No, I didn’t write anything brilliant. I didn’t even write anything kind of okay. Except for the three sentences of this blog, I haven’t written anything today other than a shopping list for tomorrow. And although it could be said that the composition of the shopping list is an accomplishment (those things never write themselves after all), it wasn’t actually what I was going for. Nope, the accomplishment is not writing centric. I’ve not been swept away by a tidal wave of awesome sauce. My tide is still firmly out.
Stupid Rapture.
But I did accomplish something this morning. You know, besides getting out of bed before noon… (Note: this is a joke. I seldom sleep until noon, only doing so when I have pulled an all nighter and went to bed at 8am.)
I ran a 5k.
That’s right. I ran a 5k. Not like a road race with other people or anything. Just me and my Gator Girl running with the goal of reaching 3.1 miles, just to see if we could. I know she could. She ran all those miles this morning and has spent the afternoon running circles around Big and me. Big was exhausted just thinking about running 3.1 miles. I’ve been exhausted since running the 3.1 miles.
Oh yeah. I ran 3.1 miles. Without crying. Without dying. Without walking. Without stopping. I did it. And then, because my thirty minutes of running time weren’t quite up, I ran some more. Because, apparently, I am now crazy like that.
You know what this means? This means that, although I do fully intend to keep working on this goal, that should my shin splints decide to revolt tomorrow, that I can cross off one of my yearly goals.
I do love to accomplish goals. I think I shall celebrate with a rather large piece of chocolate cake.
Hey, look. It’s coming up on 3am and guess what I’m not doing. If you said ’sleeping’, you’d be correct. So I’m going to blog instead.
Technically, it’s Monday morning. The Vacation Week free-for-all has come to an end and a stillness should now settle over the Mount Washington Valley. I don’t wish to seem ungrateful to the all mighty tourism dollar, without which I would be unemployed, but I’m kind of glad the majority of them have cleared out. I can’t even tell you the number of times some out of state jackwagon came thisclose to hitting my car (you know, with me in it). Don’t other states have traffic laws or is New Hampshire somehow the only one? Our state motto is “Live free or die” and yet we still obey red lights and four way stops.
Well, some of us do.
The important part is I accomplished two of the three goals I set at the beginning of the week. And they were probably the most important goals to reach. First of all, I did not kill any of my co-workers or customers. And second of all, I did not hang myself during the screening of the Justin Bieber movie. This, of course, means that I have failed yet again to reach my writing goal. But really, I should have known better than to set a writing goal during the perfect storm of vacation weeks.
Sunday was a day off and not just from the day job but from pretty much everything. Heather and I went to the all you can eat breakfast buffet and then hit the movie theater for a double header. Heather worked a few shifts at the theater over vacation week so we got to see our movies for free. This was good because if I had paid money to see the first movie, Hall Pass, I would have been pissed.
And this is coming from the woman who paid good money to see Justin Bieber. in 3-D.
Hall Pass is not a good movie. Heather and I laughed for maybe the first twenty minutes but then it stopped being funny and started being very unfunny. Instead of laughing, we were just kind of cringing. I especially didn’t like Jenna Fisher and Christina Applegate in this movie. I don’t think it was their fault. I think it was the material. And I swear that the beach house on Cape Cod (in August) had snow on the ground. Which it shouldn’t have. And the snow might have been sand but it really looked like snow. Anyway, disappointing, very disappointing. But it’s a Farrelly Brothers film (which I didn’t actually realize until the end credits) so perhaps I just should’ve known.
The second movie we saw was the Liam Neeson thriller Unknown. This movie was better. Of course, it would have been hard not to be better. I’m not going to give away any of the plot details but I am going to say I didn’t realize that January Jones was such a bad actress. I haven’t seen her in anything else so I don’t know if it was just in this movie that she sucked or if she’s an all around bad actress. If you happen to have an opinion on this, feel free to let me know your thoughts. So yeah, Unknown wasn’t bad. I much preferred Liam Neeson in Taken. Between the two of them, Taken is the one I’d want to watch again.
I came home from the moviefest just in time to watch the Cowboys on the Amazing Race go from dead last to third place. Woo Hoo! And then it was time for the Oscars. I posted my picks for a few categories just before the telecast and ended up with a winning percentage of 71%. I was a little worried early on when I started off 0 for 3. James Franco didn’t seem all that interested in hosting the awards and Anne Hathaway, at times, seemed like she had downed an entire case of Red Bulls before hitting the stage. The opening bit was very funny though and contained two of my favorite lines. The first was Alec Baldwin accepting a capri sun-esque juice box of Ambien and saying, “Ambien! Don’t mind if I do!” And then a little later when Morgan Freeman appeared and said, “Alec likes me to narrate his dreams. He says I have a soothing voice.”
Hey, Morgan Freeman…I think you have a soothing voice too. If I ever get to sleep, wanna come and narrate my dreams too?
