Jen FitzGerald's Blog, page 113

Happy Hump Day

Taking the easy way out with a meme...


See you on Friday!

Potpourri...

There are places with lower temperatures and snow and ice, so I really shouldn't complain, but... I'm sick of the cold. Even just a ten degree increase would be welcome!

I wanted to work in the back yard this weekend, but it was too cold and then wet to brave it. Had it been sunny, I might have attempted some raking, but alas, yard work will have to wait a couple more weekends. I haven't forgotten that I need specifics for the year, but until I can go out and assess the yard, I can't.

Cold temps and rain aside, it was a good weekend. I got a lot accomplished and a couple of my goals for the year are looking bright.

I spent several hours Saturday morning working on my proofreading info located on the blog. I decided what I was willing to do and not do, revamped the verbiage accordingly, and thought up monthly specials to entice new business. Then I updated my website as well so all information and pricing and specials are the same across the board. I also have a couple of jobs lined up, with another prospect (a series bible) in discussion. Needless to say, I'm excited about the opportunities. I've just remembered that I need to go post some free ads to generate some February jobs...making a note...

On another goal note, I have read 19% of my 3 million words and we're only 4% into the year!

Last topic for the day...a movie! DH and I went and saw The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch on Sunday morning/afternoon. I loved it and DH enjoyed it as well. The film is about Alan Turing whose mathematical genius was directly responsible for cracking the Enigma machine and helping shorten WWII by more than two years and saving over 14 million lives. I give it two thumbs up and a ten on the rating scale, but for no logical reason other than I love Ben, thought he did a brilliant job, and the fact that I love that historical time period. However, the film is up for and has already won many, many awards, so it's really not just me.



If you've seen it, what did you think?

P.S. I posted this before I'd gone outside this morning and what do I find--warmer temps. Hopefully they'll stay in this vicinity for a while.

Steps to Achieving My Goals

A week ago Monday, I shared my goals for the year. I posited that the reason I failed so spectacularly in achieving more than three of my ten goals last year was because I failed to plan, to outline the tasks that would help me reach said goals.



I've spent some time in the last two weeks looking at my various goals and coming up with action items that will ultimately help me reach my goals. Now it's time to share them out here in cyberspace so you can hold me accountable.

So looking at my list of goals, let's just take a few in no particular order...

--> read three million words

That breaks out to a 58k word book a week and 8500 words a day. I'm including my proofreading jobs twice as I generally read them twice, and I'm also counting any and all fan fiction or writing contest entries that I judge. Looking at that 8500 words a day makes me nervous, but I'm pretty sure it's not really going to be a problem.

--> ramp up my proof reading business

Unfortunately, this is one of those things that I can't just decide to do. What I mean is, I can advertise and touch base with previous clients and offer specials to encourage business, but I can't actually make anyone hire me.

But to that end, I've already placed my first ad and will work on finding places I can advertise for free--author forums and the like. And keep my fingers crossed!

--> clean up & clean out the house

Now that all the kids are gone, it seems like a good time to go through closets and cabinets and get rid of stuff we just don't use anymore. I also want to repaint DD's old room at some point and make it a guest room/sitting room. DH wants to get Sonshine's old room turned into a home office. I'm not the greatest housekeeper in the world either so I'm going to pick a room every couple of weeks and hit the dusting, sweeping & mopping and then try to stay on top of it.

--> do more crafts

Almost anything will equate to more, so this one will be pretty easy to accomplish. I used to do rubber stamping a lot, which I really enjoyed and would love to start again. Maybe I'll make my own Christmas cards--I have eleven months. I have some sewing projects in progress that I want to finish. And who knows what interesting things I'll find on Pinterest!

--> work on the yards

We-- I -- talked a lot about my back yard last year, and as for as my goal was concerned (work on the back yard), I'd say I accomplished it. But I have nothing to really show for it. This year I want to have at least two things I can point to and say, "I did that." I'm still debating and determining specifics, so we'll have to revisit the yard another day.

How about you? Do you have your goals written down somewhere yet?? And have you thought of how to achieve them?

Top Ten Favorite Scents

Monday, in my post about laundry soap, I mentioned that freshly laundered clothes was one of my favorite scents, so I thought today we could take a break from the serious stuff of goals and health and wellness and penny pinching to share some of our favorite scents, smells, odors...
fresh clean laundry washed and dried with expensive brand name laundry productsfreshly mown grass

really nice mens cologne, preferably on the manmy line dried bedspread with fabric softenerthe scent of the beach and the ocean on a warm day 
burning charcoalgrilling steakswood smokepaper whites (a flower, that my kids all think smell like pee)

Care to share one or two of your favorite scents??

Homemade Laundry Soap

If I ever bought expensive name brand laundry soap, it was so long ago I can't remember. I just plain couldn't afford to for a while and then refused to at some point after that. And it's not that I don't enjoy the smell of clean laundry washed in Tide or Gain and dried with a Bounce dryer sheet, because that would probably be on my list of favorite scents, but I just couldn't abide paying twice or three times the amount of money for clean clothes.

