Tag Archives: goals

My January 2019

Image from Bing.com
New lists,
Old goals. 
Same work,
Some chores.
Mostly smiling,
Rarely crying.
Birthday approaching,
Crackling knees.
January ends,
February begins.


©JwlsMacRay2019

Simply sums up my month of January. 🙂 It has been a decent year thus far. A few bumps in the road but more good happenings. It is currently cold and a bit of snow on the ground. Though we have had some nice weather this month as well. Tonight is so far the coldest night we have had to deal with. My ideal temp is around 40 – 50 if it has to be cold. I must say yesterday was 32 and it felt nice because the sun was out after hiding for some time and NO wind. It felt really nice. I can handle that. Today it was sunny but that dang wind was there.


Well, I best get off here and hit the pillow. I am trying real hard to get back to bed before midnight again. Sigh. I have been terrible with staying up until 1 or 2 because of my job. It has been the way the schedule has fell. My own fault. 🙂 Night!

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Step Step Step

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I realized my phone app had step challenges, like duh. I am so observant at times. LOL

I began doing them in November. As you can see, I didn’t get quite halfway. I didn’t even get a star! Boo hoo. A few steps were lost due to not charging my watch or grabbing the phone when I didn’t have my watch on, but that was only a few steps. And I rather enjoy sitting on my butt. 🙂

I need to change how I do stuff.

  • More get up and move breaks (my cave is in the basement, water on main floor)
  • Perhaps read while walking on the treadmill
  • Could always clean more (who couldn’t)
  • Go window shopping (that could be dangerous on the pocketbook)
  • Walk down to the mailbox (end of the street, cluster mailboxes)
  • I have 3 flights of stairs I COULD walk up and down

I will have to get creative! 🙂

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Happy to say in December, I did go over halfway!

I didn’t make it because I had my grandson here so I had to play with him on the floor! LOL Good excuse huh? 🙂  By the next time I see him, he may be walking, then I will have steps galore! 🙂

Look, I did get one star bonus for achieving the steps in a certain amount of time. Yay me!

So far this month, I am doing great! I am going for all the steps! I have achieved a star, missed the second one by only a few steps. 🙂

I definitely feel better and the challenge gets me up and moving more so that is great!

Do you use a step watch or app or both? 🙂

I am amazed how many steps the top people get. Crazy but a good crazy! Goals are good to keep one motivated! Stay tuned!

 

 

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Time Goes Fast

cover_city_of_dark_magic1-184x300 (credit to http://www.magnusflyte.com)

Loved this book. Lots of interesting characters that are fun and real. Friendships, little romance, and several murders mixed with time travel and a treasure hunt. Love the setting in Prague and the castles. The villain is an intriguing character with a KGB past. Lots of fun reading. Terrifically wrote! Recommend!

I had checked this out at the library and almost didn’t because it was such a long book. I actually read most of it yesterday. 🙂 Now, I want to read the next one.

So far my Goodreads reading challenge is at halfway. Better than last year, so that is ok. I probably could read the other half of the books but we are coming up on a busy time of year. I won’t hold myself to it. I should have read more earlier in the year.

Ooops. Goal for next year.

I am glad that I am reading regularly again. For the better part of twenty years I didn’t read much other than textbooks and kids books. I guess that counts.  🙂

Personal accomplishments since last blog:

  1. Normal day-to-day house and kids’ taxi service. When will the taxi service stop? lol
  2. Garage reorganized, again. Oldest daughter has her stuff in there now so it needed better placement. Now there is room for working on some furniture refinishing projects. And all the bugs are swept out for the Fall. It was bugging me seeing all of them. 🙂
  3. Kids are doing good. Good grades. Youngest had broken his school tablet but since it was an accident at school and his first warning we didn’t have to pay for it. Thank goodness. That would have been tough. Still not a fan of having school laptops. I believe in paper and pen.
  4. I still haven’t finished my Halloween decorating. Working on one wood project that will have Halloween on one side and Fall on the other. Will post when I complete this week. I’m not sure I will hand out candy this year. Our street gets really busy and one might as well sit outside and hand it out as many times as the doorbell rings. We have a doorbell camera and after a while last year it started going off on its own. Ghost? Maybe. lol

It’s been a bit productive. Time just flies so fast these days. I need more hours in the day to accomplish all that I want. I have stopped watching as much evening TV shows. I now catch up later with OnDemand. Lots of new shows. I really like Bull, Lethal Weapon, and Secrets and Lies to name a few.