So that was last week. This is this week (how’s that for deep?) and I am going to get caught up (if such a thing actually exists) and maybe even a little bit ahead (try not to laugh too hard at the idea of me getting ahead. You could hurt yourself). It’s important that I accomplish things this week because this time next week, I’ll be sleepless in Florida. You know, just for a change.
Here’s hoping you all have wonderfully productive weeks. Until next time…
This is a reference to the success rate I experienced with the goals I set for myself at the beginning of last week. I set four goals. I accomplished three of them. Fell a little short on that last one but still, three out of four ain’t bad, is it?
Here’s what I set out to do:
1. Complete three 30 minute work outs. No matter how much lip I have to take from that stupid microchip. One of the yearly goals I set involved training for a 5K and working out will be a big step in that direction. I guess I could always run outside. It will be above freezing at some point this week. Or so they say.
I did this. I didn’t run outside although I did take the dogs for a walk outside because it was so nice and warm and it seemed a shame to not take them with me. And, if you read yesterday’s blog, you know I spent some time yelling rude things at my Wii trainer. As he greeted me with boundless enthusiasm this morning, I don’t think he noticed.
2. Take the cats to their vets. This is only a big deal because most cats are a pain in the ass to take to the vets. Vader is very easy to take to the vet, however, her doctor is an hour’s drive away and whenever we go, we seem to have a horrendous experience (diagnosis wise). Read about the worst of our visits (the one that inspired me to take her to a new vet an hour away) HERE. Fat Cat is an absolute terror to take to the vet. Her vet appointments have, on occasion, translated to an ER visit for me. The only thing I can reasonably hope for now is that she’s become too damn fat to move. That, or the doctor gives her some tranquilizers.
I managed to accomplish this and all parties involved managed to walk away with all appendages in tact. But if you’ve looked at this blog in the last few days, you would’ve known that already. Moving on…
3. Finalize Florida vacation plans. The Man’s grandparents winter down there and every year we say we’re going to go down for a visit. And every year something comes up that requires us to not go to Florida in the winter. One year it was the need to replace our washer and dryer. This year, however, we are going to make this trip a reality. And it (the plans) is going to happen this week.
We did this Saturday night. Everything’s planned and all that’s left is for my boss to approve my time off. If she doesn’t, I guess I’ll just quit…
4. Finish Schism. My WIP Second Nature is currently broken up into three sections. The first of these sections is Schism and I will finish writing it by the end of the week. This is going to require me to buckle down and work out some big problem chapters but I feel kind of confident that I can get this done.
I did not accomplish this goal. Of course it’s the writing goal, right? I had to write eight chapters in order to complete Schism and I finished six of them. I came damn close with the last two- well, actually, I can’t say that with any amount of certainty so I’ll just say that I worked hard on the last two but just couldn’t make them work in time.
This brings up an interesting conversation The Man and I were having this week. It deals with an announcement I’m not quite ready to make (or even totally commit to) but the gist of the conversation was The Man’s point of view that if I claim to have done my best and yet haven’t reached the goal I set out to reach, I haven’t done my best, have I?
And, to be totally honest, I didn’t do my best with this particular writing goal this particular week. There were a lot of distractions (so many new blogs, so little time) and I didn’t budget my time well enough.
But I don’t know if I like the all encompassing idea that my best isn’t my best if I don’t achieve what I set out to do. Isn’t it possible to do your absolute best with something (as judged by yourself, I suppose, because only you would know) but still fall short? Or am I just trying to give myself an out for future failures?
Anyone else confused yet?
Here are the new goals for this week:
1. Do not kill any customers or co-workers who managed to get on my nerves this week.
It’s vacation week in the Mount Washington Valley and for the first time in like a decade, Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts are on school vacation the same week. Normally, this is spread out over the course of two weeks so while it’s rather busy, it’s manageable. This week will be like some kind of perfect storm of people and will be so busy that The Store even put me on the schedule. We’ll be tired, we’ll be busy, kids will be running and screaming, tempers will be short and blood pressures will be high. I hereby resolve to NOT kill anyone.
2. Do not hang myself during the viewing of Never Say Never: The Justin Bieber Story.
Is that even what it’s called? I honestly don’t know. But the fact remains that I’m taking my niece to see the Justin Bieber movie this week. In 3-D. Did you know that this damn movie is one hour and forty five minutes long? How is Justin Bieber old enough to justify a nearly two hour movie?
3. Finish Schism. Or die trying.
Two chapters to go. Maybe between work and Justin Bieber, I’ll find the time to get them done.
So that does it for me today. I have to take the dogs outside because The Man is refusing to do it because it’s cold. No, this doesn’t make me want to kick him very hard somewhere very sensitive. Not at all.
Happy Monday, all. May you all have productive weeks.
*Warning: I was up all night long and haven’t gone to bed yet. This means I’ve been up for a good thirty hours now. This means this blog will be kind of rambling and potentially senseless. Enjoy!*
It was very windy last night in the Mount Washington Valley. This is nothing new. It seems that ever since Joe gave the go ahead for Marie to take down our trees (A long story. A long and bitter story.), the wind blows much harder for much longer than it used to. When it does this at night, it makes our bedroom really rather loud and some times, it makes it hard to fall asleep.
