A Time For Everything

Last Friday, I mentioned accomplishing some stuff. Of the three things I mentioned, only one was worked on last week as it should have been--the book; one was half-assed--the weight loss; and one wasn't even gotten to--the garage.

I just wasn't feeling it. Until yesterday. I finally started sorting through some boxes. I loaded up my car with as much stuff as I could fit without playing Tetris and jamming the cargo area full front to back, top to bottom. Of course, I'll have to unload it all tomorrow morning when I get to work, but that's fine.

Unfortunately, my trip to the donation station was originally postponed because of rain, and now it's on hold indefinitely until the world is allowed to open again. But all the stuff will be ready to go when it does.

As for the weight loss, I did get up and exercise every day but one, because I was up late (re-)watching a hockey game. I do build in those off days for the mornings after hockey game attendance or hockey game watching from home, so it wasn't as if I was cheating. In fact, I lost all those built-in off-days because hockey's been canceled.

On the other hand, I've been comfort / stress-eating more carbs than I need to, so I haven't lost anything, but I haven't gained anything either. But! Starting yesterday, I'm back to wearing the Fitbit, which tracks all my steps and exercise and food / water consumption. I'm hoping that by having to log my food and see the daily numbers, I'll be less inclined to eat the things I shouldn't. *fingers crossed* I'll see some improvement this week.

And last but not least--the writing. After exercising each morning, I plop my heinie in my chair, put on the headphones and Harry Potter soundtrack, and write. Since hockey's been canceled and I have no off-days, except the one I mentioned earlier, I've been making progress every day. Yesterday morning, I even knuckled down to sort out the actual timeline as well as some wonky plot issues. My romance beats are lined up and ready to go.

I've been working on this thing since mid-January and it's just about done and is very over word count. It's very rough and needs some heavy handed edits, but I'm ready for it!

While going through boxes left by my Brown Eyed Girl that she slated for donation--I came across this...

Why, yes, that's a tiara. While I wouldn't have bought one for myself, I'm not turning one down that's there for the re-appropriation. Where would I wear it, you ask. Well, I wore it on Sunday during my ZOOM session with some of my writers group friends. They loved it. I might even wear it to the first meeting back. :0)

And one last thing--the trip to WalMart this morning was not bad. There still wasn't any toilet paper, although they'd had some. I saw a woman with a package in her cart. Unfortunately, there was none left by the time I reached the appropriate aisle. But the cereal aisle was fully stocked and there was bottled water and plenty of bread. The lunch meat and meat displays weren't full, but they weren't barren either. I have hope that next week will be even better.

Take care and have a great week.

If there was ever a time to say Thank Goodness It's Friday it's now. As things continue to slow and shut down, I'm glad it's the weekend.

A handful of our clients have decided to work from home, but that doesn't affect us much. We're still showing up every day and taking care of the back end side of IT.

I spent some time project planning yesterday as I mentioned Wednesday I needed to do. Looking at the breakout makes me want to not do at least one of them... If you're so inclined to see what my project planning looks like, it's here. The verbiage (project / phase / task) is taken from our software at work and worked well for my purposes. Plus it's always nice when my two worlds can cross-pollinate.

Home life is back to normal. The last piece was finding my charger cable for my car, and now that's back in the car... I'll go grocery shopping early Sunday morning as per usual and hope that the shelves look closer to full than to empty. But we'll make do with whatever I find. The dog will get her first bath in probably 4 - 5 weeks, poor thing. I'll prep food for the week. Laundry will get caught up once and for all. I can hardly wait.

I might -- MIGHT -- start on that garage project.

I'm already working on the Holiday / Disability Anthology.

Aspects of the weight loss project will be put into place.

And now...more cruise pics!! These are just general pictures from time on the boat...





For the rest of the randomness, click here.

Have a great weekend!

I'm just feeling out of sorts. DH has been gone supporting his family during a tough time. I haven't been to the gym in a while and I'm feeling the effects of the lack. We're trying to keep the mileage down on the car I have so I haven't gone. When I don't go, I have a hard time being diligent at home, but my body has finally put its metaphorical foot down and I am spending time on the treadmill morning and evening.

But I still keep having thoughts about wanting to write even though the act of sitting down and opening a file had eluded me until Friday. I read through a book I'd written and which is not 100% complete, but close. (story of my life) I wanted to see how close. I spent Friday and Saturday reading and tweaking. Then I exported it to MS Word and now I'm formatting.

I'm still not writing new stuff, but I'm in my work. Not in the manuscript I should be working on either, but at least I'm working on something.

The good news is, there's not much new read in my fandoms and I'm pretty caught up on my various shows. So there's no shiny things to entice me away from writing, even though, again, I do want to.

It's just that when I contemplate it, I suddenly feel wiped out from all the other stuff going on.

At least it's sunny today which will go a long way towards lifting my spirits and keeping them up.

Which is also contributing to the blah...I'm feeling down in the dumps.

