Jen FitzGerald's Blog, page 128

Every girl or woman deserves flowers at least once in their life, right?

And those flowers don't have to be from a man. Although that's always nice, isn't it?

My family lives far far away from me. Oregon, Nebraska, Michigan, Denmark. Most of them are women or girls--I have four nieces, all sisters and all born within five years of each other. (I think. No more than six, though.) And the oldest is entering her teenage years. I don't envy my sister. My own two daughters were enough.

The point of my post is that they're far away and I don't get to see them very often at all, so last year I started sending the nieces flowers on their birthdays. I wanted them to know I'm thinking of them and that they're special to me.

These are the flowers I sent them last year...

 Ariana, January 2013
(I guess this isn't really flowers, is it. Oops!)
  Lexi, July 2013
   Miranda, August 2013
 Kaitlyn, December 2013
I've been sending flowers to mom and grandmother for a few years now. Last year, I added my step-mom to the list, and this year, I'm going to add my sisters. I think I'm going to have to add a line item to my budget for sending flowers. Those flowers to Denmark--not cheap! And I've added a tab to my master spreadsheet of stuff with the pictures so I can keep track of which flower arrangement I've sent to which niece. I'm not so worried about the grown women, but I don't want to duplicate the girls' flowers.

When was the last time you received flowers?

Taking care of writer business...

A few weeks ago, on my writers group loop, a friend posted a link to a blog post about how to stay connected to readers without feeling overwhelmed by all the social media platforms available these days.

The advice was two fold--be clear and consistent and make it easy.

The blogger suggested that I and anyone else reading his words of wisdom take an hour and write a new message. From scratch. Then post it wherever I or they maintain an online presence.

Saturday morning while the house was quiet, I took that hour. Then I posted my message on my website as well as Amazon and here and an abbreviated one at Goodreads (they only accepted 2000 characters) with a link to the page here. If you want to read it, click here.

The thing that I really liked about this post was that this blogger verified my feeling that it's okay to be on only one or two platforms consistently rather than being hit or miss across all of them. Someone else has said it before too, though I don't remember who. Kristen Lamb or J.A. Konrath, I think. Writers get inundated with social media advice, most of which says you have to be everywhere. When are we supposed to write if we've got to juggle a day job, kids, spouse, and house too? And if it's not fun, you're less likely to do it.

One of the reasons why I finally took that hour--well, really, it was forced upon me. DH was sick and had to sleep on the loveseat, so I didn't want to disturb him with housework and stuff while he was actually getting some sleep.--is that last week I worked to get my second Romance Writer's Guide book ready for publication and I wanted my author message current, consistent, done and out there.

Remember, one of my goals for the year is to publish at least three more of them. The topic had been percolating for a while and it needed to get put on paper, so to speak. So I spent time before and after work, writing and revising and finding examples. I read it out loud to hear the cadence and flow of my sentences. I tweaked some more. I added new text. I deleted repetition. It needs another read through before I'm comfortable putting it out there. The cover is done too. I took some time this weekend to create it as well. That's my least favorite part--creating the cover. I find the process tedious and time consuming. But it's ready to go when the book is.

Another of my goals was to read books about plotting--the hardest part of writing for me. I think. I spent some time on Christmas day looking for books about plotting on Amazon and bought five of them with the gift card I had. I started reading one of them last week. We'll see what nuggets I can pan from it.

How about you? Making any headway on this year's goals?

Today's post has been cancelled due to lack of inspiration...

Nothing sounds interesting to me, so I don't want to bore you.

Have a good weekend and stay warm.

What happened to all my spare time?

Just a few short years ago, I had spare time. I could lounge and watch TV. I could spend hours online, reading fan fiction or interacting with my online friends. I could write these blog posts on the fly the morning they were to be posted. I could spend hours and hours just writing.

These days I find that have much less spare time to do more enjoyable things. I catch a few TVshows here and there. But the days of reading for hours on end are no more. And online interaction happens only via Facebook. My blog posts have to be thought up and the bulk of it written in advance by a day or two and then read and tweaked the night before.

Now that I'm proofreading for money--that's basically my second job. So that of course eats up a lot of time. And even though business at the day job is down (as it usually is this time of year), it seems as if there's more to do. Well, there sort of is since we've implemented a few processes and systems to track and document what our employees are working on. It's good for cash flow, but bad for me.

