated the funky mulch and dirt to a large low spot in my lawn (see that dark patch in the upper right edge of the image).

I also took down and tossed that white bench hanging off the tree at the top of the image. It was falling apart. I like it a lot, though, so I looked for another and happened to find them on sale at Hobby Lobby where I just so happened to have a gift card. I bought two since it was basically a two-for-one deal.

I'll buy some fresh mulch in a week or two, I'm thinking red this year for a pop of color, and fill in all the spaces around the rocks and fill up the bordered space to help my tree retain any moisture come the heat of summer.

* * * * *

And some good news--the Brown Eyed Girl and her soul mate *and* Sonshine are coming to visit. Sadly, not at the same time, but I'm not complaining. The Brown Eyed Girl will be in town over Mother's Day, and Sonshine will visit for my birthday. So YAY!

And that's about all I have to say for now.

Take care and see you in a couple of weeks.

She was just here and we didn't take a new picture, but here are some others in honor of my first-born!

Here she is, in no particular order.

Happy birthday, sweetheart--

You've come a long way, baby girl!! I love you sooooo much.

Have a great weekend. Catch you Monday.

Yes, this is an old picture, because you know what...?

We forgot to take a new one!

Her visit the week before last was a bit overshadowed after the fact by having to put the dog to sleep the day after she left, but she came, we visited, we enjoyed each others' company, she went home. And she's doing so well. I couldn't be more pleased.

We worried she wouldn't make it as a huge snow system was working its way across Colorado early that week, but the severity lessened and the system shifted south just slightly and it all worked out.

She and I just hung out Thursday and Friday afternoon, chatting and watching movies. On Friday we went out for her birthday dinner and had presents. Her birthday isn't until the beginning of March, but she was here, so we celebrated.

Saturday and Sunday was just more hanging out and visiting, although she left Sunday, so that was a bit fraught since she got emails saying her flight was delayed even though the airport and airline website both said it was on time. 

She arrived home safe and sound, and all is well.

* * * * *

Now, let's fill out the rest of this post with a...

Miscellaneous Monday

...round of random tidbits. (it is Monday after all.)

* * * * *

In other news, our Dallas Stars are Central Division / Western Conference leaders. By the skin of their teeth. At some point I could swear I reported that my boys in Victory Green hadn't lost more than two games in a row...

Well, they went and lost five in a row with a demoralizing loss to the worst team in the league last week who posted a come from behind victory after being three goals down... The Stars did win in overtime this past Saturday, though they had to go to overtime to do it, but two points are two points.

If it weren't for the loser point in many of their recent losses (getting a point if making it to overtime even if you lose) and an excellent run at the beginning of the season, we'd probably be on the outside of the playoffs looking in.

** sigh **

* * * * *

Update on Me... 

A)

Finally got back to the ortho doc. It turns out I have bursitis and labral tears in/on both hips.  The doc gave me an easy at-home exercise to do, prescribed an additional round of drugs as well as actual physical therapy. Fun times, we'll see how that goes.

It turns out I also have a bit of scoliosis. X-rays taken at my first ortho visit show a slight curvature. It's minimal and the ortho doc didn't seem too worried.

But I'm worried about it, so I bought a back brace that should help, and, bonus, will help with posture. It's probably related somehow, so helping one one will help both.

I really don't want to head into my 60s, 70s, and 80s with more medical issues than necessary, so this is the year to start addressing whatever crops up in a timely fashion.

B)

I'm also, it turns out, ten pounds over my preferred weight. So, yesterday, I started on a keto-based detox regimen to a) kick start the weight-loss and b) purify my system a bit. 

I went back to a book I'd read (only?!!) two years ago that posits that hormones and stress play a larger role in weight gain/loss in woman of my age. So the detox should also help with that which will help with my emotions which should help with a lot of other things.

It's been a growing season in many areas of my life for the past year or so. Just trying to course correct a bit and keep moving forward.

C)

I finally updated the goals list on the right side-bar column to 2023's version!

* * * * *

I've solidified the plan for DD's and my mini-road trip and booked the hotel. Our funding is still a little short at the moment, but we have two weeks from yesterday...

* * * * *

Our vet's office, to which we've been going for all the years we've lived in this house has been undergoing some decor updates. New foyer paint job and furniture. The back area where the exam rooms are was being painted when I was last in there. I imagine the exam rooms, too, will all undergo a face lift.

I'm glad they're doing well enough to do that.

Not that you care at all about my vet's office. :0)

Have a great week. See you Thursday.

I've been meaning to post. I've been wanting to post.

But then I sit down to do so and my mind draws a blank. At least for a blog topic, because the reality is...I have a lot swirling around in my brain.

Christmas. Writing. Thanksgiving. 2022 in general. Planning for 2022. Writing. Hockey. Family.

And many combinations there-of. As well as things as mundane as what I'm making for dinner tonight and what our food plans are for the Thanksgiving weekend. Not to mention other personal things that you don't share on the Internet. :0)

Hope you're all well. Hope you're all prepped for Thanksgiving.

We're having lasagna, garlic bread and salad. I'm thinking I need to make pupcakes... we haven't had them for a while.

Sadly, I haven't see my Sonshine in a while, and it's going to be a while longer before I do.

The Brown-Eyed Girl and her Soulmate are staying in CO for the holidays, so it'll be a while before I see them too.

DD of course is my hockey partner in crime, and we spend plenty of time together. One of my favorite memories of time shared with her--that still happens and will probably continue to happen--is when we're in the car together (usually driving to or from a hockey game, but also road trips) and listening to music, and a song comes on that we both know and love or is just fun and we both start signing. Last week, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas cycled through my shuffled playlist, of off we went.

I treasure those times with this daughter. 

I'm thankful that I continue to have those times with this daughter who is very tender-hearted, but keeps that side of herself under wraps.

Have a great weekend. Catch you on Monday. I'll brainstorm some ideas and come up with a topic.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!