Buh bye, 2013

I'm late to this party - again - but I have been tying to get some life stuff sorted out and this fits in well with it.

This past year was crazy hectic, and I didn't achieve any of my big goals (like sell a book and lose 50lbs) but I didn't do too bad, either. Here are my hopes/plans/goals for 2013.

Personal

• Become re-motivated with Weight Watchers and lose the 12 lbs I've slowly picked up since I fell off the wagon this past June. I've already started doing baby steps for this - like track just my Good Health Guidelines and Exercise, so I'm confident I'll get back on track.
• Exercise 2 days on, 1 day off, to hopefully avoid injuries yet increase my health.
• Lose a total of 25lbs this year. Half a pound a week is surely doable.
• Rediscover quilting. I haven't sewn hardly at all since June and it bugs me. I want to completely finish one bed sized quilt this year and make 6 small ones. Again, totally doable.
• Also doing the 52 week money challenge this year, yet another thing that fell apart in June.
• Be more mindful with decluttering. Not sure if I want to re-join up with FlyLady, so I'm doing the LIFT decluttering plan.
• Try at least one new healthy recipe every pay period (2 weeks). I haven't been creative in the kitchen lately either.
• Limit my Facebook time. It just sucks my life away, and for very little payoff.
• Same thing with politics. The middle has become the fringe and getting frustrated doesn't help me or anyone else.
• Play more with my granddaughter instead of letting her do her own thing so much.
• Insist on dedicated couple time with my hubby.

Professional

• Do whatever I can to find a home for SPORE and MORGAN'S RUN so I can return to being a working writer.
• Write two other books. One spec thriller, one something else.
• Find a way to blog more consistently to help market the books.
• Create dedicated writing time and space that doesn't keep me up until 2 or 3 am every night. That's just too late when I babysit all day.

Everything Else

• Relax.
• Enjoy life.
• Breathe.

{{hugs}} and happy new year, everyone!

Looking Ahead

I think I've got it all now. It seems pretty well-rounded and doable.

PROFESSIONAL

-       Rewrite 3 books

-       Pitch at least 1 book in person or 2 by query

-       Join the local writers group and attend meetings

-       Find storytelling venues

 HEALTH/WELLNESS

-       Explore ways to eat clean. Actually do some

-       Re-focus on herbs—growing, preserving, medicinal uses, healing properties

-       Ditto for food (except growing)

-       Be thankful and fill the Blessing Jar

-       Lose 15 lbs. Keep it off at least six months before trying to lose more

BOUNDARY PUSHING

-       Exercise/self-defense classes

-       Explore public transit

-       Find new ways to help the poor and homeless without putting myself at risk

o   Crochet scarves/throws for shelters

-       Greener/simpler/less expensive living

MISC

-       Visit Grandma once a month (I realized a few days ago I'm going to live closer to her than I have in my life)

It's that time of the year again

It's that time of the year again where I make goals that apparently have no basis in reality. I really thought I had a chance to reach the ones I made last year. And I did reach a few.

Last year's accomplishments:

1. I published the writing group's anthology: Creations 2013: 40 Ways to Look at Love. It looked nice. Had some good writing in it.
2. Conducted the writing group's meetings and was, I think, a fairly effective president. At least enough that they re-elected me for the next two years.
3. Redesigned my book website. It's ready for its own domain now, but money is too tight. Maybe in 2014.
4. Survived the whole heart "event" business. Not an inconsiderable achievement.
5. Published Red Bird Woman by Gail Wood. I think it has a lovely cover. I'm quite proud of how it looks. The poems are excellent. Gail will become well-known as a poet if she continues to pursue her writing.
6. And I had walked at the gym at least three times a week until the heart attack in August.
7. Wrote nearly half of the poems for Undying, which I hope I can finish and publish in 2013.
8. Published the family newsletter up until August. Published the December one on time at least.
9. Kept my bills -- except for the medical bills -- paid.
10. A handful of other minor accomplishments, but they count. Small pearls remain precious despite their size.

2014 Goals

1. Finally finish and publish Murder by the Mile. Or give it up completely. I'm tired of it hanging over my head.
2. Finish and publish Undying.
3. Slowly increase my physical activity so that I regain my health.
4. Start the DASH diet for my blood pressure.
5. Maintain my blogs.
6. Take care of my friends and family as best I can.
7. Take more photos. I love my new camera. I want to learn how to use it well.
8. Read the Bible all the way through.
9. Do the 52 Week Money Challenge again. I did it in 2013 despite all my bills.
10. Publish Creations 2014 for the writing group.
11. Be a good president for the writing group with programs that aid them in their writing goals.
12. Remember each day carries hope.

I think that's enough for now.