It seems cooking and housework are low priorities these days, though laundry is a must. I've made it clear to my boss that I want to work from home. Then I can cook and clean here and there during the day. He's promised to make it happen.

While I really need my beauty sleep, I may have to give up half an hour or so of it per day for a while. With my goals of reading and writing and weight loss, I think I'm gonna need it.

But you know, I really hate being this busy. It doesn't work for me.

What about you? Is your life moving along at an acceptable rate?

Back on the wagon...

Now that the new year is here and life has returned to some semblance of normal, it's time to wrest back my self-control. Time to start watching what I eat, counting a few calories, and exercising again. If you remember, DH bought a treadmill several months back. Now I can walk in the comfort of my home, though it's parked in the garage and there's no heat or air in there at the moment. I'm still at the whim of the weather to a certain degree. But I have a space heater, so no excuses.

I'm eliminating as much sugar and as many carbs as I can again and going back to water and unsweet tea, hot or cold.

In addition it's time to make some other changes. I've determined to consume as little microwaved food or beverages as possible. Surely, the damage done to the food item in question by the process is not that good for the body. At the very least, damage has been done to the nutrients, they've been altered, rendered useless or possibly harmful. So I'll be brewing my tea at home and toting to work in my travel cup and two thermoses until I get my electric kettle back. And no more hot lunches, I guess. I should be getting back to salads anyway. Reheating will be done on the stove top or in the oven. I'd love to get rid of the microwaves altogether, but there'd be an outcry.

  (Image courtesy of Wiki Commons.)
We're also switching back to real foods and condiments. So no more artificial sweeteners. I realize processed sugar's not that great either, but it's less toxic than aspartame and the like. I personally like raw sugar, when I use it. But I try not to and there's none in the house at the moment.

 (Image courtesy of Wiki Commons.)
No more margarine either. Real butter from now on. I'm also going to start cooking with coconut oil instead of vegetable oil or margarine (not that we'll have any). My mother-in-law recommended it to me a while back and now I've just read a very short book outlining its many benefits. (Not only can you ingest it, but it has topical uses as well.)
 

(Image courtesy of Louana.com.)
The next major change is going to be to find beef that's grass/range fed so that we can benefit from healthier meat products. My husband is not a fan of Walmart meat, but I've resisted changing. Mostly because I'm lazy and don't want to have to run all over hell and half acre buying groceries. But there's a Grillmasters in the business park and a meat market a few blocks from the house. I'm guessing the meat from the meat market is better than the pre-packaged process stuff from the grocery stores even if it's not completely organic. I printed off the flyer from the meat market and will place my order today. The have a couple of different specials, so I'm going to try one. They include veggies!

And those are just some initial changes coming down the pipe...

Healthier eating and healthier living, here we come, kicking and screaming!

The new year starts of with a bang!

We sold a record number of fireworks this season, though we won't get to enjoy much of the proceeds as we have a few things needing to be paid. But it's nice to have it to rely on. We were busy from noon to 11:30 PM on the 31st. No kidding. Had at least three customers in the store at any given time except for a short TEN SECOND stint at around 9:30 PM. It's not an exaggeration.

My writers group is sponsoring two contests and I'm knee deep in both of them.

The beginning of the month means a lot of work in the office. The beginning of the new year in addition to being the first of the month--ugh.

I even started my first book of the year--Coconut Oil Recipes: Nature's Remedy for Health, Beauty, Weight Loss, Allergies, & Detoxing by Scarlett Aphra. Free for the Kindle yesterday--maybe today, if you hurry. No guarantees.

Twenty-fourteen, here I come...

Looking forward to 2014...

Last year started off okay and got better toward the middle. We even hired two new employees, though one quit a few short months later. The IT industry is tougher than it sounds. Though, it was for the best that he left as cash flow slowed and we might have had to let him go anyhow. A few other things came to pass in the latter half of the year that weighed us down. But we got through it as we always do.

Personally, I had a few things I wanted to accomplish and unfortunately I have no real reminders of what those were. Not even a blog post from this time last year, though I have a sticky note in my Outlook for the first quarter of last year all in regards to writing. Did I accomplish those goals? Sadly, no.

