Jen FitzGerald's Blog, page 41

To meet or not to meet, is no longer the question...

My monthly writers meeting has gone virtual. Our speaker for this month will be speaking to us via Zoom. Bars and restaurants in Tarrant County are going to be shut down at some point today, so the decision is definitely out of my hands now, but we'd already made the decision so that we weren't scrambling super last minute to put plan B into motion. I'm really going to miss seeing my friends this month though. These women are my people.

My thoughts about what's going on due to COVID-19 have spanned the gamut all week as I read this article and that article and the other article. I've finally come to the conclusion, however, that a) while all these closures are tragic and spell hardships for a great many people, they're necessary; b) social distancing is unfortunately necessary primarily / especially to manage the impact on our health care system; and c) many people want to blame the government and / or the media for various things going on such as panic buying, but I honestly don't know how things could have gone any different. People are still gonna over-react, people are still going to make decisions based on fear and not facts, people are still going to get their news *not* from appropriate sources.

We're a mere three months out from the first confirmed case in China. Were we supposed to shut down everything mid-January when we didn't know much? Sure, that would have been better. And what exactly caused people to think toilet paper was the can't-live-without item?

I really don't know.

But for good and for ill the world has been forced to hunker down and so we shall. We all have a chance to reconnect with our families, we can catch up on reading and crafts, television, and maybe get some spring cleaning done.

My plans include getting the garage cleaned out and getting my two books written and some other writing/publishing related stuff that I need to decide upon and write down.

Anyway...I was on a cruise to the Western Caribbean two weeks ago. That seems so long ago at this point, but I promised pictures. Our first stop was New Orleans, though, and I shared a few pictures the other day. Here are a few more from DH and my morning trek through the residential portion of the French Quarter. I have a love of architecture and I fell in love with the area. If I had money to spare, I would buy property in the French Quarter and try to infuse the area with small businesses and small living spaces...

Someday.

Here are just a few of my favorites:




 This one is the one I'd buy for me...

There were so many building for sale and / or boarded over. It made my heart hurt.

But if you want to see the rest of my random photos, here's the link.

Take care and be safe!

Unreal Times

I've started three posts for today, but things are changing at such a rapid pace that whatever I wrote on Friday is no longer applicable.

Today I'm at work. Our office consists of four people usually. One employee is on vacation for the next three days; DH is at home still self-quarantining, but will probably start actually working remotely; the other employee is here to hold down the fort and do the actual work of our business (IT/MSP) while I do the back end/admin stuff.

Our oldest arrived in town the weekend we left on our trip and left this morning to start her new life in Denver with her soulmate (her words, not mine). Now that DH has his office back and we're back to our usual household residents, life can finally return to some semblance of rhythm and routine.

Remember I wanted that last week. Well, it didn't happen. Too many bodies in the house, too many dishes to wash, too much laundry to do, too much going on in the world to focus on writing as I'd hoped to. But now that the home-front is back to normal, maybe I can re-establish some equilibrium and re-gain that focus.

My plans for writing this past weekend didn't pan out as hoped either. With everything going on both in the house and out in the world as well as not being in the story for almost two weeks, I wasn't nearly as productive as I'd hoped. Thank goodness I don't depend on writing and productivity on that front for my paycheck. I'd be in big trouble.

But something normal and exciting did happen this past weekend. My baby girl (aka DD or my Hockey partner in Crime) bought her first car. She's been driving what she affectionately calls The Tank--a 1999 Dodge Ram pickup we gave her way back in the day when she first started driving and the other two didn't. She's been driving it ever since, nursing it through various mechanical issues through the years. But it is really on its last legs without some serious work that she can't afford, so...

Anyway, while her original plan was to get a smallish SUV, much like my RAV4, she ended up with a 2014 Chevy Cruze. As a sedan, it had a smaller price tag, so that was a factor. And the color--well, it was like a sign. :0)



I might have mentioned my love of Pecan Pralines & Cream ice cream a time or two in the past. Well, pecan pralines are actually a thing... I thought it was just combined for the ice cream flavor but not so. And I discovered pecan pralines are an actual thing in New Orleans, so I went in search. I didn't get a picture of the bag before I tore into it, but here are the pecan pralines. I like them a lot, but they're definitely better in the ice cream. :0)



Last but not least, some things to do online during this nationwide shutdown:

Download coloring books from museums: http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/do...