Land of Make Believe

Yes, this is the time to post what I'm striving to achieve for 2014.  Putting near utter failure for 2013 behind me, I'm redoubling my efforts for 2014.  Like Wendy, I'm trying to envision where I want to be next year and planning specific goals as measurable as possible to get there.  I'm not going to detail the specifics here -- generalities will be listed. 

I evaluated the major categories from previous years, and I plan to keep them the same:

Relationships, Health, Home and Property, Writing, and Other Obligations

For relationships, I'll continue to work on spouse, family, and friends.  I'm going to focus on quality time with Mr. L and calling my parents at least once a month. I want to be a good friend, and that varies with each friend.

For health, weight, fitness, and diet.  Stephen suggested a weight loss goal of one pound a month, and since one pound a week has resulted in a net gain of 20 pounds this year, maybe I'll try a more conservative goal.  I think weighing daily isn't working either, so I'm going to go for twice a month on the first and 15th.  I want to get my fasting glucose level below 100 and normal levels on cholesterol and blood pressure.  I've registered to participate in Lift's diet study for the month of January.  I opted out of letting them choose the diet (they're all healthy, but most of them aren't easily integratable with Mr. L's dietary preferences).  I think I'm going to choose Mindful Eating -- as I understand it, that's getting things right in your head, and that's where my eating problems lie.

For home and property, there are things to maintain and things to improve. Obviously, yard work is a focus.  There are several things at each property I'd like to see us get done, but most of them will require Mr. L to make it a priority, and he doesn't like to be pushed -- he has a timeline in his mind, and it shifts as new priorities emerge, so even if he tells me, it changes from one day to the next, so I'm better off letting him "drive the bus" for those things. I control yard work, housework, and decluttering of my things.  I'm developing measurable goals for those items.

For Writing, I'm going to continue incorporating Product Launch Formula principles into marketing my writing, writing more short fiction, revising my novels, and building my Fiction Club list.  I plan to continue the same blogging schedule.  I'm preparing short fiction for A-Z Challenge in April.  I still need to finish revising Polar Bear on the Loose, and I have several novels to work on after I finish that.

For other obligations, I have a few things to work on for Forward Motion, and, of course, though I don't think of it as an obligation, I intend to participate fully in our Createslate support effort.  I have a nagging sense I'm forgetting something significant in this category of an online nature.

Year in review

I find myself at loose ends this evening, so I thought I'd take a look at where I've been. I'm still thinking through what I want to do in 2014. In the past, I've set goals almost arbitrarily. As I get older, it seems more helpful to think about who I want to be next year at this time, and figure out what I need to do to get there. It's taking more thought. I'll get back to you when they're solidified. In the meantime, I hope all of you had a lovely holiday and that 2014 will bring you joy.

2013 Goals:

·      Make enough money to pay at least half my professional expenses. Not even close. I didn't make a dime this year.

·      Keep the new kitchen clean. That one's about 50/50. I'm a slob at heart, and increased counter space has, at times, bred clutter.

·      Give to the food bank at least three times. Hmm. No. I think I gave twice. There's still time in the year. I could probably put together a bag to take this weekend from what I have in my pantry.

·      Keep $5.00 bills in the car for people standing on the corners. Yes! I have given them out fairly regularly here. I'm a little scared to do it in Chicago, but once I get used to the area, I'm sure I'll continue the practice.

·      Seriously declutter. I have no idea how to measure this.Yes, if only so I won't have to move things.

·      Do at least 1 bible study. Yes. I knocked that one out early.

·      Learn more ways to defend myself. Sort of. I did take a couple months of Judo, but the dojo I was attending was more focused on tournaments than self-defense.

o  Practice the ways I already know. Yes. In fact, I'll be doing so tomorrow.

·      Write 150,000 book words. Yes. Barely. I hit 150,031. It's a victory on paper, but I'm not happy with it. I could have done 200k if I'd tried.

Bio Check and Update Time

When you get a chance, take a look at your "About Me" page here and send me any changes.  If I don't hear from you, I'll figure it's still current for you.

Jean

The Song Remains the Same

Sitting in Panera downloading PLF Module 7.  The downloads have finished, and I'm getting caught up with online things I can't do easily from the phone that I don't want to chew up mobile bandwidth for either.

We're settled into San Antonio until the end of the year.  Wendy, imagine what you're doing stretched out to infinity (it seems that way), but we're at five years with no end in site.  I love both houses, but transitioning back and forth is annoying.  Inevitably, something we need gets left at the other house.

Mr. L got seats and stems replaced for the tub faucets.  We are no longer leaking five gallons of water a day from that source.  We're working on getting leaves and acorns raked and vacuumed this week.  That's what I'll be doing when I head out from here.  I got one half of the front yard done a couple days ago (the easy part), and the other half is up today and until it's done.  We'll do a cursory sweep, because there are still a lot of red oak leaves to come down.  Live oak leaves will start next month.

