Continuing with the elephant eating theme (see this post for explanation), I have written down my plans for the remainder of the first quarter of 2021. After feeling so bad for the five years I decided I could self-treat my hypothyroidism, and then everything that happened last year (The Unluckiest Girl on the Planet?), I’ve set what I feel are seven reasonable goals.

Rocky didn’t make it to the top of the stairs the first time he tried. And while I have some pretty lofty goals when it comes to my writing, I first need to firmly reestablish my writing routine. And I think I’m going to give myself through the end of March to set that sucker in stone.

The very non-specific list I’ve pinned to the corkboard that’s right in my face when I’m sitting at my desk covers a lot of ground…

Very professional, isn’t it? 🙂

It also keeps me focused on how much time I really have in a day. I can’t write for half the day, then hope to have time to do editing, outlining for future books, character creation, and dealing with social media. Not if I want a life outside the office anyway. So, working from this, I’ll figure out my schedule for the last three quarters of 2021. And as you can see from the sixth item on the list, I intend to be working a lot more than the four hours I’ve allotted myself right now, so the Pomodoro Technique is going to be more important than ever.

That’s not just to get me moving, but because it wakes me up and helps me to focus. Plus, I agree with the experts who think that moving for five minutes every half hour (for most waking hours) is actually healthier than walking for an hour every day. But like everything else on the goal list, I’m going to work up to the twice an hour thing. I am, after all, the genius who thought she cracked a rib after working out so hard in the pool – because it didn’t feel like working out. Nope. It felt like fun. And so, I pulled some muscles. Badly.

Anyway, I’m so enthused about getting back into it, I might even start up my Five for Fitness Facebook group again, if anyone is interested in joining me. 

I’m also enthused about the new series. I’ve already finished the first drafts – mostly – for two books. However, having deleted some scenes in each one, and changing the timing, the second one needs some changing so I can release it as a Christmas in July story (but it will still be set in the winter)

I’ve also finished the prequel. I need to go over it one more time … and then I’ll be giving it away for free to newsletter subscribers. I just need to finish setting up the new newsletter, and then I’ll have a link for it here on my website.

And…

I’m training a personal assistant, and she will be setting up a Pinterest page for the series for me. Once that’s done, I’ll share the link here so you can all check it out, and meet the stars of each story. 

But… I’ve rambled long enough. It’s time to get some more work done tonight. Hope you’re as excited about the new leaf I’m turning over in 2021 as I am. If things go as planned, I should have eight new books out by the end of the year! 

And speaking of books, did you know that most of them are finally available in paperbacks? And seven of the Coach’s Boys series are available as audio books? At least I think it’s seven.  By the way, the link above ^^^ is an affiliate link. Learn more about that by clicking here.

Now I’ll leave you with what I adopted as my theme song the first time I heard it. If you’ve read many of my posts, you’ve heard it before. 🙂

I’ve been wishing the Ghost of Christmas Past would pay me a visit. Not really. I would never wish for a visit from a ghost. But the thought does make for a good opening line, doesn’t it? 

It would be nice, though,  if my dreams could whisk me back to some of the most special times in my life. Especially if I could remember them when I wake up.

I’ve been thinking about when I was a kid since reading something from one of my uncles on Facebook yesterday. And I’ve been remembering Christmases past, the same as everyone else who saw the post. Not just that though. There were picnics and pot lucks. Hot summer afternoons swimming and water skiing. Softball games and countless other reasons to just hang out together.

When I was a kid, I had two sets of grandparents and  fifteen aunts and uncles, not counting the ones who married in to both sides of the family. Technically, I had four more aunts, and another uncle, but they were from a grandfather’s remarriage – and those kids were a lot younger than my parents, more like cousins. That’s how I always think of them anyway.

And lets not even delve too deeply into the cousin situation. There are like three generations of us. I was in the middle group, and never particularly close to the oldest ones. But I did make a fair amount of money babysitting their kids when I was a teenager. I was never really close to the youngest ones either because when you’re a teen, and even grown when some of them are still being born, you don’t usually form the closer relationships like you do with the ones who are in your age group.

But everyone is still family. It’s the grandparents, aunts, and uncles (and the older cousins) who teach you that there are grownups – other than your parents – that you can trust. And the cousins you grow up with are often the best friends you’ll ever have, aside from your siblings.

I don’t think my siblings even know I have a website, or a blog, and that’s probably a good thing – because they’d probably want to wring my neck for sharing this photo. But we were pretty cute back then – even me. I’m the one in the upper left corner, giving one of my brothers the side-eye, for some reason.

It makes me sad this Christmas, as it does every Christmas, to think of the ones who aren’t with us anymore. It makes me even sadder though when I think of how busy the rest of us are. I know we’ve all grown up and have families of our own. I know there are jobs, homes, hobbies, friends, and many other things going on in our lives.

But in the same way I miss the family members we’ve lost, I also miss the kids I used to play with. The kids I used to babysit. And the older cousins I always looked up to and wanted to be like.

Time passes so fast once you’ve left childhood behind. All you have to do is blink a couple of times and you realize it’s been a long, long time since you’ve seen some of the people you’ve loved all your life. You also realize you don’t really know them anymore either. And at the rate life flies by, you probably never will again.

The song below popped into my head when I sat down to write this. I don’t know why. It’s never been one of my favorites. It’s not on any of my playlists. And if it came on the radio while I was driving, I’d probably start searching for something I like better. But it seems to fit my melancholy mood tonight.

Hey, everyone. Editing isn’t going quite as quick as I’d like, but I’m still in hopes of having something new out before the end of the year. That doesn’t include the two bundles I told you about in my last post. I do have universal links for them, so I’m doing a bit of a repeat for them in this post.

I’m also training my daughter to be a PA (personal assistant for writers). She seems to think it would be a cool job – and all I can say is – have at it, sweetheart! Because the jobs she’ll be able to do when she’s ready are jobs I despise doing. The jobs that make me want to buy stock in an ibuprofen company.

Am I being mean? No. Being mean would be her trying to teach me how to knit. I am not coordinated enough to be handling knitting needles, but she loves it. And I figure any of the ‘knit’ picky (I know, it’s nitpicky, but it was just too tempting to not use the other form of the word) stuff about writing I hate is a zillion times easier than knitting. If she can teach herself how to do that from YouTube videos, learning to be a PA should be almost as easy as dunking a cookie in a glass of milk for her.

Anyway, back to those links…

Bundled Up for Christmas: https://books2read.com/u/47lVZR
Haunted Depot: https://books2read.com/u/3GAVYQ

The other stuff? We finally got a little snow last night. Max doesn’t seem overly impressed.  Hopefully, it will keep the little fur ball from trying to dart out the door to explore the ‘neighborhood’ every time we let Blondie out for the last time each day. If you’re new to my website, you’ll see why we don’t like for him to get outside at night. He blends in with the dark quite nicely!

And one last thing… Something from tonight’s playlist, though to warn you, it’s an hour long. I just loved the snowy background, so I chose this video over all the others. 🙂

Photo credit: Pixabay