The Metropolitan Opera will be streaming operas free in the evenings for a while: https://operawire.com/metropolitan-op...

And the Cincinnati Zoo will be offering a "daily safari" via Facebook highlighting one of their animals: https://www.facebook.com/cincinnatizoo/

Take care...catch you Wednesday.

The world shuts down and yet life must go on...

The world is grinding to a halt as the Corona Virus does its thing and yet we must carry on with life as best we are able. It's an interesting contrast.

All major sports seasons and events are or, I imagine, will be canceled or suspended. Conferences of all kinds are also being canceled. I get it. Slow the spread as much as possible so that medical facilities aren't overwhelmed, although it might a little late on that front. I want my hockey teams safe and healthy and I don't want sick people in general, but I'm really bummed the season was canceled.


I'm also nervous about the impacts across the globe, across the nation, and across the various industries; what the ripple effect is going to be.

Unfortunately, the only thing I can do is stay home--which I mostly do--and keep myself and my family out of harm's way.

It's really terrible to learn and to understand how spectacularly the infrastructure of our country has failed us. Yes, there have been people predicting something like this for years, but no one took it seriously enough to act or prepare.

I hate to imagine what the landscape of society will look like by the end of 2020.

Sorry for the downer post, but just posting all my vacation pictures without acknowledging the world-wide crisis would leave the wrong impression.

Anyway, have a safe and educational weekend--meaning, stay tuned to what's going on and take the utmost precautions you can.

The best things about the cruise...

...aside from just generally being on vacation for a week+ were:


1. I got to eat ice cream everyday. Most days it was soft serve, but one day the soft serve machine was frozen and so I checked out the actual ice cream station and discovered coconut ice cream!! They didn't have it out every day, but I checked. :0)

2. Eating English muffins (with butter and strawberry jelly) and bacon and fresh pineapple every day for breakfast. :0)

3. Spending some quality time with DH. :0)

As I mentioned, I'd never been to New Orleans, so I was excited to visit the city, specifically and especially the French Quarter.

Here are a few fun pictures of my visit:

On the shelf at a local WalMart... hmmm...
I'm not a whiskey drinker, but the Jack Daniels commercials are usually amusing,and so was this billboard.
These coi were just painted randomly on the sidewalk.

And what (first or any(?)) visit is complete without a visit to Cafe DuMonde for beignets??

DH and I woke ridiculously early our first full day in NOLA and made the stop at about 4am. Probably a good thing, because all the pictures I've seen of this place during they day--it's packed. So it worked out.

Beignets and cocoa FTW!!
More pictures to come.

Hope you're having a great week.

Didja miss me...?

DH and I were on an NCL cruise of the Western Caribbean along with my mother- and father-in-law.

We embarked from New Orleans--a city I'd never been to--so we traveled a day early so that we could explore the French Quarter a little.

There will be pictures and tales of our adventures coming soon. I meant to pre-schedule some posts for last week, but just ran out of time.

But I'm back and ready to get back into the regularly scheduled rhythms and routines of life.

Hope you're well and had a good week last week. See you Wednesday...

TGIF

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be outlaws...


...unless they're hockey players masquerading as outlaws.
My man, Roman Polak, in his getup for the Winter Classic.

The Dallas Stars got kitted up by western wear retailer Lucchese for their arrival at the event of the regular NHL season.

Have a great weekend!!

The Weekend: Dallas Stars Edition...

My hockey partner in crime and I had a Dallas Stars filled weekend--first we attended Friday night's game and got our first and only bobble head of the season. Behold:

The Captain...JAMIE BENN




Not only were we early enough to snag a bobble head each, we watched warmups on the glass for the first time in a long time. All pictures taken by DD, aka Hockey Partner in Crime.
 Roman Polak and Stephen Johns
 Tyler Seguin
 Esa Lindell
 Roman Polak (L) & Esa Lindell (R)
 Roman Polak (L/C) & John Klingberg (R)
 Roman Polak(there's a lot of him, cuz he's my fave)
 Anton Khudobin
 Blake Comeau
Tyler Seguin
On Saturday, we attended open practice as the players were encouraged to sign autographs--which most of the time is not scheduled. We hit the jackpot--DD got 8 and I got 7, so we were more than thrilled.
 Stephen Johns
 Jamie Oleksiak
 Radek Faksa
 Roope Hintz
 Tyler Seguin

 Miro Heiskenen
 Denis Gurianov
Jason Dickenson
And yes, I can identify each player by number or by face. :0)
Sadly, they lost Friday, but they deserved to as they played a crap game. However, they won on Sunday.
So sprinkles for everyone!!!
Have a great week.
 