I'm still getting things set up on the MacBook Pro.  I love it.  Since I'm keeping the MacBook Air for now, I have to decide if I still need to get the new MacMini when they are released -- assuming that happens.  In theory, I could use the Pro as my main machine, but do I want to do that?  I'm thinking no.  I'm also considering shifting to an IMAP mail model, leaving my mail on the bluehost servers (or ATT or Earthlink, depending upon the source) and managing it there.  That will be a shift from my POP mail approach and consolidating most of it on my main machine while accessing it from several places. 

I'm still evaluating my goals for the new year.  I think I need to devote some time to that.  I am enjoying the Lift app.  I'm working three plans right now.  Three months to a new you is a plan focused on drinking water, squats, pushups, and jumping jacks.  My calves are killing me, so I've had to modify the plan, but I'm doing what I can with it.  Daily Decluttering has prompted me to get a few things done that I've been putting off -- most recently, diving under the kitchen sink and pulling out various cleaners that we haven't looked at in 20 years.  After pulling that out, throwing out the near empties and discovering two unopened containers of Comet cleanser, I swept out the shelf (ewwww), and placed the keeper items back in.  There's more to be done, but that was a start. This is a 30 day plan, and I plan to repeat it. The third plan I'm doing is Become A Writing Machine.  This, too, is a thirty day program.   It's had some interesting approaches, and I'm mostly enjoying it.  Lift offers a number of other plans, but there's something about most of them I'm not wild about participating in, but these three are resonating for me now.  Maybe others will at another time.

My doctor said I need to lose weight, and I agree with him.  He encouraged me to go back to Weight Watchers.  I'm still debating what approach I want to use.

Merry Christmas, Friends!

Go Twice Around the Crazy Tree With Me, Sweet Adalee

Sometimes I think I might be going crazy. And not that happy, zany, upbeat, fun crazy, but that bleak, solemn, downbeat, dragging crazy. In the middle of the night when my heart wakes me up and my chest pounds, I find myself wondering how much more I can take -- which is downright silly because I've taken much worse than this and survived. That's the advantage of having horrific things in your past; you know what you can survive. I told a friend this several years ago, and I still think it's true: the worse thing can be knowing that what you're going through won't kill you and you will have to go on after it's over.

Still, it's been better this week. Not much better, but better. Had a couple bad nights, but a few nights were good. Sleep helps. And all my Christmas shopping is done. A great relief that. Amazon, Staples, RadioShack, WalMart, and the Dollar Tree. Only Amazon was online. WalMart shopping was done by my roomie. I did the other shopping myself, which I was rather proud of. Exhausted me, but I got it done.

I've enjoyed the Christmas cards I've received. Not a huge haul of them, but one or two almost every day. Makes me look forward to the mail. And the Christmas sweets. I try to limit myself, but I do take a bite or two of each new item presented. Peppermint coated pretzels, gingerbread pretzels, cherry coated chocolate morsels, Harry & David fruitcake ... All good. Can't have much of any of them, but a bite or two to savor is a good way to end a meal.

I'm trying ... no, I'm going to approach the coming year with some hope. After all, no more heart attacks. I have a warm house. I'm still up on my bills. I sold a few books. I have family and friends. Yes, I didn't make many of my goals for last year -- in fact, I'm not going to look back; it's too damning -- but I did a few things right. A few laughs. A few good times. A few glorious sunrises and sunsets. Still alive.

For this Christmas, I think the the best gift I can give myself: the permission to remember the good things from this year and to let the bad things fade away. Going to end this post with my song for 2014. Listen to it. It's really quite grand.

Rounding the bend

It's a mixed bag, as usual. I'm tired and looking forward to finally, FINALLY finishing this move.

Good Stuff:
- Alex graduated. It wasn't without drama. He waited until 3 p.m. the day before to get his cap and gown, and I had to go with him to pick it up because he didn't have the money to buy it. Also, I asked Eric to bring my toiletry bag, which I'd left upstate, instead of being smart and just packing stuff and taking it with me. He brought the bag, not realizing I'd taken out all my make-up and brush. I had a lens case, saline, and my toothbrush, and I went to graduation with a naked face. Also, we had 8" of snow overnight, and the snow plow piled snow if front of Alex's car, so we had to leave an awesome parking spot to go pick him up. I swear he's becoming the nutty professor. It wasn't all bad. There weren't as many people at the early ceremony (they had another in the afternoon), and I was told the winter graduations are smaller than the summer ones. For that reason alone I'd be happy if he walks to get his Masters in the winter, too!
- Dad and Linda followed me home and stayed with me for a couple days. They helped me eat the turkey soup, and Linda brought us homemade presents. Tammy, I'll have to send you pics of the microwave bowl holder she made. You put your bowl in it, nuke the whole thing, and you don't burn your fingers taking the hot bowl out. It's sort of a shaped hot pad.
- I took the kids out last night to celebrate Vicky's 21st birthday. We went to dinner and then to a Mother Grove concert. The front man and piper are 2/3 of Pictus, the band who's bard I am. I'd told them it was Vicky's birthday, so they brought her up on stage and had us all sing happy birthday in the most off-key way possible. It was great! I did assure her I wouldn't post the pictures on the internet. Sorry! Of course, she was pretty tipsy at that point, so maybe she doesn't remember that part. :-)
- I may be able to book a story telling gig in Indy this spring. The Mother Grove front man is also the entertainment manager for a new book store/microbrewery there, and he was very receptive when I asked if I could come. His fiancee even said I could stay with them.