Of course, when you’re an insomniac who can’t turn off her brain, the wind doesn’t much matter.
I pulled the plug on that whole sleeping thing at about two in the morning when I found myself getting angry at Joe and the dogs for all being soundly asleep. The dogs were snoring. Unrelated side note: it’s adorable when the Gator Girl is snoring. It really is. She can be so dainty about some things (including snoring) that you can some times forget (some times) what a bruiser she is the rest of the time.
Anyway, I was irrationally angry and went downstairs to my office to try and work.
I love my office, I do. It’s an entire room devoted to writing and other awesome things. And it’s only going to get more awesome from here because soon (and I mean like tomorrow soon), I’ll be the proud owner of a big ass bulletin board. I ordered it last night online and for whatever reason (a gift horse whose mouth I did not check out), I’m getting free two day shipping. It’s a 6′x4′ bulletin board that I’m going to put on the one open wall in my office. I have another bulletin board, next to my desk. This one’s much smaller and is currently covered with a few pictures of family and friends, some flair (my brother and sister-in-law always find me the most awesome flair), a letter received from a past student (one actually validating my effectiveness as an educator) and a variety of other trinkets with a variety of back stories. I think Joe is concerned that the new board will just become a much larger version of this one. And it won’t. At least I don’t think so. The new board is supposed to become my big giant storyboard on which things vital to the construction of my fantasy world and the story that takes places within it will be posted.
Have I mentioned how very excited I am about this?
I also ordered that new bookcase to be placed in the living room. I don’t have a shortage of books, not by any means, but the problem here will be deciding which books will be placed upon it. My books are very specifically organized. Well, they’re getting less organized by the minute as the stacks grow more precarious, but I definitely have a system. Everything needs to be arranged by genre first. And then height. Then author. Then the year published and so on and so forth.
My books in my classroom where arranged this way. The kids quickly learned how crazy it made me when I’d come in in the morning to find things out of order. I don’t want to suggest that they perhaps took advantage of my little OCD-ness but yeah, they totally did. Adorable little snot rags. Precious youth.
Another story about my book sorting obsession that doesn’t at all make me seem like a crazy dictator person with whom no one should be forced to live: When we first moved to the Mount Washington Valley, my family came to help us unpack and while I was on a food run, my mother set herself to unpacking my books onto an empty bookcase. This made Joe very nervous.
“You shouldn’t touch her books,” he told my mother. “She likes them arranged a certain way and you shouldn’t touch them. She’ll be mad. She’ll think I did it and she’ll be mad.”
So what if I had packed the books in boxes by genre and author and publication date? Is that really so wrong? But, in all honesty, I wouldn’t have been mad. Probably wouldn’t have been mad. Just driven to correct the situation as quickly as possible.
My mother assured him she was just trying to get rid of boxes and I could rearrange them later when she was done. I should say my mother tried to assure Joe of this but he wasn’t having any of it. That’s why, when I returned home with our dinner spread, I was greeted at the door by my mother who said, “I touched your books. Not Joe. He told me not to touch them but I just put them on the shelves for you so I could get rid of the boxes and-”
It was then that I realized I had a problem.
Not that I’ve made any steps toward correcting this problem. I like my books how I like my books.
I’m leaning toward putting nice trade paperbacks and hardcover novels on this new bookshelf because they’ll look the nicest and anyone who comes into the house could be looking at them. I’m not trying to impress people with the novels I read. How could I? I’ve very well documented the amount of time I’ve spent reading what some would consider to be embarrassing literature. But the hardcovers and the trade paperbacks will look nice in that case. The vampire romance novels will be hidden in my closet… that’s not true. But they will be stashed upstairs where guests never go.
And we’re moving on…
After my shopping spree last night, I started to write. In order to complete the goal I set at the beginning of the week, I need to finish writing eight chapters (eight chapters? Really? I didn’t realize it was that many when I set this goal. That’s a lot, isn’t it? What the hell was I thinking?). By the end of the night, I still hadn’t finished any but I was 1,000 words closer to it. This is good. This is very good. It’s been so long since Productivity and I have shared the same air space, I almost didn’t recognize it. I had to pull the plug on things at quarter past six when the sleepy trio got up but still, 1,000 words.
I’m going to say it again: 1,000 words.
Suddenly, I didn’t mind having stayed up all night long. I’ve spent the last few hours getting errands and chores taken care of and out of the way (not to mention writing this blog) but I am now ready to spend the rest of the afternoon either asleep at this desk or pounding out another 1,000 words.
Let’s hope for the latter.
One last thing to share before I go…Here’s the conversation I had with Joe this morning:
Him: Happy Valentine’s Day.
Me: That was yesterday.
Him: Really?
Me: Don’t worry. You bought me some very nice presents about which I am embarrassingly excited.
Him: Well, that was nice of me.
Me: Yes, it certainly was.
I shall post pictures of my office space (why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam?) later in the week or the start of next week should the writing ninja in me hijack my body and force it to do nothing but write.
