An Update for November 2020

Halloween is over. It's time to get the Christmas lights up and prepare for Thanksgiving. In England, we're still in Lockdown 2.0 so there are limits on what Jack and I can do this month. Luckily, we're allowed to go back to one of his baby classes so we have that to look forward to each week. Plus, it's good for him to keep seeing other kids, I think. Mister Pick and I have already started getting ready for Christmas because, like many people this month, we figure why not celebrate early and enjoy the season after the crazy year we've had? I can't go to any Keeping in Touch days at work and I haven't ventured to even walk around the mostly-closed mall. I've just been taking walks with the family and keeping our heads above water. At least this lockdown was something we could prepare for and knew what to expect. I'm still trying to keep up with NaNoWriMo 2020 but today I discovered I lost a chapter from yesterday. It's not great literature, but it did make me feel like I'll never get anything accomplished. It's tough to steal moments to write, so it's that much tougher than it would be if I wasn't mummying 24/7. It's also tough to keep up the bullet journal but I did at least start a November spread today (even though I'm a couple weeks late). I've considered starting a blog just devoted to writing with tips and activities, prompts and writer interviews but, again, I don't know when I'll have the time to get that together. I at least got bookblogarama active again after being on hiatus for a long time. And with that said, I'll close this update because block editor in Wordpress has just deleted text from this entry. (I'm doing well with technology today!) It isn't a riveting post but I hope everyone is keeping well and getting their writing done. Happy November!

An update for October 2020

I'll start off with my important public announcement:  don’t get gel manicures unless you want to pay to get one every month. My nails are completely ruined from that polish chipping and ripping a layer of nail off.

Jack is 9 months now and I’ve started Keeping in Touch days at work. There’s not a load of IT going on and no one-to-one sessions for me to do with customers so I’m just a gal in the library.

(I’m learning what I can and cannot touch in there too.)

These days my life is based on keeping Jack entertained, bottles, naps, and so many nappy changes. I try to keep up with my reading and have opted for lighthearted, fun YA rom-coms by indie authors. Of course, I still have Midnight Sun to get back to.

I finally bought an Archer and Olive B6 dotted journal, so the new bullet journal is taking shape very slowly. Steve told me to stop worrying about how wonky everything looks and just do it for myself. Sound advice. I am not a good artist and my spreads are simple but I enjoy it, and now with a journal with thicker paper, I can try watercolor pens. I’ve always envied the people who could go to art supply stores and buy things they would use. Now I can be one of those people.

I’m wondering about getting an Instax camera for Christmas. I’ve looked at them loads of times, but never bought one. Since we tend to go to National Trust places (or, at least we used to) and walks, I thought it would be a good idea to use for mini pictures in my bullet journal. I guess that makes it sort of a scrapbook of sorts as well. I like that idea.

My birthday was good, despite the lack of Florida trips or restaurants or anything other than hanging out at home with takeaways, presents, and my family. But, honestly, that’s what made it a great day.

Writing has been. I have things in motion more than I had in a lot of recent months, so I’m glad of that. I still only have little snippets of time when Jack is napping or Steve’s looking after him, so I don’t get a lot done. Also, as always, I’ve rethought my approach for the current WIP so I can either start from the beginning or keep on with my new ideas.

And with spooky season on its way, get out there, grab your pumpkins, and do your best to enjoy October.

An update for May 2020

I'm trying out my new keyboard. It's red with typewriter type keys. I never thought about getting one of these before until I saw a post where a girl had a pink, compact one for her iPad. (I need one of those too.)

It’s been so long since I’ve used the computer, and right now, Steve is watching Jack while I get ready for Steve’s birthday tomorrow. (I found his cards! Hooray!)

We’re still under lockdown here, unlike the US apparently who have restaurants open and like is “back to normal.” I still haven’t been to the shops since March, I’m guessing, so the only thing we’ve done is take walks. Sometimes I’ll take a ride in the car with Jack, just for a change of scenery, but that’s it.

To be honest, I don’t know what else I could be doing with the baby other than taking classes or going to the zoo, visiting the library, or other little activities just to pass the time. I worried a lot about “wasting” my maternity leave under lockdown, but I’ve accepted that there’s nothing I can do about it, and Jack’s happy with us, so it’s fine.

Jack has been sleeping better at night (touch wood), so I started journaling and bullet journaling again. I’ve also looked into working on my current WIP (at least I chose one) to keep up with and can tie into JuNoWriMo.