Not So Good Stuff:
- Dragging out the move is starting to make me feel like my life is on hold. I'm stuck in no man's land between the old normal and the new normal. We'll be working out the logistics of moving the last of the stuff when we're all together this week.
- Took another load upstate Thursday and came back yesterday. I was not ready to come back.
- I learned today that the Boyfriend will be here for Christmas after all. I thought he was working Christmas, but the train yard is closed. He and Vicky are planning to come Christmas Eve after he gets off work. It's not a big deal. I have a present for him, but not a stocking, so I'll probably remedy that tomorrow. I just thought I was done shopping.
- I rescheduled the gig I had the day before Alex's graduation. The weather was forecast to turn ugly and I didn't want to wait until late afternoon to start. As it turns out, it was the right decision, but now I have to do it this week and am not prepared on top of everything else. OTOH, it's at a nursing home, and they might not remember (or care) if I tell stories I've already told. There's really no good reason to stress over this.

So that's what I've been up to, in a nutshell. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, and I'll be back next week to do the year in review and set 2014 goals.

Glad this week is done.

It's been a week.

Almost done with the first pass of 'buffing out the crazy' revisions to Morgan's Run - about 35 pages to go - then I'm reviewing my notes again and re-reading to make sure all of the smaller not-crazy tweaks are in place. In most ways, it's come easier than I'd expected, I'm usually psychologically resistant to changing characters and their motivations and reactions. I try, but find myself really, really upset to the point of crying. This time... I'm just doing it, diligently, happily almost. Maybe I'm finally ready to let the book go, I dunno.

Anyway, I think I'm on track for getting it to my agent the first of January.

No good news on SPORE yet, but I'm actually rather confident about one publisher in particular. There are plans in place if they and others decline, and we'll keep on trying to get it sold. It'll sell. That's about it for book stuff.

We're as ready as we're going to be for Christmas. Spent a little more than we'd planned, but I think it'll be a good one for our daughter and granddaughter. We didn't know what to get for Bill's dad, but there's a nearby butcher shop that hand-processes locally raised livestock, so we bought him meat. Everyone loves meat, right? I have absolutely nothing sewn, for the first time in at least twenty years.

Thank you all for the Christmas cards! I have them hanging on the cabinet in my kitchen.

There's a bad winter storm south of us - some of you might be feeling its effects - and I've been watching the weather hoping it dumps a substantial amount of snow in Des Moines for purely selfish reasons. Bad, I know, but here we are.

I went to the doc this past week to check out my ongoing pelvic pain/cramping issues and, based solely on related symptomatology, my doc decided it was probably an ovarian cyst. She scheduled me for an immediate ultrasound to confirm, and she was absolutely correct. I knew something was up when the tech turned the screen away from me, focused solely on my left side (even took extra scans my doc hadn't ordered just to get some additional pics) and stopped answering my questions. VERY scary at the time, especially since my grandmother'd had uterine cancer. The ultrasound doc came in to give me the prognosis - a very nice, sad faced woman - and seeing her come in and introduce herself was also rather scary (those kinds of doctors don't come in and talk to patients unless it's BAD), but she said it was nothing dangerous, just needed to be watched and would cause discomfort. I have to go back in mid Feb for another ultrasound to see if it's growing, shrinking, or staying the same. Hysterectomy was mentioned, but nothing was set. I'll know more in Feb. I don't hurt much right now, just occasional twinges and a lot of pressure, but it was both reassuring - at least I have an answer - and worrisome - what if I need surgery. Since my regular doc didn't call Friday, I expect to hear from her Monday, or maybe Thursday to get the full report. I'll just take it as it comes.

The ultrasound doc insisted it wasn't cancer, and, truly, if it was the medical process would've already started turning, so that's good.

I've pretty much shelved the diet this week, but I'll try to get back on it tomorrow. Hopefully. I only have so much focus and energy and between the books, the babysitting, life in general, Christmas, and now my fun new cyst, I'm stretched pretty thin, mentally speaking.