Before I get to the goal setting portion of today’s blog, there’s a little seasonal business to be dealt with first. I don’t know if you’ve heard but today is Valentine’s Day. A lot of the blogs that I’ve read today have mentioned it in one form or another and for a while, I wanted to weigh in on the topic of love in literary form. But as I am currently planning to use this topic as part of my A to Z Blogfest this April (and not under the letter ‘L” either), that idea is out.
Several blogs are posting romantic bits of their WIPs. There’s a blogfest of Love At First Sight where you post an excerpt of your novel where the two who are the two first meet. I thought about doing that because I really do love the scenes where my main characters first meet in Effigy and Vinnie And Ellie ( a working title that I do not like, by the way). But they’re rather long, too long to put in a blog, I think, and so I’m not going to do that. Vinnie and Ellie’s cute meet is posted on my site (just follow the link above) so if you’d like to check it out, please do.
So that leaves me with just wishing everyone out there a happy Valentine’s Day. We’re rather low key about it in our house. So low key in fact that we don’t do anything and Joe completely forgot about it. I honestly forgot about it too. I generally send out cards to my nieces and godchildren and completely spaced on it. Sorry, kids. I’ll probably remember Easter… probably.
Joe and I don’t do the gift giving thing either. His gift to me this year was not groaning audibly last night when I ordered yet more books from Amazon. I’m thinking about stretching that generosity to another online order today…not for more books but for a new bookcase and a large bulletin board to hang in my office. I have a big empty wall that’s just screaming for a big empty bulletin board. That would be my gift to him…the gift of a bookcase (which he would have to assemble) on which to put the mountains of paperbacks I have all over the place. And when he’s done with that, he can hang my new giant bulletin board.
Hmm…maybe I should make him some lasagna or something to go along with that.
Anyway, onward and upward, right? Let’s talk goals. I set goals at the start of every year. Goals that will, with any luck, be completed by the end of the year. These goals I’m going to list below are meant to be completed by the end of the week.
1. Finish Schism. My WIP Second Nature is currently broken up into three sections. The first of these sections is Schism and I will finish writing it by the end of the week. This is going to require me to buckle down and work out some big problem chapters but I feel kind of confident that I can get this done.
2. Take the cats to their vets. This is only a big deal because most cats are a pain in the ass to take to the vets. Vader is very easy to take to the vet, however, her doctor is an hour’s drive away and whenever we go, we seem to have a horrendous experience (diagnosis wise). Read about the worst of our visits (the one that inspired me to take her to a new vet an hour away) HERE. Fat Cat is an absolute terror to take to the vet. Her vet appointments have, on occasion, translated to an ER visit for me. The only thing I can reasonably hope for now is that she’s become too damn fat to move. That, or the doctor gives her some tranquilizers.
3. Complete three 30 minute work outs. No matter how much lip I have to take from that stupid microchip. One of the yearly goals I set involved training for a 5K and working out will be a big step in that direction. I guess I could always run outside. It will be above freezing at some point this week. Or so they say.
4. Finalize Florida vacation plans. Joe’s grandparents winter down there and every year we say we’re going to go down for a visit. And every year something comes up that requires us to not go to Florida in the winter. One year it was the need to replace our washer and dryer. This year, however, we are going to make this trip a reality. And it (the plans) is going to happen this week.
Anyone else setting any goals this week? Enjoy your Valentine’s Day, or enjoy hating it, the way some people do. Until next time…
I know I said in my last post that I’d be publishing my new set of goals yesterday but white wine is an evil thing (at least it is when you drink as much of it as I did on New Year’s Eve) and both Joe and I were a little too challenged by the vertical aspects of life on New Year’s Day to do much of anything other than cry like little hungover babies. As a result, I didn’t quite get that 2011 goal list done. So I’m doing it today. Better late than never, right?
I had been hoping to add ‘make better decisions’ to my list this year but as I ushered in 2011 with the decision to open that fourth bottle of wine (bad, bad idea) followed by today’s decision to use my 50% off coupon at Borders to buy yet another vampire romance novel instead of my copy of 2011 Writer’s Market (I honestly forgot. I am ashamed of myself) I might do better to leave that whole decision making thing off the list completely.
Because, as I discussed last time, 2011 is all about rebuilding my sense of self confidence. I really think I ht rock bottom in 2010 whereas self confidence is concerned. At least I hope I hit rock bottom because I’d hate to think I could actually feel worse about myself. Yes, my sense of self worth is in the toilet. Actually, it’s probably more in the u-bend so yeah, I’d like to improve that.
Originally, I thought I’d set goals like “get out of bed every morning” because since I don’t like it when the dogs use my carpet as a toilet, there’s a good chance I will, in fact, get out of bed every morning (although I was sorely tempted to skip the whole rise and shine thing yesterday) all year long and, come December 31st, I would have achieved one of my goals.