One thing I do remember is my goal to reach a certain weight. Did I make it? No, but I'm closer than ever. Unfortunately, I seek comfort in food so when we had some things happen, I lost momentum and the willpower to say no as often as I should have. I did finally get and stay below 140 lbs. though--barely--which had been a huge marker to get past. Looking at my spreadsheet, I see I didn't do very well at all this year. An overall loss of only 5.2 lbs. Bummer. Next year will be better. I promise.

Writing wise, I changed focus from writing to proofreading in order to earn some extra money to pay off a specific credit card. Things went well until the uphill slide toward the holidays and people re-purposed their dollars. That's okay. The CC isn't supposed to be paid in full until June 2014, so I still have time to make that happen. And I did make progress, I'm glad to say.

So goals for 2014... Let's see...

1) lose weight--get down to 120ish pounds (that's 16 lbs.)
2) pay off the credit card with proofing money
3) create bulb bed/plant bulbs on the side of the house
4) work on back yard
5) bookshelves in living room
6) ramp up proofreading
7) publish three more Romance Writer's Guides books
8) get my son graduated
9) read up on how to make the body work like it's supposed to and help my hubby lose weight and get healthy
10) to read 64 books in 2014, including 12 books on plotting (remember this post from the end of Nov?)

I think I'm gonna post these on the side bar so I can see them on a near daily basis and be reminded. I think that will also help keep me accountable. Plus updates will provide post fodder!

To a certain handful of my readers--thanks so much for your faithfulness. I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment. It really means a lot. And to the rest of you who read but don't comment, the number of you who are out there tickles me.

To you all:

Happy New Year to you and yours, and may 2014 be all that you want it to be.

A productive weekend...

Did I get everything done that I wanted to? No, but the birdies, squirrels and yard cat got fed and watered. I got eight bags of leaves raked and half the back yard mowed--which added two additional bags of grass and leaves.



 Remember my Chinese wisteria? This is what it looked like earlier in the season:

This is what it looks like now:

I hope it comes back.
I thought for sure my azalea would have bitten the big one after the ice storm and the subsequent cold spells, however, it's hanging tough. See...

The house is relatively tidy and laundry and grocery shopping are done. Saturday, I worked on revisions to the young adult novel I entered in a contest. And on top of all of that I watched A LOT of television. I even got some reading in--'cause you have to do the quiet stuff when you wake up at 6am on a Sunday.

Remember my bush weighted down by ice?




It's standing tall again, but will be getting cut down soon in preparation for a flower bed. I want to plant red, white, and blue (purple) bulb flowers. I'm gonna take a page from a friend's book and request labor from my kids for Mother's Day. Several hours worth to pull the trees out and the root balls, churn up the soil, and lay the border stones. Yep!

And wouldn't you know, after ALL that raking and ALL those bags of leaves, a stiff wind blew through and left another layer of leaves for me to work on next weekend!

In addition to watching a movie I hadn't seen before (I'll catch you up next Monday), DD and I enjoyed a partial Harry Potter fest. We watched the first two movies on Saturday evening and then the third, fourth and fifth movies on Sunday evening. (Okay, I confess--I slept through most of the second one...) I even got to watch a few episodes of China Beach as well. All in all, it was a great weekend.

How about you? How did you spend your last weekend of the year??

A good time was had by all...

Christmas has come and gone and I think everyone was pleased with their haul. I was spoiled and received many wonderful things.

One of my faves was my digital picture frame. I've posted tons of pictures of various things and themes over the past year, but ultimately my pictures live on the server at our office. But now I can enjoy 128MBs worth at home. I may have to create a "playlist" of images, if you will. Choose the ones I like and crop extraneous stuff, so I can enjoy more of them.

(If you look close, you can see my reflection!)
Some of my other treasures include an electric throw blanket, a snow globe, and some jar candles.

I traded one of my iTunes gift cards for DD's Amazon gift card and spent a good hour on Wednesday afternoon sorting my Amazon wish list and determining which books on plotting to spend my funds on. In the end, I was able to purchase five books. Now, I've a head start on my goal for 2014 to read a dozen books on the topic.

So what was your favorite gift this year?