We're all fine, the pets are fine, life overall is fine. I hope you all have a glorious holiday and a Merry Christmas!!  {{hugs}}

*cue Darth Vader's Theme Song*

Things are, mostly, going well. We have enough and, in a lot of ways, that's pretty awesome. It's been a crazy week, tho. No, a crazy month or so, but I'll try to remain focused on this past week (ish).

Our anniversary was last Sunday. 25 years. Was an AWESOME day and a huge milestone.

However, all the celebrating urged me to eat too much and I gained. Again. Dangit. This week, tho, I have the Traveling Tracker (a tracker our leader has members take home, and its contents are then available to everyone else who brings home the tracker) so I've been really, really good since Thursday. Well, other than today. but mostly really, really good. lol In all seriousness, though, if I TRACK, I LOSE, so I am tracking. We went out for mexican tonight tho and I ate too much, point wise, but I'll let my weeklies suck it up since I still had them all.

My weight is still stalled, overall. As of this morning I was 9.6lbs above my low. It's totally my own fault. Well, mine and my stoooopid hormones. I've had cramps pretty much nonstop since before Thanksgiving and they're making me cranky. I have a Dr. appt on Thursday, tho, but she'll most likely tell me it's just one of those things I have to deal with until this aggravating menopause process is over. Bleh.

Since Bill's working about 15 or more hours a week in overtime (and he's exhausted!!) we bought a snowblower this week. I will, quite possibly, be the primary snow blower operator. Not sure how I feel about that, but it has an electric start and seems easy enough to use (I got to blow out the snow in front of the garage while Bill explained what to do and I did just fine), so we'll see.

I was going to sew today with my new sewing machine (1st time!!) but stuff happened, including a masseuse in my house beating on Bill. All of the overtime in sub-freezing weather is really wearing his body down. Today was his only day off so she came here today to loosen him up again. She worked on him about 2 hours. Seemed to help, but we'll see how he feels in the morning.

SPORE collected another rejection this week - that's 4 down, 5 to go. Agent and I also had a phone conference to discuss Morgan and I've been reworking the beginning ever since. When I can. It's tough to do, after long busy days, like yesterday I sold giant coloring books at the mall from 10am until 1pm, then babysat Sarah until everyone got home around 7, then supper, dishes, laundry, etc, all with virtually no sleep (oh, you totally amazing awesome hormones, how I enjoy your fantabulous symptomatology!! *sarcasm*) and I was just too tired and brain fried by the time the house finally quieted down around 11 or so so I didn't get to even look at it. Tonight, tho, I've worked some. Not as much as I should, but *some*.

Mostly I feel like I'm scrambling all the time, but not making much progress on anything.

As for the Darth Vader theme... It's not something I want to discuss in a public venue (I have no idea who's reading my various blogs) but feel free to ask. I think it might become my new theme song. ;)

{{hugs}} and happy week before Christmas!!

Where Does the Time Go?

I dunno, but I'm reviewing where I started the year and what I had planned to accomplish.  It isn't a pretty sight. Plans are made to be broken -- or so some people say, and my plans were successful in that respect.

Looking over my Createslate goals posted late last year for this year:

Relationship: Seems like we're in a mostly good place right now, and we'd like to keep it that way.

This seemed to deteriorate a little through the year.  There's always an ebb and a flow to long-term relationships. I'm not sure exactly where we're at right now.  We're not in a bad place, but it could be better (I could almost always say that, though).

Pets:
Continue care, feeding, and attention for inside (big) cats. 

This is ongoing. Never a problem.

Decide what will be best for the feral kittens. 

As you know, the four feral kittens stayed. Sneaky is the only remaining outside "feral," and she's become remarkably domesticated and has been spayed.  The vet helped save costs for regular medications by suggesting using the big dog Revolution treatment and dividing it among eight cats. I still have to buy for two more cats, but it's much, much cheaper this way.  And, of course, another kitten adopted us a month ago.


Properties:
San Antonio: This year I want to work on interior cleanliness, yard, help hubby with renovations in preparation for putting it on the market (not this year).

Utter failure, but this goal remains valid

Central TX House: Declutter, yard, exterior paint

Other than keeping up with the yard, another utter failure.  We blame it on too much travel.

Shop: help hubby with projects (maybe bathroom repair and cleaning behind the building)

Hubby got the sink drain repaired, but nothing else.  Clean up behind the building has not progressed, but it has not regressed either. A neutral.  I need to give up guessing what may be a priority I can help Mr. L with. Even if he tells me, it shifts.  I should probably learn to ignore the many items I'm not welcome to do and just check the list periodically to see if I can check anything off.

Store: Move bikes to shop, inventory glass, keep it mowed

Kept it mowed.  Nothing else.  The water pipe broke off at the meter resulting in a nice $300 bill, but we've turned it off at the meter and not dealt with it yet.  Moving the bikes involves Mr. L, but inventorying my glass is on me.