But as this year is about ego boosting and whatever, I think it’s important that I set quality goals. No gimme goals. This is risky because if I can’t pull it out, I’m going to be in big trouble a year from now. The other problem is I have no idea what goals I should set because I was really committed to that whole gimme list until I actually started working on this blog.
Maybe that means I haven’t quite given up on myself yet. Oh Happy Day.
So I guess, first things first, I need a writing goal and that goal should be to come up with a game plan or a business plan or whatever it should be called. I am going to come up with a strategy to get myself and my work to the next level. I am going to research the possible paths. I am going to pick a path and I am going to stick with the path. Now I feel nauseated and I don’t think it’s the white wine’s fault.
What if I pick the wrong path?
Great. Now I can’t breathe. Where’s that paper bag my wine came in?
All right…distraction. Let’s think of other goals.
2. Train to run a 5K. I don’t necessarily want to run a 5K but I’d like to know I’m capable of running a 5K. I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing this but I’ll Google it. Or something.
3. Read books I haven’t read before. I am notorious for re-reading books but this year I am not going to do that. I am only going to read new-to-me books. The only exception to this rule will be the re-reading of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows this July before I go see the second half of the movie.
4. Participate in NaNoWriMo 2011. I know my 2010 project was not what I had hoped it would be but I will not let that stop me from trying for a three-peat.
5. Continue to work on that de-cluttering project, starting with the walk-in closet that has just become a catch all for things we no longer wear. I will follow it up by trying to solve my lack of book shelves problem. And then, after that, who the hell knows.
All right. So there they are. My five goals for 2011. Well, make that six goals. I’m adding one more:
Do NOT usher in 2012 with four bottles of wine. Or three bottles of wine. Or two bottles of wine for that matter.
2010 was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be MY year. It was supposed to not suck as much as it did. Things were supposed to happen. You know, good things. Great things, even. I was a wide eyed optimist last January who set five bold goals for herself and was spouting the philosophy “aim big or go home.” And then the Powers That Be decided to punch me in the gut and then kick me while I was down.
So no, I didn’t experience the rousing success for which I’d be hoping. This means that tomorrow, when I post my new list of goals for the year, you’ll probably see a much different kind of list. 2011 is going to be an ego building year for Team Me because this year, the Fates handed our asses to us (much like the Patriots did to the Buffalo Bills last week).
So here we go…this is now the part when I look at each individual goal and tell you where I ended up with it. And I’m going to tell you right now, it’s not going to look as bad as the first two paragraphs probably make it out to be. It’s definitely not going to be that bad. It’s just my two big writing goals I set didn’t work out the way I’d hoped and well, as this blog has discussed before, and surely will discuss again, as goes my writing goes my mood. The goals I set are listed below in italics. My analysis of them follows.
1. Finish Second Nature. Specifically, my goal is to finish the book by the end of October. I’ve decided to work NaNoWriMo style, which means I’ve set myself a specific number of words to hit by the end of October. This goal is 200,000 words, based on the fact that Effigy is approximately 195,000 words and the first draft of Second Nature was longer than that story was (this goal can fluctuate as needed, of course). This gives me 304 days in which to work. The word count goal is 658 words a day. Of course, if there is any movement on Effigy, all bets are off.
And boy, did I not complete this goal. Not only did I not finish this manuscript, I didn’t even hit the 200,000 word mark. I came close though. I finished at a little over 190,000 words which is still a helluva lot of words to write in the ten months I allotted myself but I am, overall, very disappointed with myself for not having done better.
2. Read 100 books. Other people have done it and now I want to do it too. I finished up with about sixty five books last year. I would have done better but I had that whole Jane Austen thing going on in April and May. I will not have that Jane Austen millstone around my neck this year so I am optimistic. But, once again, should there be any movement on Effigy, all bets are off.
All right. This one I actually accomplished. I was in doubt for a while but then The Store gave me the bestest holiday bonus ever: the gift of no payroll. Not having to go to work was a huge help. The 100th title was Gillian Flynn’sSharp Objects. A very worthy 100th book.
3. Participate in NaNoWriMo 2010. My first experience with this project was a success and, ultimately, a lot of fun so I fully intend to sign up for a second go. This is a big reason why I intend to finish Second Nature by the end of October.
Yeah. So technically I did do this one. I did participate in NaNoWriMo. And technically, I was a NaNoWriMo winner for the second straight year. Go me. However, the project did not turn out as well as I had hoped it might and once again, I was left feeling rather disappointed with my performance. This year was supposed to be so different. Sigh.
4. Try yoga. It seems like it’ll be a good thing to try out. I was hoping to have a Nintendo Wii and a Wii Fit to help me with this goal but as that has not happened yet, I suspect I’ll be going out to get myself a nice video because I do not want to go to an actual yoga class.
Fine, I accomplished this goal too. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you probably recall the early battles I had with my Wii Fit. But I did start doing yoga and actually kind of like it. When we were traveling to Las Vegas in June, I was doing yoga in the airport while we waited for our flights. This prompted Joe to call me a health nut. This, by the way, I am most certainly not. I’m a brownie addict who just happens to strike a yoga pose every now and again.