Anyone else doing that? Or has lockdown just been one big writing fest for everyone else? I’m so out of the loop and full of baby life that nothing else really is important.

I’ve messed around on the phone during Jack’s naptimes and want to work more on my author page and my imprint for when I do get my books back to publishing form. (I’ve been saying this for years, haven’t I?) I have only eight more months to be at home so maybe I can get something done but, again, I can’t really worry about that. There is just hardly any time with Jack’s schedule.

The funny thing is, I really thought I would have time to write this year. Yeah, not going to happen. Oh well!

I hope you all are writing and keeping safe. Here’s to a good June!

An update for February 2020

Jack has arrived!

Our boy was born on the 29th of December and I’ve been in a whirlwind of baby ever since.

Right now, I’m holding him with one hand and trying to type with the other. Motherhood will make you learn to improvise all sorts of things, I’ve noticed. (Eating with one hand. Sleeping with your hand in a cot. Having your husband hold the baby while you go to anywhere other than the bed because, otherwise, the baby cries when you set him down. Etc.)

Aside from trying to keep the baby’s weight up, which is ironic since my whole pregnancy was devoted to worrying about what a big baby he was, I have been trying to get out and about and stay active. This photo was taken during our first walk at the park.

Now, since I am pretty much stuck to the house and can’t really do much more than watch TV while I feed the boy, I have plans on how to keep myself sane during my maternity leave.

First: exercise. The easiest thing to do now, aside from sitting in bed all day, is to walk with the baby in the pram. I try to find places to take him during the week while Mister P. is at work, so that the day differentiates to the night.

Second: writing. Now, this is tricky because I can only type one handed at the moment (Jack hates the baby bouncer I have in the computer room, otherwise, I’d let him sit in there for a few minutes and give myself typing time.) So, its going to have to be me taking the laptop to a café and letting him sit in the pram.

I’ve decided to start with the basics, such as the blog (ta dah!) and maybe start some Medium stories. I was planning on writing something in draft form for Wattpad but I’ve also discovered Substack and Scribophile. (Has anyone used either?)

Third: bullet journal. This may not seem important on one’s list of to-dos but I dearly miss it. I’ve tried to grab snippets of time when I can use both hands for a quick weekly spread, or a list of TV shows to watch (because that’s pretty much all I do these days). But without the zen-like ability to quietly sit at my desk while I find the perfect washi tape, or look at tutorials on YouTube for making great Valentine’s Day doodles, it’s just not as fulfilling as it could be. Still, I’m grateful for whatever time I can use for organization and preparedness.

Fourth: reading. Well, this one does have options that I’m pleased about. I have the Kindle app on my phone, so I don’t have to go digging around for my Kindle or the book at the side of my bed. The trouble is, I’m only going to read a page at a time before I either get distracted by the baby or I start to nod off. Still, plenty of time to read for a few minutes when I’m said somewhere with the pram.

And those are my main objectives for the next bunch of months. Nothing new and nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose they’re resolutions of sorts but all of them take the back seat when it comes to being a mother and focusing my attention on Baby Jack.

But with that said, I hope everyone had a fab Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Bullet journals, Wallington, and not being discouraged

Well, this blog certainly isn't getting updated very often, even if I really want to post something, I never get around to it.

Since last time, I've started an apprenticeship for Team Leading and Management at work. That means I have a manager who mentors me and whom I shadow at one of the libraries along with my coursework that I need to do. I really like it so far and I'm happy that I decided to apply for it because I feel mentally challenged and satisfied doing this kind of work. Not that I'm not pleased at how much I help people with my regular IT teaching job in the libraries, I'm just happy that I have something else to add to my list of things I can do.

There were Team Leader jobs as secondments available this year but I do like where I am and I wanted to spend my extra energy in focusing on my apprenticeship. I’m sure the job would have helped me gather evidence for my course, but, again, I’d rather stay doing what I do because I think I help people.

Helping myself is another story. I’ve been trying to do the diet and exercise thing but, man, am I so tired these days. I was okay for a bit when I got my bicycle because I was ready for sun and summertime, but now I’m not doing as well as I hoped.

I’ve been writing a book, I guess, about how these things have caught up with me. I’ve never been so stinking frustrated with trying to write, blog, work, exercise, lose weight, spend time with Mister Pick, enjoy my time at home, and do things outside of the house so I don’t end up being a hermit. (Although, being a hermit isn’t looking so bad these days.) I listened to a podcast yesterday that said if we keep stepping over the crap that’s flung onto us, we’ll eventually get out of the pit. Good advice and I have to take that all to heart when I’m feeling like the me I’m trying to build just isn’t showing up.

