How is it already Wednesday?!

H.’s party went very well.  The girls watched none of the movies we rented, mostly listening to Beatles music and talking in that strange language only other 12-year-old girls understand.  I swear, it’s like listening to a conversation of nonsequetors, but they all seem to know what they’re saying so I guess that’s what counts.

This week’s focus is split between the garage and M.’s room. We’ve been using half of the garage to store things moved from the old house that haven’t been unpacked yet since we didn’t have a second car for that bay.  Chris’s work truck was too huge.  Now he has a little car, so I want to clean it out for parking purposes.  I can do that over time, but I need to take care of the front part by tonight because tomorrow morning we’re having our generator installed, and it would be great of the electrician could get to the electrical panel and the generator.  Since Monday was a gorgeous day here (70′s and sunny), it’s pretty much done.  I need to move a very large fish/animal tank into the storage room, and take out the recycling tonight, but otherwise it’s all set.

M.’s birthday party is Saturday, so besides keeping the rest of the house clean, which is much easier after getting it straightened out for H.’s party, I need to work on M’s room.  I’m putting up some bright green paper behind her built-in shelves.  Her walls are wood-paneled, and since we’re renting for now (we plan to buy the house after we’ve rented for two years) I can’t take it down or paint her room.  Since “wood-paneled” is hardly any preschooler’s idea of a dream room, I’ve done a lot of things to decorate it and make it look more like a little girl’s room and less like a home office.

Putting up the paper shouldn’t be difficult, and she picked it out so it’s a color she likes.  Once the paper’s up, the shelves can go back on, and then I can arrange stuffed animals on the shelves once more.  That alone will go a long way toward cleaning up the room.  After that, it’s a matter of putting things in the right places and vacuuming the rug.  Ideally, I’d have time to rent a carpet cleaner and wash the carpet, but I won’t this week.  I would like to do that before the family party on the following weekend however.

So that’s the plan.  Week 2, already half over, is the front of the garage and M.’s room.  What are you working on this week?  If you haven’t already done so, you can read OrgJunkie’s Week 2 post here.

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Weekend Update – The Organizing Version

This weekend has been pretty productive.  I always want to accomplish WAY more than I do, but I did ok.  I made a big dent in the basement in my office area.  I cleaned the bathroom, including mopping the floor.  Did I mention how much I love my Shark steam mop?  Seriously, this thing is the best purchase I’ve made in a long time.

I posted 8 boxes to ThredUp.com, one of which has already been ordered. I packed the box, labeled it and I’m ready to ship it tomorrow.

I’m making a good effort to keep up with dishes.  I got to take today off of laundry duty.  I could have done more downstairs today and didn’t, but I spent time doing crafts with M. so I don’t mind that I didn’t get more done.

All in all, not a bad weekend.  How about you?

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Organizing Plans

So, for my first and second weeks of organizing I’m working on the half of my garage that has been used for storage, and our downstairs family room.  I’m sort of combining both over the two weeks out of necessity.

The garage has been used for storage since we went down to just one car, and my husband’s work truck.  The truck was too big to fit in the garage, and since we still had stuff we were moving over from the old house it was a convenient place to put it all temporarily.  His company finally gave him a car since you could see the road through the bottom of the truck, so now he’ll be able to park it in the garage once there’s room.  Also, we’re finally having our generator installed on the 15th, so anything in the way of the circuit boards or the generator itself needs to be moved.

The family room needs to be cleaned up and better organized because H. is having some friends over the weekend of the 10th for her birthday party, and they need a place to hang out where they won’t make the rest of us crazy.  Much.

While I don’t necessarily expect to have everything completely put away in both places, I need to sort out a lot of boxes and figure out which rooms everything should be in or whether it should stay here at all.

One extra thing on my list is to put together a table in H’s room.  It’s partially put together, but then we realized the screws they included in one part are NOT long enough for the parts they’re supposed to connect if we want the table to actually stay together.  They just about reach, but not enough to screw in securely.  I found the longer screws, so now I just need to do it.