Ranch: Trim road edge back

Our new neighbor did this for us by installing a new fence and clearing back from the fence the whole way.  Yay!

Health and Fitness:
Rededicate to WW and Fitness.  No, this is not a broken record.  I began the year at 263 and currently have a net gain of six pounds.  My next goal of 261 has been waiting impatiently for me to meet it.  A reasonable goal would be to be at or below 245 at year's end.

Utter failure.  Ending the year at 280. Dropped WW.  I tried Lose It! but have failed at all aspects of this.

Riding the bike helps keep my knees mobile and helps cardiac fitness (but I'll need to add more resistance to achieve better heart benefits)

Once again, utter failure.

Resume my exercises for my knees.  My right hip is bothering me, and that's directly attributable to not doing my stretching exercises

Utter failure.  I've started a couple of plans in Lift.  One is 90 Days to a New You.  It involves drinking water -- something I do very well, squats, pushups, and jumping jacks.  We haven't started the jumping jacks yet (I peeked-- that's this week), and I'm having to do wall pushups (my upper body strength has deteriorated terribly over the last few years), but squats are not as bad on my knees as I feared, and they are helping in important areas I'd been troubled about.

My blood pressure is giving me problems.  If I can't get it lowered with diet and exercise, the doc is going to have to put me on another medication.  I don't want that.

I tracked this for six months, and doc was satisfied that it's not a problem.  Yay.  On my visit this week, he was pleased with my readings.  He was not, however, happy with my weight.  He told me it's time to get back at it.  Sigh.

Family:
This is always troublesome for me.  I care for my family -- even love them, of course, but I've been away from them so long, I don't really know them.  Mom and I play Lexulous, so we chat back and forth in the course of the game.  My younger brother and his family are on Facebook, so we have some communication that way. My sister has a Facebook account, but she hasn't been on for several months.  My older brother will communicate via text, so maybe I better text him more than an annual Christmas and birthday text.

No real progress in this area.  My older brother did text me a photo of a "new" motorcycle a few months ago.

My folks are coming to OK for my nephew's high school graduation in May, and we plan to attend as well.  So I suggested they might want to ride down on the train, and we'd pick them up in Dallas.  Then I suggested they come spend a couple of days with us in Central TX (Dad hasn't seen the house yet), and they accepted.

Due to health issues, Mom and Dad weren't able to make the trip in May.  They were able to make the trip for my brother's retirement the week before Thanksgiving, but we weren't able to make the trip up to visit them.  So, it's a wash.  We didn't plan to stop to see them as we usually do on the train trip, because we'd anticipated seeing them in May.  Bummer.

Writing: PBOTL revision and completion of How To Revise Your Novel are my top writing priority.  I also plan to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year.

I participated in and won NaNo this year.  I did well with PBOTL until around May, then it got pushed aside for travel and other things, and I never got back to it.

Reading: I always have a goal of reading 50 books a year.  2012 has probably been my worst year for reading, and I doubt 2013 will be much better, but the goal remains 50 books.
I think I've achieved half my goal for reading, and I'm pleasantly surprised by that.

FM: I'm more active behind the scenes than I was at the beginning of the year.  I'm not much more active on the front end than I was before. With the transition to Joomla!, I've become the primary back end person.  I've created the test site but still haven't found the best way to get it configured to match the live site.  I plan to redo the FAQ. We need to figure out how to get chat logins integrated with the site login.  There are a few other problems people are complaining about that I have no idea how to resolve.

I've taken care of back end site problems and maintenance at Forward Motion.  Minimal participation up front. I converted the Vision site to the newer version of Joomla! for Zette, and it went live in, I think, late August.

Blogging and Internet Presence:  I'm mostly comfortable with my current blog schedule.  I skip a few days now and then.  I see few new readers and nearly no commenters.  I understand what they meant when they said blogging was dead, but I have no interest in making Facebook a blogging platform.  In fact, I refuse to do so.  I still value what we have here at Createslate as we begin our third year.

I participated in April A-Z this year on two sites and had little time to run around and check other sites.  I decided I wasn't going to participate next year, but I'm re-evaluating that idea.  Signing up for PLF and learning about marketing my writing -- as mediocre as I've been at applying my lessons -- has reminded me I must do better in getting quality words representative of my writing out there.  With time to prepare, I should be able to achieve that goal.


So.  A mixed bag for achieving this year's goals.  Time to begin considering what's realistic for next year. 

Let the sunshine in

Snow and ice here have kept me mostly confined to the house. I have a bit of cabin fever. Ready for the sun to melt the ice away. I just don't like winter. Never had.

Not much to tell you about my health. Not much progress, but no decline either. So that's good? Yes, good, and maybe I am a bit better each day. Just hard to see.