5. De-clutter. I don’t really know what to write here. There’s clutter in the house and I want to change that. I’ll go through the closets and get rid of the clothing we haven’t worn in years. I’ll clean out the basement of the boxes we put in there almost ten years ago when we moved into this house. I’ll track down the dining room table. I know I had one once. It was nice.
Well, see, here’s the thing…I did kind of de-clutter the house. I didn’t finish de-cluttering the house but I did get some done. I even managed to find that dining room table. Of course now the cats are pretty much living on it but at least it’s not under a pile of junk any more, right?
And there you have it. My almost total lack of success on display for the world to see. The positive thing I am taking away from this experiment…I’m definitely going to do better next year. It would be almost impossible not to…
Have a happy and safe New Year’s. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do…
Well, it’s Monday and time has run out for me and my latest set of weekly goals. As you can probably guess from the title of this blog, I didn’t quite experience the success of the week before. It happens. The important thing is that the Red Sox beat the Yankees last night.
Here is what I set out to accomplish last week:
1. Get the new look for my website and blog up and running. So don’t panic if, one day, you show up here and everything’s new. You’re not in the wrong place. I just needed a change.
2. Cross the 80K word mark in Second Nature. I feel like this is the goal that’s going to kill me this week. Especially because of that website goal. Oh well. Aim big or go home, right?
3. Work out on the Wii Fit at least three times this week. Attempt the possibly scary jackknife challenge.
4. Read a trashy bodice ripping romance novel.
5. Get the snow tires taken off my car and the regular season tires put back on. Have the oil changed at the same time.
Here’s how I actually did:
I worked out on my Wii Fit three times. My workouts seems to be getting longer. I even did the Island Lap run which is a fifteen minute run around the lovely island paradise. I find it interesting that when I’m running in place in my living, yet my Mii is running up an incline, I somehow feel as though running is harder. I yelled at my Mii running guide a couple of times to avoid the stupid hill. He/She didn’t. Stupid Mii. I also attempted the jackknife challenge. The challenge is to complete more jackknife reps than your Wii Fit trainer. I won but only because I think the program is designed to let you win. You know, build up your confidence that it works to tear down in other areas on the program. It also gypped me of two of my jackknife reps because I started a split second before I was supposed too. But whatever. I’m not totally keeping score or am totally bitter about that or anything.
I read a trashy, bodice ripping romance novel. If you read my March book report, you’ll have seen it there at the end. Susan Johnson writes great bodice ripping romance novels. She’s my favorite.
And I managed to get the snow tires taken off the car. I also managed to get the oil changed at the same time. And better yet, I got Joe to do it for me. The place where I usually have these things done apparently moved, far far away from me to some unknown location, so I asked Joe to bring it to the place where he brings his car. I asked him to do it because the people at his place know him and like him and are always weird when I go in. Like this one time, Joe had a nail in his tire and it went flat or was going flat or whatever and so the guys patched the tire for him. He paid with his debit card. Fast forward a week and I was the one with a flat tire. Joe dropped it off at the place to have it patched and I went to pick it up. I tried to pay with my debit card but the guys refused to take it, saying they don’t accept debit cards for a job so small. I had to go to the ATM to get cash so I could get my tire back. I was not amused. So, I had Joe bring my car down to get this latest work done on it. Less hassle. Any time you can get by with less hassle, is a good time, right?
And that’s it for the goals I accomplished. Here’s what happened with the other two goals:
First of all, the new website is pretty much ready to go live. I have to create a few more pages but all the really vital pages are up and running. But, in order for it to actually go live, I need the help of Joe, my code monkey and tech guru. He’s the one who actually needs to make it go live because I honestly have no idea what’s even involved in such a thing. And when Joe asked me, “When do you want me to do this?” and I answered “Now would be great”, he apparently didn’t think I meant now now. He thought I meant later. But since he is a busy guy and he did nicely take my car to the car place, we’ll give him a pass this time…
And then there’s the writing goal. Reach the 80,000 word mark in Second Nature. I came close. I came really, really close. I ended up at 79,084 words. In my defense, I think if the Red Sox had not been playing the Yankees last night, I probably would have written the remaining 916 words. Had the Red Sox not managed to turn a loss into a very exciting win, I probably would have written the remaining 916 words. But at it was, the Red Sox did play the Yankees last night and while they were down 5-0 in the third freaking inning, they managed to turn it around in a very exciting fashion to come back and win it 9-7. And while my poor Jacoby Ellsbury didn’t get a hit, he’s still as adorable as ever. But still, hey, I’ve written 79,084 words. I’m still 17,000 words ahead of my monthly writing goals. That’s a hell of a lot of fiction. Some of it might even be good! Might be.
