January 17 2019

Better (Five Minute Friday)

It’s been a couple of weeks and I am kind of out of the habit of regularly writing already. So, let’s get better about writing a couple of times a week and see what happens.

The start of any new year makes all of us want to be better and do better at whatever our goals are. This year I struggled with choosing the right word to guide my year, and to be honest, I still don’t know what my word is for sure. I’m leaning toward “finish”. I know I want to try to follow the ideas from the article I read recently, Go Deeper, Not Wider, by David Cain, which was brought to my attention by Burgess Taylor in the video below. (THANKS, Burgess!)

Watch from about 0:55 to 2:00 to hear more about it.

Basically, the “Depth Year” is a year to use what you have instead of buying new stuff, finish projects you’ve started and set aside, learn more about subjects you are already familiar with instead of some new shiny thing. I think this will be better for me. “A big part of the Depth Year’s maturing process would be learning to live without regular doses of the little high we get when we start something new. If we indulge in it too often, we can develop a sort of “sweet tooth” for the feeling of newness itself.”

I am really excited about going in depth this year. I already know I want to dive back into genealogy research. I have been out of it for too long. I might want to branch out with my crochet for charity and do something besides hats, or maybe at least try a new pattern or two. I would also like to bring some closure to the numerous novels I have started writing and written enough to win NaNoWriMo, but never even reread after November was over. I’m not saying this is the year any of them get published, but I need to make myself read them, examine them, decide if they should be forever shut away in some dark drawer, or edited and rewritten until they are ready to query perhaps. I feel like this depth year will be a great way to practice being fearless (2017) and having confidence (2018) which were my most recent words of the year.

So I encourage you to read the article, it is only one page long. I wanted to keep it handy, so I shrunk it down, printed it out and glued it inside my new 2019 bullet journal after the yearly calendar and before the index/contents. Yes, it is that important to me. I want to reread it often to stay focused on my depth year. So, what do YOU think? Does finish sound like the right word for me in 2019? Can you think of a better choice? I’m open to suggestions, please email me directly or leave a comment below. Please subscribe using the box in the side margin so you can get notified by email when I post something here and feel free to check in and ask what I have gone in depth on. Should I choose something new each month? Each quarter maybe? If you been here long, what do you think I should choose to go in-depth on first?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Better
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Depth Year, Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Better (Five Minute Friday)
December 27 2018

With (Five Minute Friday)

Here we go again. The Five Minute Friday post is sneaking in under the wire to be included in the link-up.

What with the holidays and working 63 hours last week (possibly a new record for me), I just didn’t have it in me to sit down and attempt to write the post until now. I must confess I would have put it off indefinitely were it not for the deadline to post and be included in the link-up.

We had some of my family with us for a Christmas morning brunch and we decided not to worry about gifts this year. That part was good. Because it was a pitch-in, there was, of course, too much food. That was fine, good even because we will eat the leftovers for dinner this week.

The part that wasn’t good was feeling like we were racing through the day with too many things to do, too much structure to the day. We were having our brunch at 10am, but it was late getting started because one sister and our daughter were late. We had to make a big pan of potatoes and those had to back for 30 or 40 minutes. The last of the brunch guests didn’t leave until about 1:30 and we were supposed to be to the 2nd family pitch-in meals at 2pm, but the potatoes took a little too long to cook and then had to cool some before zipping the pan into the casserole carrier, this left barely enough time for the daughter to open her gifts from us and ours from her so we wouldn’t have to worry about her coming all the way back here when the night would end half-way home for her if she didn’t come back to our house. I really missed having the quiet relaxed opening of gifts and calm morning together. Maybe it was inevitable that this year would be different with the kids both living in their own homes now, and I’m not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to host the Christmas brunch, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The 2nd gathering was an hour or two earlier than we have had it in years past too which didn’t help at all.

We then did a nighttime downtown scavenger hunt that was gifted to us last year and about to expire. Because ti was for all four of us and we work 4 different jobs with different schedules in two different cities we just never found the right time to use the voucher. They shouldn’t expire. There just wasn’t any other time we could do it and it was a walking tour kind of thing. With me in a walking boot and it was about 40 degrees outside, and dark. It was fun, but could have been better if circumstances were different.

While I don’t mind spending time with our families and friends around the holidays, I doubt I will ever again allow myself to have all the things happen in the same single day. It was crazy, it was harried and hurried, too much going on to truly enjoy any of it.