I did finish most of my Christmas cards today, all 64 of them, which is kind of silly. Better than last year when I sent 112. I do enjoy cards, though. Watching for the mail during December is something I look forward to. I hope to mail the cards tomorrow. Depends on whether I can get out of the house or not. If not, maybe my roomie will mail them for me.

This week is a busy one:
- Write and publish the family December newsletter.
- Writers group Saturday morning. This is our Christmas potluck dinner.
- Help a friend with her first book signing, also on Saturday morning.
- Attend the Hanging of the Green at the First United Methodist Church Sunday afternoon, which had to be rescheduled due to the bad weather.
- As many household chores as I can do.
- Christmas shopping. Going for cash and cards this year. Don't have the energy to shop. Of course, can't do that for the little ones who want toys, but Amazon to the rescue. Just have to make out a list and get organized.
- Continue to declutter my desk.
- Marketing for my books and the Many Rivers Harbor authors, particularly Red Bird Woman.
- Take more photos with my camera as I can.

Anyway, those are my plans. Hope you have a great week.

First snow

We've got about 4" of snow on the ground with the possibility of more tomorrow.

Good Stuff:
- I've got almost all my boxes filled. It's getting increasingly difficult to figure out what to pack given the fact that we still have Christmas here. I don't want to pack what we'll need but I don't want to leave too much for the end.
- I got back to words. It's always tricky to get back into the story after being away.
- I made and canned 5 quarts of turkey stock plus about a quart of turkey soup for dinner that night. I have a lot left over, especially since one quart didn't seal.
- Alex graduates next Saturday at 9-freaking-a.m. It's a formality, really, since he'll be staying there to do his Masters. Dad and Linda are coming, and then they're coming back to the house for a few days.
- I was grousing about my "new" jiggly bits to Eric today, and it turns out he likes my jiggly bits. So for now at least, even though I weigh what I did when I delivered Vicky, I'm going to focus on maintaining. Once we get settled I'll look at some kind of self-defense class. I've kinda got my pick in the new neighborhood. He's not worried, the doctor's not worried, I guess I shouldn't be either.
- I'm hanging out with my praise band peeps tomorrow. We've heading to St. Louis to see Josh Wilson in concert. He and one other guy put on a whole concert with a couple dozen different instruments and a loop machine thingy. A couple of us saw him last year, and when our leader heard he was going to be back this year she bought tickets for everyone.
- I've done most of my Christmas shopping online, and have gotten them in and wrapped. I'll be able to ship my mom's this week.

Not So Good Stuff:
- I've been watching too much TV in an effort to have noise in the house. For some reason I want speaking voices rather than music. I guess I could listen to talk radio, but that's all political. (Note to self: we have Pandora on the Roku. Maybe they have talkies that aren't political?)
- It's been harder to stay on task without the accountability of Eric coming home each night.
- Eric can't take the week of Christmas off. He doesn't have enough vacation to take more than 2 days, so he's leaving after work Christmas Eve for the long weekend.

This week:
- Barding gig on Friday before I leave for graduation. Need to learn Christmas stories.
- Get the house ready for company. At least I have turkey soup.
- Write.
- Pack for the night away. 

Have a good week, y'all.

Cold As Ice

We are in a bit of a chill.  Sneaky's water tower froze over, and I broke it.  Fortunately, we had another water tower in the garage, and I pulled it into service, but it's not likely to last long, even with the fleece dog coat wrapped around it.  We go to Temple on Tuesday, and I'll be looking for a replacement.  Other than that, it's been a week!

My MacBookPro arrived from China on Thursday afternoon, and I love it.  I did not love attempting to use Migration Assistant to migrate apps and data over from my MacMini.  In fact, I abandoned the effort after the fifth time when it managed to lose my user account and I couldn't even log in.  Which means I nearly bricked my brand new laptop.  Fortunately, Command-R and my TimeMachine backup I'd made of the unsullied machine the day before worked well, and I was back in business -- using the old-fashioned method of manually downloading all my apps and setting them up.  Fortunately, critical data is all on Dropbox, so once that was set up, data flowed to where it needed to be.  I installed the AppStore apps first (the once I wanted to put on this machine, anyway).  Then I checked licenses for the others to make sure I could install them on multiple machines and installed away.  I'm going to have to make a decision about mSecure.  They need a license for each machine, but if I buy again in the AppStore, I can use it on all my machines.  I'm not anxious to be beholden to the AppStore for my mission critical apps, but in this case, they seem to be driving customers in that direction.