I mean, surely everyone feels like there’s just too much we should be doing, don’t they? I had to make Sundays be my non-social media days because I was getting overwhelmed with the comparisons. I should be writing my book. I should be traveling. I should be making a business. I should be starting a podcast. I should be engaging on social media.

The funny thing is, once I stopped using social media as much, I realized how much I don’t need it. It’s a useful tool, don’t get me wrong, but because I’m kind of a special creature – American, in England, still don’t know what I’m doing, the usual stuff – I get really down when I see people appearing to know what they want and doing it.

But, alas, that’s still one to work on this year. 42 is definitely an interesting one, I tell you.

Also, I’m still watching videos about bullet journaling and although I have my Passion Planner (one for daily agendas and one more for academic tasks), I was curious about all the binder planners that people were posting on Instagram. I was going to get one online but I happened to see an A5 agenda binder at Wilko’s after work this week, so I’m going to print some free planner sheets to add to it. I even bought a small 6 ring hole punch to get working on these. I’m wanting habit trackers and while it takes all the artistic design out of making my own for my bullet journal, having ready-made pages may really help me in the long run.

The photo above was from our recent trip to Wallington. We’d been before, years ago, before we had Daisy, so we took her to explore the vast farmland. Of course the sheep weren’t interested in a giant barking goldendoodle but, hey, who can blame them?

I have another week of work before Easter and our break to Liverpool and Hoylake so I’ll be sure to update on that trip to see the Pick family. Until then, grab your eggs and your bunnies and enjoy the upcoming holiday.

Dreams on your heart and plain old goals

Last post I touched on the idea of writing goals and keeping track of my book projects, word count, and so on.

I also mentioned that I’ve been listening and reading more about productivity and goals. One of the books I’m currently in the middle of is Eat that Frog which is about not procrastinating and getting the most difficult task of the day done and over with first. Makes sense. I’ve also jumped on the bandwagon and started reading and listening to Rachel Hollis. I have a Getting Stuff Done planner and a This Is My Era planner (which I still need to set up), as I wait for my Passion Planner that’s coming by next month (or so the tracking information tells me).

So if you know what tasks you need to do in daily life, you sort of do them in order. At least that’s how I do them. I get up, I feed the cats or take the dog out, I make coffee, I eat breakfast, and if I have to go to work, I get ready to do just that before leaving the house at whatever required time. Those are my priorities from 6AM-8:30AM at least.

The rest of the day is doing work-type library and IT requirements and each day is different and those, again, go in order of operations. If it’s Monday, I run and send out financial reports. If it’s Tuesday, I do my stock inventory. If it’s Wednesday I’m teaching a class in the morning. If it’s Thursday or Friday, I’m teaching all day. Each sessions has it’s own agenda depending on who attends, so those couple of hours may or may not entail something I have already planned out.

Now, I know those are the shallow, or the dry jobs that are required of me. The routine that I have delegates my tasks.

However, most of my podcasts, blogs, books, whatever talk about your goals. What is your big dream?

Easy: to write. Or, more specifically, to be an author. Name on scads of books that sits on virtual and tangible shelves that lots of people read and enjoy. That’s the dream.

But apparently that has to be more specific because I need steps to achieving that main, attainable in the future goal.

Most of us have been around the block enough time to know that our number one aim each day is being chained to our desk for an amount of time that allows us to produce content in literary form. That is self explanatory. We also know that once the writing is done and we’ve gone through National Writing Month or whatever and gotten your 50,0000 or more words down for a rough draft, we need to edit. Then we need critique partners, beta readers, proof-readers, and anyone else who can give us some nice, solid opinions before we edit again.

Then we can think about submitting to agents, or start working on self-publishing. We needs to market and promote. We need to sing our own praises the best we can.

And once we run that through for a good while, it’s time to start again. Heck, we’re all probably writing the next book, or books, already.

Eventually we’ll get to where we want to be. Sure, most of us want to be on the NY Times Best Sellers list, so we can just write that down on our dreams list. But what will get us to get to the dream – good old fashioned hard work. That’s going to be true for anything, so yeah, planning out each step of the way is great but what I have to remember, plan on, meditate on, and aim for is to write. every. single. day.

Bullet journaling, planners, writing goals, and being a terrible artist

I think I've given up on my bullet journal.