What did you do with your holiday? Did you spend the time wisely? Would you do it differently next time?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: With
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday | 1 Comment on With (Five Minute Friday)
December 20 2018

Still (Five Minute Friday)

Still is a word that brings forth so many thoughts. It is almost Thursday again and I still haven’t written my Five Minute Friday prompt for last week. Okay, then, let’s do this.

“Be still and know that I am God.” “Be patient with me, I’m still a work in progress.” “Hold still!” “I’m still not touching you!” There are the stills of the foothills that make moonshine possible. I lay in bed some nights and think about how I need to get some sleep or I will be worthless at work in the morning, yet I am still awake and my brain just will not be still so I can rest. “Still waters run deep.”

Cancer is still a thing. It still tries to claim family members. If you detect it early, there is still hope. There is always hope.

When will I hear that still small voice that I long for?

Life is crazy busy and I still take time, make time, find time somehow to write. I write because I still feel like I am meant to write and publish a book. I still don’t know what that book is supposed to be, but I still feel compelled to write one. I still don’t feel like I have a clue how to plot a fiction novel, so maybe I still need to try other things when it comes to my writing. I have written hundreds of thousands of words over the past five years and I still have no idea what sort of book I am meant to write. It might be one that I have already started writing and I still don’t know how to finish. It might be one I have written and still can’t bring myself to even read it.

I read constantly, and there are still more books to be read. There is still work to be done no matter how much I get done. Each morning I wake up and think, yep, still alive, let’s face the day and see what it has to offer. Nope, still not tired. My brain is still not willing to be still.

If you are still here and reading this, I will relieve you of your misery and say enough is still enough. Thanks for hanging in there! There will be a couple of weeks that there will not be a Five Minute Friday post on here because there won’t be prompts due to the holidays (Dec 28th & Jan 4th).

The video below is a message to my hubby who doesn’t believe in blogs and never reads mine. Maybe someday he will change his mind and stumble across this one…

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Still
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday | 2 Comments on Still (Five Minute Friday)
December 10 2018

Balance (Five Minute Friday)

What does one write about balance? As the year draws to an end, I find myself thinking about what word will guide me through the coming year. I also think about the goals I would like to achieve next year.

Right now, my life doesn’t have much balance. I am working as many hours as I can stand to try to keep my head above water in a temp job that I really enjoy. I spend my days in front of a computer screen creating emails and comparing documents closely and deciding which templates are required to get the recipient to follow the rules so we can put their requests forward and know it will pass some future audit. When I get home, the last thing I want to do is check my email. You would think being in front of a computer all day that the last thing I would want to do is sit at my desk in front of a monitor, but I do. Admittedly, it is sometimes just to watch YouTube videos.

I also find myself looking through the bullet journal I have been using this year. I have recently listened to Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method, not once, but twice and some parts three times. This made me reconsider the way I used my own bullet journal. It doesn’t consist of “to do” lists, but “ta da” lists. It is more a place to record what the highlights of the day were than anything else and a place to record how much water I drink, steps I take and minutes of sleep I was able to get the night before. That is just the weekly spreads though. I also record my word counts each month the books I read, track the podcasts I listen to and so much more.

I’m trying to figure out how next year’s bullet journal will help me achieve that sought after balance in my life. If you have suggestions on this or which word of the year might be the right one for me, please feel free to comment below or contact me directly so we can talk about it.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Balance
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Bullet Journal, Five Minute Friday | 1 Comment on Balance (Five Minute Friday)
November 30 2018

Deep (Five Minute Friday)

The word for this week is deep. This has been a month. I was deep in the NaNoWriMo trenches and writing every day. I enjoy the focus on writing that November brings each year, but this year, I can honestly say I am ready for it to be over. I felt like I spent the entire thirty days in front of computer screens. Between working in front of a computer all day and then trying to get my word count in, my eyes are so tired of looking at screens.

I am ready to read for pleasure again. I have been listening to a lot of audiobooks and have a couple ready to listen to on my drive to and from work. I don’t like to read fiction books in November so I usually focus on writing craft books or other non-fiction selections. This week has been all about the podcasts.

Starting tomorrow, I need to dive deep into December and get serious about preparing for the upcoming holidays. For those who are still writing, keep going you can read this later. Get back to writing, you CAN do it. I believe in you!

Stay tuned for the wrap up on how my November and NaNoWriMo went.  That post is on the list for this coming Thursday if all goes well.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Deep
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Five Minute Friday, Writing | Comments Off on Deep (Five Minute Friday)