The Good Stuff:

• I feel better this week than last.
• We seem to have found a balance for Lady being free of the cage and Rossie being free to move but putting Lady in the cage in the evening and overnight.  Rossie is downstairs more in the late evening, and she's out and about more upstairs during the day.  The other "kittens" are much more active around the house, too.  This looks like a long process to get Rossie's confidence up enough to work through this problem, but we're seeing progress.
• Based upon a post Erin made on Facebook, I'm trying a new app for the phone called Lift.  The idea is to use the app to establish new habits.  I chose to start with Decluttering and "Become a Writing Machine."  The first decluttering task was to clean out the closet, which I've just done, but it threw a wrench into things when it asked, "Do you really need all those T-shirts?"  Busted!  The first task for the Writing Machine was to define my audience -- a task I've been procrastinating on for a couple of months now.  
• Mr. L has been working on several projects in the master bathroom, and they're coming together -- installing a shaving mirror and new towel hooks by the shower got finished today.  He's still working on the device to hold the new light fixture that will mount above the new medicine cabinet he installed a few weeks ago.
• I'm evaluating off-site data storage services.  Stephen sent me an invite for Carbonite (thank you), but at the moment, I'm learning toward Crashplan+.  With my recent frustration with Time Machine, I'm more convinced than ever that I need one of these subscription services.
• Our local high school team goes to the semi-finals for the state championship next week.  We'll find out tonight if Alamo Heights will advance, too.  Exciting times in local football right now.  Hoping my Ohio State Buckeyes prevail this evening in the Big 10 Championship game.  I have no delusions of them winning the national championship should they be selected to compete for it, given their cupcake schedule and utter lack of defense, but one never knows what might happen with these things.  Last Saturday made for superb football, that's for sure.
• Christmas cards are addressed.  My goal is to get most of them out on Monday. I hope the Post Office has the "Holy Family" stamps -- those were beautiful last year.

The Not So Good Stuff: 

• Although I got my 750 words every day, I utterly failed to do any professional writing.  
• I did read and critique a draft for an on-line acquaintance.  I'm not sure I was tough enough on her, but she did admit she'd been taking shortcuts, and my commentary indicated she realized she couldn't get away with it.
• I'm not doing a good job focusing on my health.

The Week Ahead: 

• Get Christmas cards mailed out
• Do more research on computer backup services (I don't plan to buy until around February -- have a number of bills I need to take care of first).
• Work on my two "Lift" projects -- decluttering and writing.
• Prep for trip to SA -- need to make sure I bring all the right things.
• Order new checks
• Daphne, Delta, Ruby, and Rossie to the vet on Monday for shots
• Me to the doctor on Tuesday for semi-annual visit
• Call in for prescription refills late in the week so they'll be ready for pick up on my way to San Antonio next week
• Begin evaluating what I want to focus on for next year.

Time Passes By

Did you know it's December?  My, my, my.  Time does fly.  I'm feeling miserable this weekend -- a head, chest, and other kind of cold is trying to settle in.  But you don't want to hear about that.

The Good Stuff:

• Ummmmm.
• I finished NaNo.
• I'm seeing incrementally more of Rossie over the last couple of days. With Lady in the cage, I'm seeing more of Ruby and Delta, too.
• I used Apple's Black Friday gift card special to order a 15" Retina MacBookPro. I was going to buy it in late December or early January, and Apple never discounts their stuff.  I can use the $150 gift card to reduce the price of the new Mini whenever it's released.  I found a Hard Candy case on Amazon (regularly $60) for $12.
• The RandR Fiction Club newsletter is nearly ready to go.
• I learned a little more about how the Aweber stuff works by setting up a couple more lists -- one for regular Fiction Club members, which will go live on January 2 and another for blog posts subscriptions to Philosophical Meanderings.  I don't expect a lot of subscribers to that; it's a low traffic blog both for readers and postings.
• Our local high school team advanced to the quarterfinals in their quest to repeat as state champions in their class and division.  Surprisingly, Alamo Heights (our local high school in SA) is also in the chase for a state championship in their class and division.

The Not So Good Stuff:

• Ummmmm.
• Lady is confined to cage while I try to figure out how to reduce her aggressive behavior to the other  cats.  I feel terrible about this, even though it's a large cage and I let her out a couple of times a day in a more controlled area.  This was a long time coming on, and it will take some time to correct the situation, but at the moment, it appears the only solution may be to find a home for Lady where she can be the only cat.
• I "bricked" a 1TB portable hard drive I used for Time Machine backups of the Air when a firmware update failed.  The drive went out of warranty in May, so I'm just out of luck for that drive.  I ordered two new drives to go with the new laptop, and I'll have at least one of them serve double duty as a backup drive for the Air as well.

The Week Ahead:

• Ummmmm.
• Get Revolution applied to all the cats
• Prepare old manuscripts for review and analysis.  I found character sketches during NaNo and found a few I really liked, so I think it's time to blow the dust off the first drafts and put together a plan for the future.
• Rest as needed.  I'd like to feel better next week.
• After temperatures in the 30s last week, we can look forward to cozy 70s this week.