I hope everyone has a lovely day and read something good! 🙂

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Organization is Key!

I have been seeing several posts on various internet sites for updating your filing cabinets. I finally got around to doing one of mine. I used the good ole duck tape squares again along with the thin duck tape. I like it a lot. 🙂

I am not sure about the sides yet or the other cabinet. I love the way the sun hits the prism and brings out the colors!

I was also glad to find my exacto knife which made cutting the center handle easy. No measuring required! Lol.

Inside one cabinet is normal paperwork. I tend to be a paper hoarder. I’m afraid if I throw an important paper away I might need it. My paperwork goes back years! I stress years! But I am slowly throwing some away just not those bills. 🙂

I have decided to use the other file cabinet to organize my paper stock. I did have them on a blue shelf divider thing but I found I didn’t use the paper much because it was difficult to see what I had. I figured lets file them away!

Now, I open the cabinet and I can see what I have. I am going to do other craft supplies the same way. The best part is the paper will not get dusty. I dislike dusty paper.

My first month of the year has been organizing. I think I have accomplished quite a bit.

I have done some book editing. Funny thing there, I discovered I had edited way more last year in a beta part of the software and had forgotten about it.  When I took a break over the summer time I had forgot which software site I had used. The software I use had started a beta one for updating and moved it to a different internet address. I forgot about that. I had not saved it to my favorites. Ooops.

So when I picked back up editing in the Fall I opened the old software site because I was use to it. The new one I had used for just a month. I kept thinking, dang I know I had edited more, but I could not remember sites had changed. Crazy!

I love the site but one definite negative part was they didn’t automatically move over my work. Instead, one is suppose to import/export and redo where the chapters go. I’m sure I thought heck with that I will retype, catch more errors, and do my chapters again since I was not far into the editing. Normally, after editing I print out the chapter so I know where I was at. I had not done that. I am definitely doing it now. 🙂

My reading goal this year is 33 books! Yes, I went up even though I did not make my goal last year which was 25 I think. I like 3’s. Maybe it will help me to achieve it. LOL. I did read 2 books and almost have the 3rd done this January. I hope to keep with 3 a month for the low goal. Then that will leave December with no reading if I want. Seems December is tough for me to read during. I get into all the Christmas movies is my downfall. 🙂 I am missing those.

January has been good. I hope everyone else has had a good month! 🙂

Happy writing and happy reading! 🙂

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Calendar Journal

I like to jot things down through the year on a calendar. Last year, I bought a quarterly calendar and it had a lot of room to write things where the date was. Then in April of last year I decided to go with the binder and filler pages. I enjoyed it and it had a lot of room to add pages if need be.

This year, I bought the binder again. I was surprised the store no longer carried the calendar refill. I pondered for the last week of what I wanted to do. I know I could have gone to an office supply store or order it online but my mind was thinking go more creative. What do I do but head to Pinterest for ideas. 🙂

Lots of neat free printables to choose from. 🙂

The one’s I chose.

I am pretty happy with them so far. Eventually, I want to make my own. I like doing that kind of stuff. 🙂

I put them in three sections.