Saturday with writer peeps was refreshing and uplifting as it always is when I hang out with these ladies. Sunday was productive in terms of those crafty projects I mentioned a few posts ago. I even finished one...


Hope you had a good weekend.

Everything I set out to accomplish this weekend was done. I spent Saturday working in twenty minute sprints in order to make progress on every project without feeling stuck on the less enjoyable tasks (Things like cleaning bathrooms...).

Most importantly -- I completed a letter on the epic birth sampler of love and started the next one. In fact, I got the base done and the letter part done too. I just have to stitch like crazy to get that letter's little girl done so I can go on to the very. last. letter.





I also finished reading my book aloud. It's very helpful to actually hear the flow of the words, the eye will trip where the tongue does. It also forces me to actually read every word, helping me to find missing words. I can also hear repeated words or phrases, and repetitious concepts can also be discovered. The whole process took me about four days--primarily because I had Friday evening and all of Saturday to focus on it.

Sunday I focused on the sampler and the Scottish highlander epic. I'm giving the other writing projects some space so that the next time I read them, they'll be a little bit fresher. Plus I've missed the Scottish highlands and the story needs its fair share of my attention. My goal is another 35K on this one for a total of 80K. If I'm not mistaken, that doesn't include the 22K for part one. Which means, it'll be over 100K when all is said and done--WOW! Where sis all those words come from??

And the house is clean and the laundry is done, so all in all, a very productive weekend-- even with a 3+ hour break for NASCAR. :) (Jimmie Johnson won, btw!)

How was your weekend?

My February is going to be rather crazy and so I'll have to balance my busyness with enough down time to keep me sane.



I have work of course. The first week of February is always a bit hectic due to a certain client of ours. Their membership year ends on the 31st of January and so there are tasks and phone calls that come in a flurry because of it.

In addition, my writing group puts on a contest, one of two, and I'm a co-coordinator. I was sole coordinator last year, so at least I have some help, but the next three weeks will see contest activity ramp up significantly.

My proofing business is in full swing, so gotta make time for that....

 I have a couple of personal projects on the books.

Gotta make time for enough sleep, eating right, and exercise to keep me on an even keel throughout...

Oh, and Sonshine will be home for ten days or so!

So how's that for a jam-packed month??

I'm tired already.

Not the "magic" kind of course, but the kind that requires one to keep track of several different things and all the inevitable sub-things and shoot-offs that go with them.

As you know, I've been coordinating, as we say in the romance writers community, a contest. Not just coordinating, but pulling off, pretty much single-handedly. I'm not doing it again. I'll be happy to coordinate as in truly directing others to do the various tasks, since I did it this year, but I'm not carrying the whole thing myself next year.

In addition, I've been working on a major project for work. It was technically supposed to be finished last week, but that didn't happen. It'll probably be the end of next week before it's 100% done, though most of it will get done this week. Next week will be for double-checking, crossing T's and dotting I's.

There are a few business ventures I'm researching and prepping for.

I'm also working on several projects from my proofreading business--one proof job and a couple of series bibles for an author friend of mine.

Then there's Sonshine I have to keep an eye on.

But every now and then my arms get tired and I have to drop the balls and rest.

What do I do to rest...I read though, to be honest, I read for a purpose.

The only thing I do that has no double purpose is play computer games. I decided a few weeks ago that I really missed playing them and started up again. I don't--can't--play to the exclusion of all else like I once did, but I must say it's been fun to just play for a few hours here and there.

What do you do rest and relax that has no other purpose than to let you do just that?

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...

I read this book called Rebooting Your Life: A 12-Day Program for Ending Stress, Realizing Your Goals, and Being More Productive by Paul Gibbons. It's a twelve step/day process for strategic planning of your life and getting all the data you keep in your head on paper (to ease the stress of trying not forget anything) and breaking down your projects into tasks based on how long they take and/or the type of task they are (phone calls vs. research, etc). You can get a pre-organized and formatted spread sheet (spread sheet, YAY!) to use for each of the daily exercises.

I saw the book for free on that blog I visit every couple of weeks or so and thought, what the heck...

The whole thing took me a bit longer than twelve days, fifteen or sixteen maybe. Some of the exercises took more than one day and I probably skipped Sundays.

Was it helpful? Well, a little, yes. I put everything down on paper and felt a slight ease. I even remembered a few things that had been relegated to far reaches of my mind. I worked on breaking a couple of projects down to workable tasks. But with so many things out of my control and so many things on my plate, the whole process didn't produce as good results as I had hoped. On one hand, I have a definite list of things to do. On the other hand, I realized how much stuff I have to get done in a short amount of time. Yikes.

But that's okay. I can go back in a few weeks or a month and do it again. Re-think long term goals and aspirations (I haven't forgotten the strategic plan for my writing.). See what I've accomplished in the meantime and move forward.

How often do you re-think and re-envision and re-evaluate your goals? Only at the beginning of the year? Or more often to adjust as things happen and gather more data?


Just thought I'd add the picture for fun...