Projects and Processes

As you know, DH and I own our own business. We utilize a very complicated application to manage clients, our schedules, time entries--pretty much everything that happens is supposed to happen or be tracked in that software.

It also has a feature that allows you to plan large projects. You can break projects into phases and then create tasks/tickets for various steps of each phase.

Anyway, I've been less than diligent about most self-publishing related tasks. At least in terms of maintaining and refreshing previously released books. Other things too, such as better planning and plotting. But not things like advertising or promotion. I do very little of that by choice, although there are some things I do do and other I should do. I'm not getting to the level of several writers I know because that's just not me or part of my plan.

But we've been talking a lot in the day job about utilizing the application to more of its fullest, about following procedures, about creating project plans to stay on track, and the subsequent tasks/tickets in order to not only schedule them, but keep track of the time worked on them.

In addition to that, I have online friends with whom I hang out pretty much every day. A couple of them are full-time writers and they talk often about planning out various aspects of being said full-time writers that aren't the actual writing. Newsletters and blog posts and admin stuff. They plan that stuff, put it on their calendars.

So between the two conversations, I keep thinking that I need to be a little more proactive about things and sooooo...it's my intention and hope that I can make those plans in advance. If that's the case, I might need an application similar to the one at work...

Remember my bullet journal? Yeah, that lasted all of two weeks. The composition book is back to being just a composition book. Sigh. At first I thought a physical book would work better for me, but I've really been leaning in to being virtual and/or going green and reducing my paper usage. Maybe an online/electronic/virtual helper will be better. I did a quick Google search, read some articles with pros and cons. But will have to test some out I guess.

Anyway, it's Friday--hope you have an awesome weekend.

The gift that keeps on giving...

Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Happy Mother's Day, Happy Valentine's Day, Merry ChristmasTO ME
After discussions about cost and whatnot with DH, it was decided that we could be Dallas Stars Season Ticket Holders for at least one more year.

One of the reasons he gave for agreeing is because that's my gift for every holiday I could possibly expect one. And I'm perfectly happy with that. Along with tickets to every home game, there are also other events and perks that come along with being a STH.

One of those is first dibs on playoff tickets. And since we're going to make the playoff this year--that's handy. Another is attending the STH event each year right before the season starts where you can meet & greet the players. There are a couple other goodies you get, too, like last year we ended up with two large Dallas Stars branded cooler bags.

I do have to share--we are using one set as a prize for marketing purposes and one set as an employee perk... But I can't go to all of the games anyway, so it works out.

Have a great rest of your week!

A Night of Romance

Participating in "A Night of Romance" at a local library for the first time was a lot of fun. Didn't sell any books because I didn't have any, but I learned some things about this event and what to do better for next time.

Namely--have some physical books. I'll try to squeeze that herculean task into my schedule between now and October. It'd be nice to have physical books at my conference as well. I might need a little help from my friends, however, as I didn't do so well the last time I tried get physical books printed. I'm missing a trick somewhere.

I tried creating a matching game of my covers with printable business cards...only no one realized it was a game and wanted to take the cards. So note to self...print up a set of cards for each cover, but have a QR code and the URL to my website on the back instead of my logo. And come up with a more obvious game and have a cool prize, like maybe a free book.

Overall, it was a fun night of hanging out and visiting with author friends as well as meeting library patrons.

On another quick note...my Dallas Stars won their game Saturday evening and the two teams ahead of them in the Central Division standing lost--meaning we moved into second place in our division and into sixth in League (out of 31 teams). Holy smokes!!! And we have the best record in the League since the end of October, until which time we had one of the worst.

Have some more sprinkles...