Recently, I've been on somewhat on a health and wellness, holistic, natural approach to a lot of things. not all of it is about that though. Some of it is about being cheap. The side benefits are a bonus. So today, cheap laundry soap.

I've been using homemade laundry soap for, oh, a couple of months now, and it's cheap, easy to make, and seems to work just as well as the store bought brand I used previously.

For me, the cheap is the primary draw, but the lack of funky chemicals against my body, in my clothes,  and in the sewer system is a nice side benefit.

Here's the recipe I've been using... To give credit where credit is due, I found it here, and the woman has a lot of details and an FAQ although I'm going minimalist. I really recommend reading her info.

a bar of Fels Naptha or Ivory soap
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup Borax -- safe for septic systems according to a friend I gave trial batch to
two gallon or larger bucket/tub with lid or cover

*save an old laundry soap jug or a couple of plastic milk jugs if you want to store your home made laundry soap that way instead

** since this is a very low sudsing product it is safe for those HE washing machines


The Ivory would be found with the bath soap, everything else is located in the laundry aisle.

To make--

Shave or grate 1/3 of the Fels Naptha (if using the Ivory, use the whole bar)

Mix the soap and six cups water, bring to a boil
Add the powders and stir until dissolved.
Put four cups water into the bucket, then add the hot soap mixture and stir.
Add another gallon plus six cups water and stir some more.
Let sit for 24 hours to allow it to gel.
Stir every so often for another day or so.
Pour into cleaned out laundry soap or milk jugs, if desired.
Use 1/2 cup per load.

And there you have it. According to Crystal, the blog lady, a two gallon batch costs approximately $.71, a load, $.01, depending on the price of the ingredients. She breaks it out on the web page.

What do you think? Willing to give it a try??

My Goodreads Challenges: 2013, 2014, 2015...

In 2014, I took the Goodreads challenge for the second year in a row and, again, technically missed the mark. Both years, I pledged to read 52 books--one per week. I'm a fast reader. Completely do-able.


Unfortunately, I missed officially completing the challenge by eight books in 2013 and eighteen in 2014.

But, but, but... I **know** I read enough fan fiction to cover the short fall both years. Unfortunately, I can't key those titles into Goodreads and get credit for the challenge.

So for 2015, I'm changing it up a bit. On Monday, I pledged to read three million words. Yes, you read that right. Three *million* words. That equates to one 57K word book a week, but gives me the flexibility to read fan fiction and include any proofreading jobs that don't get published or show up in Goodreads. I'll still pledge to read books via the Goodreads challenge, but I'm going to reduce it to 26 real "published" books and cover the other 26 books with anything and everything else I consume.

So what about you?? Have you taken the challenge before? How'd you do?

Happy New Year

Here's to a happy and prosperous new year for us all!

New Year's Goals

It's time once again to make goals for the brand new year...but let's revisit last year's goals first. I had ten goals. I achieved three of them. Came close on one other and completely missed the mark on the rest. I gotta admit, that's not a great track record.


The biggest problem, I think, is that I didn't make decisions on how to achieve the goals. In other words, stepping stones. For example, I wanted to ramp up my proof reading. But did I do any advertising? Nope...

Today, I'm going put the goals out there, and in the coming weeks, I'll work on figuring out how to achieve them and share a few with you.

So without further ado...

1) reach the 120lb. mark
2) read 3 million words
3) write 2500 words a week
4) get healthy and well
5) clean up/clean out the house--now that the kids are gone, gonna go through closets and cupboards and get rid of all the stuff that we don't use, don't need, don't want...
6) ramp up the proofreading business
7) work on the yard--this is vague and I'm going to decide what I want to do so that I have something specific to work towards
8) research degree programs
9) publish a book
10) do more crafts

Ten seems like a nice number, although I had ten last year and completed three and made progress on others. But as the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So taking that to heart, I'll work on a plan...


What about you?? Any goals you'd like to share before we hit the ground running in 2015?

Merry Christmas!

Hope you have a wonderful day, no matter how you're going spend it.

It's not what's under the tree, but who's around it...

The Brown Eyed Girl and Darling Daughter smooching on their baby brudder...
In years past, we've spent a lot of money on Christmas. More money than average folks, it seems. But this year, practically nothing. Not that we had much, but we found a bit to spend on our kids.

We went to my sister-in-law's house yesterday and had the whooooole family together for the first time in somewhere around a decade. The first-gen grandkids are all adults now. **sniff** The second-gen are barely school age and younger. And there's a single great grand running around. It was relaxing and fun to see everyone and to visit and catch up and not spend hours watching each other unwrap presents that mean less than the company we were keeping.

On Christmas eve and Christmas morning, I'll have all my kids home, and I really couldn't ask for anything more...