So that’s that. The goal recap. I am going to refrain from setting goals this particular week because there is some other stuff I need to do that gets overlooked when I’m on a goal quest (housework, for example…). And, as far as writing goes, I need to stop creating for a little while. I have a bunch of plot lines that are (just to warn you, I am going to attempt a traffic themed metaphor here. It may or may not work out, but I just wanted to let you know my intentions beforehand, just in case) running red lights and stop signs and careening into other plot lines. They’re supposed to intersect, of course, but they were supposed to do so in a civilized, non California roll, obey the rules of polite traffic society kind of way. So now I need to go in there and start sifting through the wreckage and see if I can’t get everybody safely back on the storyline road.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I hope everyone out there had a lovely holiday weekend and didn’t overindulge in their Easter candy. I did…I had a few too many peeps. They’re so bad, they’re good. And hey, I bet today they’re on clearance…
At least I think it’s seventy five percent. There’s another reason why I fancy myself a writer and not a mathematician. But I’m sure if I’ve done the math wrong, one of you out there will let me know so I can make the necessary corrections.
The seventy five percent (or possible seventy five percent) is in reference to the goals I set myself at the start of last Monday. Four things I wanted to have completed by the start of this Monday. They were:
1. Work out on the Wii Fit at least three times for thirty minutes each time.
2. Get the Gator Girl to clear an eleven foot broad jump. Weather permitting, of course.
And I completed three of those goals. Thus the seventy five percent. I’m pretty sure that’s right. The math, I mean. I know I completed three of the four goals.
I worked out on the Wii three times. I ran yesterday. My Wii guide was one of the Wii dogs. I don’t know if that means I did well. I did so well on the jackknife exercise that I was able to unlock the new exciting jackknife challenge. I have no idea what the jackknife challenge entails but I’m looking forward to soon finding out. At least I think I am…is there such a thing as Ab Splints? I guess I’ll find that out too…
I crossed the 70,000 word mark on Second Nature. Just barely, mind you, but I made it over that line. I’m working on some back story for one of my central male leads, the one who has been missing for a good chunk of time now. It’s been an interesting journey and I’m curious to see where I end up. I’m hoping I’ll find my protagonist at the end of it.
I also finished reading The Keepers of Sulbreth by Susan Gourley and The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner. Now I need to read a happy book. Maybe a nice trashy romance novel.
Thus, by process of elimination, that would mean the goal I did not complete this week was teaching the Gator Girl to complete a eleven foot broad jump. I’d like to place the blame on the weather. We had a couple of days of wind and rain and a little spitting snow. Then we had one really bad day of wind and more wind and standing outside was like what I imagine standing in a sandstorm to feel like. There was one relatively warm and sunny day but I thought the back yard was still too wet for broad jumping. The Gator Girl tears up the lawn when it’s not soft and mushy so I thought we might be better off waiting a little bit longer. Instead, we worked on bite work in the living room. I received some spectacular bruises but certainly not my most impressive ones ever. I really need to get some better padding.
So, there you have it. I like setting goals. I also simultaneously hate setting goals because then I become demon possessed about achieving said goals. But I suppose that is a good thing. What good is it to set goals if you don’t give a damn about reaching them?
That said, here are my goals for this coming week:
1. Get the new look for my website and blog up and running. So don’t panic if, one day, you show up here and everything’s new. You’re not in the wrong place. I just needed a change.
2. Cross the 80K word mark in Second Nature. I feel like this is the goal that’s going to kill me this week. Especially because of that website goal. Oh well. Aim big or go home, right?
3. Work out on the Wii Fit at least three times this week. Attempt the possibly scary jackknife challenge.
4. Read a trashy bodice ripping romance novel.
5. Get the snow tires taken off my car and the regular season tires put back on. Have the oil changed at the same time.
Anyway, I hope everyone out there had a pleasant weekend. Happy Monday…
I’m pleased to announced we all survived the weekend. Joe’s gone back to work and I’m getting back to my routine (or such as it is). I haven’t written in days now so the incredible shrinking word count in continuing to do just that. My cushion was down to 13,500 words as of this morning. This time, however, life did get in the way. But, before anyone take offense, it was totally worth it.
Saturday, I took the Gator Girl down to obedience class. It was warm, really warm, like near seventy degrees warm, and so we went to the local high school to work on their athletic fields. You know, the ones right next to the signs saying “No Dogs Allowed On School Grounds”…And who happened to drive by (twice) as we were working? The police. He stopped and watched us for a while but didn’t say anything. One theory is that there were eight German Shepherds and two Belgian Malinois out in the field (out of a class of eleven dogs total) and he thought he might be better served staying in the car. It should be noted that while some of the dogs have bite training (more on that in a minute), they are not vicious dogs (more on that in a minute too). Another theory is that the cops don’t care if we’re on the fields…the school department does. Plus, we’re responsible dog people who clean up after their dogs.
After the obedience portion of the class (in which the Gator Girl totally flunked the portion which required her to sit still for thirty seconds), six of the German Shepherds, the two Malinois (the Gator Girls) and one Briard stayed after to do some Ring Sport training.
