April 13 2017

Tips & Tricks to save you $

I have been told that I should be sharing some of the things I have learned during my thirty plus years of marriage and living in the world and dealing with life. Here are a few tips for saving money I came up with off the top of my head.

Email Sign Ups

One tip that comes to mind this month especially is that you should always sign up for the notifications from your favorite restaurants and retail shops. Why? Well, during the month of your birthday, your inbox might be flooded with offers of free things at some of these favorite places. In the past, this has happened as soon as the month of my birthday arrives. This year it seems to be a bit slower trickling in, but still, some offers have arrived. Sure, you will get emails through the year as well, but you know how to delete the ones that don’t interest you, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

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April 13 2017

Quarterly Goals Checkin

Back in January, I told you all about my 2017 SMART Goals.

Well somehow the first quarter of the year has come and gone and it is time to see how those goals are coming along.

Here are the goals I set at the beginning of the year:

FAMILY FUN GOALS:
1) Do a cabin weekend  DONE!
2) April trip DONE!
3) Annual Hockey Trip for the kids’ birthdays (not scheduled yet)

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April 5 2017

Writing with Others

Writing with Others

Do you find yourself having trouble staying on task when you are supposed to be writing? Do you write better in a group where everyone is focused on getting words down during a writing sprint?

Sometimes during NaNoWriMo or Camp NaNoWriMo, I am able to go to in-person writing events with some of our local writers. These are so helpful and tons of fun. At other times, I find myself unable to attend a local event for one reason or another and missing the chance to do writing sprints with other writers. My solution for that is to go to YouTube and find a Virtual Write-In to watch. I found out about Virtual Write-Ins through NaNoWriMo, so I wanted to share some of their events that are on YouTube and available anytime you want to feel less alone in your writing. Here is the National Novel Writing Month YouTube Channel. They have a playlist of 86 different write-ins that you can watch and write along with. Most of these are about an hour-long, but they have several word sprints in each one so you can always jump ahead to find a longer one. Another perk to using these is that many of them include prompts that might help you get your creative juices flowing.



One of my favorite channels on YouTube to watch year-round is the YA Word Nerds. They do live shows every Sunday evening and have done many write-ins especially during the months of April, July, and November when there are NaNo events going on. You can find their live show playlist below and can scroll through looking for their Virtual Write-Ins. Sometimes they have guests with them like the video shown below with guest Kyra and past WordNerd Calyn.

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March 31 2017

Fear of Finishing

I have only recently figured out that a good part of the reason I have yet to finish one of my novels is because if I finish the first draft, I will actually have to figure out how to edit the thing. Now one would think that knowing this is an issue would be a big part of overcoming the fear and doing something to fix the problem. Yes, I am willing and able to admit it IS a problem.

I felt marginally better after hearing the keynote speaker at a recent writer’s conference acknowledge that it is a common problem among writers. He said it was kind of like while you are writing the book, writing is your job, so when you finish it is like losing your job or being fired. Once you finish the book, you have to tackle a new job, that of being an editor. Hopefully, an editor who will finish revising the first draft into something worth reading. It is a huge commitment. Continue reading

March 23 2017

What is your Time Suck?

What is your Time Suck?

I’m not sure if a time suck is considered a real thing or not, but I can tell you there are a few of them hanging around our daily lives. I kind of fell into one this morning while I was supposed to be getting ready for work. Let me explain.

My phone dinged, so of course, I had to see who was texting me. It turns out it wasn’t a text at all but a notification that Kid 2 had posted something to Facebook. I am always curious to see what the kids think is worthy of sharing or posting to their Facebook feeds. So I paused my morning routine long enough to take a look. Unfortunately, I saw something that caught my eye just below what Kid 2 had posted, so I scrolled down and saw the cutest cartoon called Fowl Language drawn with ducks as the main characters and it was all about parenting. Now I am quite sure I am the last person to learn about this but keep in mind that I do live under a rock most of the time, or as hubby used to tell me, I am culturally deprived. Continue reading

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