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July Goals

Image by vpickering via Flickr

It’s July.  It’s actually the 13th of July, so I’m a bit late posting my goals for the month.  Call it being over-extended, call it procrastination, call it just plain lazy.  Frankly, any one of those (and perhaps all) could be true at any given moment, so it doesn’t really matter what you call it.  I need some focus.  Thus the goals each month.  Here are July’s:

1. Work more regularly on SciFi site.  By more regularly, I mean that by the end of the month I want to know what the hell I’m doing, and have at least a rough idea about what I’m planning to do.

2. Submit at least three articles a week (7 days, not work week) to Examiner.com.

3. Figure out a schedule for us for when M. starts preschool in the fall and start following it at the end of the month.

4. Find another part-time job (real world, paying, a few hours a week).

5. Start eating healthier.  (Ass-reduction program, we’ll call it.)

There you have it.  Those are the things I would like to do this month.  What are you doing?  Lazing on the beach, working, procrastinating?  All of the above?

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June Goal Wrap-up and Review

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June was kind of a nutty month for me.  The kids got out of school, I started a new part-time job at our library, I took on the responsibility of managing a site I had previously only written reviews for, and I had some mid-month excitement with my son’s hospital visit.  I also started writing for Examiner.com as the Mansfield Family & Parenting 101 Examiner, which requires a few articles a week.

I didn’t do as well on my goals as I had hoped at the beginning of the month, but I feel ok about it because my priorities changed as things in my life changed, and I had to change my goals as that happened.

I’m hoping July will be a bit more predictable, but if it’s not I will try to roll with the punches.  Or whatever.

1. Add other section to book – I didn’t do this at all.  The book got put on hold with all the other new responsibilities.  I’m still trying to figure out how to fit it back in to my life so I can work on it, but I haven’t quite figured that out yet.

2. Increase my use of social media. – I feel like I did well on this one.  I try to tweet daily, and have something to say besides “here, read my new post” and I share things on Tumblr.  That also goes on my Facebook account, and I keep in touch with people through there to some extent too.

3. Use work schedule to better organize my time. – HA!  This one is amusing.  It didn’t happen.  Not even a little.

4. Guest post on another blog. – I did not do this.  I have not had time to think about articles for other blogs now because I’ve had enough trouble keeping up with my own!

5. Submit 1 new story/poem to three magazines/markets each. – Hrm.  No, not this one either.

That’s it.  Like I said, I didn’t carry out much on this list, but I did do other things so I’m not unhappy.  I have lots to do in July, so stay tuned for my current goals.

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June Goals

1. Add other section to book.

2. Increase my use of social media to expand my network. I’m going to attempt to do this again since I didn’t do very well in May.

3. Actually start using the work schedule I created so that I’m more organized and have more time for M. and the other kids.

4. Publish one guest post on another blog.

5. Submit 1 new story/poem to one to three magazines/markets.  I want to try this again too, but on a smaller scale since I want to keep focusing on the book.

My kids get out of school at the end of June, and with the house on the market now this could shape up to be a very busy month.  I realize one of my continual goals, which I thus far haven’t seemed to reach, has been to get better organized and on some sort of schedule.  Frankly, I’m sick of hearing myself say it and wouldn’t be surprised if you are too.  It has always been a weakness for me (time management), but I plan to change that.  I’m always open to tips, but I know some things that work (or definitely don’t work) for me already, I just need to stick to it.

Do you have June goals planned out?  Is summer your “break” time, or is it when you have more energy for both work and play?

 

May Goal Wrap-up and Review

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Here it is, the end of May already.  I feel like every month just goes by faster and faster.  It can be overwhelming, but in a lot of ways I’m grateful for that.  It means I have a lot going on, and I’m not stagnating.

So let’s get to it.  Here are my May goals, and how they panned out:

1. Finish 1st revision of book – I finished this, as many of you may have seen in an earlier post or on Twitter.  I’m currently reading it through completely, in as few sittings as possible, to help catch any continuity errors.  I also have a whole new section I want to add, which is good because the wordcount is still too low for a novel.