For those of you not familiar with Ring Sport, it’s a three part competition sport in the dog world, most popular with German Shepherds, Belgian Shepherds (I’m putting Gators into this group), Rotties, Pit Bulls, Dobies…you know, your typical police/protection dogs. The Briard is also an occasional competitor as is the Bouvier des Flanders. The three parts are as follows:
Part One: Obedience. This includes exercises such as heeling off leash, healing while wearing a muzzle, distance commands (you stand at one end of the field, your dog waits at the other and you shout (or signal) things like “Sit!” or “Down” and they perform whatever task while staying in a certain area (creeping is bad), food refusal (you throw food right at the dog and he or she does not eat it. If a piece of food should happen to land in the dog’s mouth, the dog is required to spit it out.), and retrievals.
Part Two: Agility. This includes exercises such as the high jump (the competition height is around four feet), the broad jump (the competition length starts at like 9 and a half feet…the Gator Girl has done ten feet successfully) and the palisades. The palisades is particularly awesome. It’s a wall, starting at around five feet and has a maximum height of seven and a half feet. The dog runs straight at the wall and literally scales the wall and then jumps off the other side. It’s pretty awesome to see. The Gator Girl does not know how to do this yet. Yes, I said ‘yet’. It is my intention to teach her this exercise although I know that teaching her to scale a seven foot wall could possibly come back to bite me in the ass. And speaking of being bitten in the ass..
Part Three: Protection. This is bite work. This is where some poor schlup (in my house, it’s always me) puts on some padding and stands there while someone (in our house, usually Joe but Heather’s done this too) sends the dog to attack the poor schlup. There are distance attacks and escape attempts on the schlup’s (more commonly referred to as ‘decoys’) and one exercise called “defensive handler.” I found a pretty good video of this on youtube:
The Gator Girl hasn’t learned this particular exercise yet either. But we’re working on it.
But now, here comes the disclaimer: the dogs in our group who work on this do it for fun. They’re not hard core protection dogs. They’re family pets first and foremost. There are people who have dogs just to compete in ring sport trials but we are not among them. You can give the Gator Girl the attack command and unless someone’s standing around wearing a bite sleeve or another target, she’s not going to do anything. I know this for a fact because I constantly command her to attack Joe and she never does. It’s the same with all the dogs in our group. The dogs love the work, they love the game. None of them are mean or vicious. None of them are maneaters.
That said, that’s what we worked on after obedience class on Saturday. We did some bite training. The Gator Girl performed admirably. I was proud of her, particularly because in the past she’s had some performance anxiety about working with people who are not her mommy and daddy.
Anyway, Sunday I went to Chuck E. Cheese’s with two of my girlfriends and my godchildren. If I knew how to post a picture in this blog, I would do so at this time. If you’re one of my Facebook friends, you can see one of my profile. We had a great time. We eat pizza and play skeeball and whatever other games are around, but mostly skeeball, because I don’t suck at it and the kids usually end up with a significant amount of tickets to exchange for prizes at the end of the day. This trip, I managed to hit the 450,000 point mark which earned me an extra 250 ticket bonus. Lights flashes, alarms went off, it was embarrassing. But the kids loved it so that too was worth it. A particular highlight for me was reading the story my goddaughter is working on. It, too, was pretty awesome and I absolutely loved reading it. She says it’s not done yet, that she still has more to write, and I honestly can’t wait to read more.
And now we’re back to Monday. And now I’m back to trying to reach my goals.
First of all, I have to report that I have achieved one of the goals I set for myself back in January. No, not the one about finishing Second Nature (didn’t you see the incredible shrinking word count thing?) and no, not the one about de-cluttering the house (Sorry Joe. I know you were hoping.). Nope, the goal I reached was the one about trying yoga.
And I have my brand spanking new Wii Fit to thank for it.
I managed to track one down at the local Wal Mart after quite a while of waiting and waiting so now I can be verbally harassed and abused by a piece of machinery in my own home (Note to the Wii Fit: Stop groaning every time I step on you. I’m not that heavy.). I’ve started using it, about a half hour a day, about three days a week (depends on what else is going on, you know?) and I always start with yoga. I’ve done the sun salutation, tree, half moon, warrior and chair poses. I think I’ve tried a couple more but I can’t remember. Every now and then, I add a new one. If the Gator Girl or Big is around, there are some poses I just can’t do because I will end up being on the bottom of a Shepherd Smackdown so mostly I focus on the ones that will not end up with me underneath two hundred pounds of dog. But it still counts.
I have achieved one of my goals. Good for me.
But that leaves me with a whole bunch more to work toward…so I’m going to leave you and get to it.
Here are my goals for the week:
1. Work out on the Wii Fit at least three times for thirty minutes each time.
2. Get the Gator Girl to clear an eleven foot broad jump. Weather permitting, of course.
I know I said in my last post that I’d be publishing my new set of goals yesterday but white wine is an evil thing (at least it is when you drink as much of it as I did on New Year’s Eve) and both Joe and I were a little too challenged by the vertical aspects of life on New Year’s Day to do much of anything other than cry like little hungover babies. As a result, I didn’t quite get that 2011 goal list done. So I’m doing it today. Better late than never, right?