I used my teddy bear stationery cut down to size. I have tons of stationery because we once had a small office and computer store. I am eager to get it used up so I can justify buying new stuff. LOL (I keep telling myself it needs all used up first but now I do have room for more so just maybe I can buy a couple new ones. 🙂 )

This is the front cover. 🙂

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I figure the calendar is the perfect way to know what year the journal is. 🙂

The reason I use the smaller binder is when I carry my big purse I can place it in it. Plus, the smaller size uses less ink to print. 🙂 lol

How do you organize your year?

I had a good hair day today so I am going to post my selfie for the month. LOL

20160112_144024 I chopped my hair about a month ago. She actually cut more than I wanted to but I like it ok. It will grow. I am thinking I want some color to it. I might even go brave with a hint of teal. ???? It will be a few months pondering time. 🙂

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I Did It Again

I signed up for NaNoWriMo!

I have never won a November challenge. The last few years I have not accomplished writing even ten percent of the 50,000 word goal.

The only time I won was the April Camp challenge. I was determined then unlike the November ones. I don’t know if it is because of the holiday time so lots of distractions or what the reason is. But I am going to give it another try. Why not. Plus, I don’t like to give up. I say every year I am not going to do the November challenge but then I sign up. 🙂

20151020_084323(My photo writing this blog in my new teeny tiny comp book.)

20151020_084459 (I think tiny items are so cute. I purchased these yesterday at my youngest son’s book fair. We had his teacher conference.)

The first novel in my series of books to write has the basic bones it just needs some more “fluff” to make it fun and interesting.

Obeyville-Snoop-Book-Cover-1( My current book cover for book #1.)

I am not sure if I will ever be able to write several books in a year. This first book has taken me since 2012 to write. I have the second book started but only a few chapters done. It is the book I signed up to do the challenge.

When I edited the first book I shrunk it from 50,000 words to about 25,000 words. There was a lot of extra stuff that made no sense. I was laughing when I read it, it was that absurd. 🙂 I imagine I will be more of a short Novella writer instead of a full novel writer.

Cheers to everyone doing the challenge!

Time to eat breakfast, waffles with peanut butter on it. Yum! 🙂

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I Swear It Was Not That

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A few weeks ago I ordered a new 2-page quarter year calendar journal from Day Timer. I was excited to open it when it arrived. The first thing I noticed was that it was for October, November, and December 2015. WHAT?

I can not believe I did not notice that when ordering it. I remember thinking October was an odd time to start a date book but I know you can get one’s that start in September, so I did not think anything of it.

I should have paid better attention.

But, all is not lost. January actually began the same day October will. I scratched out the October and put January on all the month’s pages.

February has a few extra days since it is actually November, crossed those out.

March is a bit more tricky. I crossed out the day of the week and will write above it the true day.

This all led to thinking, I can doodle and put color on the pages to hide the month and day when needed. Works pretty well. I always doodled on my notes when I was in high school and college. I also wrote with colored pen. Love colored pens.

Why, would I not send it back and get the real one?

I did not want to wait. LOL

Plus, why waste it. It is easily fixed and it was my error. I will make sure to double check the next quarterly calendar that I order in March!

I really like this one too.

It has a place for

To Be Done Today (Action List): I use this for the day’s task I want to complete. Some days it is huge and others I am rather lazy. Interesting to see what I really get done.

A section for appointments with the time beginning at 7am – 10pm: I put down kids’ schedules and mine. I write what I get accomplished plus how long. Good for making me write.

Phone call section, expense record section: Not much goes here. I do not get many calls. I sometimes use it for other things I want to track.

Next page is an entire page of work record: This is where all my ideas go. When I complete them I flip back and check them off. It includes my writing ideas plus all the art stuff I want to get done.

It even acts as a diary in a way. I will jot down funny stuff that happens or things I want to remember. I wish I had done this a long time ago with things the kids do or say. 🙂

In the beginning, I wrote down my New Year Goals. It will be fun to see what I achieve at the end of the year. I did another page with my creative goals. I put these on the beginning days 1-5 because the calendar did not arrive until after the 5th.

The best part, it fits in my purse. 🙂

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