2. Increase my use of social media to expand my network. Meaning: Tweet more, update more, and have something to say! Spamming is so uncool. – I’m still working on this.  I need to figure out how to balance my use of social media.  I’m either on it, and feel like I’m wasting my day (and I frequently am) or I’m not on it at all, which doesn’t broaden my network at all.  I consider this a work in progress.

3. Publish 3 new articles/reviews on pay-per-click or other sites. – I published a Memorial Day poem on Associated Content, which I linked to on my “Published” page, and I have one article each processing in AC and Helium.  So I guess if both get published I’ve reached my goal, and if one or both don’t, then I really haven’t.  I’ll let you know.

4. Find 2 new freelance jobs. – I have not found two new ones, but one of my ongoing clients, who generally asks me for two reviews a month, asked for the usual two reviews, plus three articles.

5. Submit 2 new stories/poems to three magazines/markets each. – Not even a little.  Not one.  Maybe next month, if I’m not too wrapped up in everything else to do more writing.

So there you have it.  Mostly successful, some not very, but I’m satisfied overall.  How did you do on your goals?

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As the end of May draws nigh…

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…is anyone else panicking about the goals they set and whether or not they are actually accomplishing any of them?  I’ve had so much going on I’ve barely had time to blog, much less do any writing.

This weekend, Memorial Day weekend, I have only one child from now (this morning actually) until Monday evening.  The other two are with their father.  I plan to pack and clean as much as possible, and write/edit.  I have the additional challenge of having five articles/reviews (fairly short in length) all due on June 10th for the same person for whom I’ve been writing book reviews.

Speaking of book reviews, I am so backlogged on the books I’ve read or am supposed to be reading that if I ever have the chance to write some of them, you may start getting a review a week here, at least for a while.  I also have a great series of guest blogs lined up which will be appearing on Wednesdays.

I plan to bring M. to a farmer’s market or two over the weekend and spend some time playing in the yard with her too.  I hope everyone has a relaxing and restful Memorial Day weekend.  Do you have any plans?

 

Sunday Night Ramblings

The last couple of weeks have been busy, and in some ways rough.  S. is home now (at his dad’s) and doing ok.  We’re still keeping an eye on him, and he’s still under a doctor’s care, but he seems to be improving.

I’m looking for a rental property in town.  I don’t want H. to have to change schools.  It’s bad enough that she and M. will probably have to share a room because finding a 4-bedroom in Storrs to rent is nearly impossible.  And yes, I know kids share rooms all the time, but the age difference between 11 and 3 is huge, and H. hasn’t shared a room since she and S. were very small.  It’s not going to be an easy transition.  Still, as much as I hate moving I’ve always loved being in a new place.  I like arranging everything, finding everything places.  It’s satisfying in a way that just keeping up a place isn’t.

My work has suffered lately.  Mainly because my work ethic has suffered lately.  I have made some strides toward getting back on track and getting back to work, but I still have a way to go.  Part of the problem now, ironically, is that I have too many potential projects in mind and a limited amount of time to get to them all.  I need to prioritize, and start getting some of them done.

My top priorities (other than home and family, of course) are my book and this blog.  I need to keep working on both, and if there’s more time I can get to the other things on my list.

What’s on your plate for this week?

 

May Goals (or Oh My God, another month is gone!)

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1. Finish 1st revision of book

2. Increase my use of social media to expand my network. Meaning: Tweet more, update more, and have something to say! Spamming is so uncool.

3. Publish 3 new articles/reviews on pay-per-click or other sites.

4. Find 2 new freelance jobs.

5. Submit 2 new stories/poems to three magazines/markets each.

As you can see, my goals are similar to last month. I still will continue to blog each weekday, but I consider that a given now instead of a goal to reach for. As for repeating goals, I plan to keep working on the ones I didn’t quite meet, get further in my book and add a new challenge for myself.

What are your goals for May?