Here me out; it’s really time consuming. I used to watch Noelle on Seventeen’s Bullet Journal channel to get ideas on how to set up my weekly and daily spreads. (Little Coffee Fox is good too.) That was fine because it wasn’t not creative, it was just very simple to follow and get basic ideas on options to get yourself going. However, the new host is artistically talented and most of her bullet journaling videos are about doodles and drawing – neither which is can do. While I really appreciate going outside of the box, bullet journaling just seems too much like a sketch book than a planner. If I had loads of time, I would get into it, and I have attempted a few doodles from “How to draw a …” tutorials on Youtube, but that just takes up time and I only have that every other weekend at most.

Also, bullet journals need a lot of equipment to go along with it – brush pens, highlighters, washi tape, etc. I can’t take that all with me when I’m traveling about at work. I can’t very well sit in the lunch room with all of my art supplies just to draw out a weekly spread. It not only looks strange to regular 9-5 people (remember, I work in the library so reading a book is about the only acceptable activity for lunchtime other than eating lunch), but it will get people asking what I’m doing.

And, yes, I know I could set up the spreads with pencil or even pen and do the designing later but again, time consuming.

So, as much as I like my bullet journal it’s ended up being something “fun” to play around with once in a while, but it doesn’t serve the initial purpose of my planning companion to take with me everywhere. I did buy a kid’s journal that has all the spreads set up, like the trackers and books to be read, so I could fill that in and serve the basic purpose of having the bullet journal in the first place.

I have a Happy Planner from the States that I like to fill in when I’m home, but, again, it’s way too heavy and inconvenient to have in a handbag when you’re going around from library to library every day.

What I’ve decided to do is to get a Passion Planner from the States (why are we only obsessed with planning back home?) that should be portable and functional. I also have just a plain notebook that I can jot down the ideas for my blog entries because that was something I wanted to keep track of. (Also, there’s an interesting post comparing the Passion Planner vs Bullet Journal.)

For writing, I honestly don’t know how to keep tabs of my word count and how to set goals for that. I have a handful of book projects I want to work on and I thought the bullet journal would work well in keeping myself on track with my word count, plots, scenes, etc. I think the notebook is just going to have to do the trick.

If I don’t have time to doodle in a bullet journal, I certainly won’t have any time to actually write.

And I will add that setting goals is a strange one. I’ve been listening to lots of podcasts on the subject and still reading Eat that Frog. (Who got the idea that library workers have time to read all day? Puh-lease!) How do people have clear ideas for what they want 10 years from now and how to get to that goal? My goal has always been to write and publish my books (self-published or otherwise). My steps to reaching that goal are the same as they are for everyone – write, edit, rewrite, read, share, edit, rewrite, and so forth. It’s the time that gets me and the time management that I need to keep myself on target as I’m sure it is for most people with a day time job and a ton of books they want to show the world.

9 More Sleeps Until Christmas

Yes, that's right. It's almost time again.

This year, I've been really embracing the Christmas spirit. I've been listening to music in the car, wearing my tacky jumpers, and decorated the house like it's Santa's grotto. It must be having the new house, and knowing that we'll have plenty of room for everyone to hang out. (By everyone, I mean me, Mister Pick, the dog, and the two cats now. We still have our boy, Jake, but we've also added Elle to our family.)

For our Christmas build up, we've been to Beamish Christmas, as usual, and we went to the Christmas market at Grey's Monument. This week coming will be our events at work, so, yeah, Santa is coming to town. Soon!

I’ve still been working on my bullet journaling, but the plans of world domination with my blog and plethora of eBooks will be on hold once again. I applied for an apprenticeship at work, and I’m pleased to report I got a place. Next year will be different with that plus the new systems we’re implementing in the libraries. It’s going to be different, but a good change of pace.

So here’s hoping that Christmas will be a nice time to relax and get back on track, so the New Year can be full of new adventures.

Rainy weekend with Netflix and my bullet journal

Guys, I did absolutely nothing all weekend and it was glorious.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned oodles of times, I work every other weekend. This weekend, I didn’t have to work. It’s been insanely hot up here (but not as bad as down south, so I hear) and we were expecting thunderstorms at the end of the week. Luckily, we had awesome rain since Friday and the temperature went down to 52F last night. (I still don’t do Celsius temperatures.)

So while it poured down rain and the fresh, cool breeze made the flat much more bearable to live in, I had zero motivation to go anywhere. I was happy watching Netflix, writing in my bullet journal, and playing The Sims. No, I did not write. No, I did not read. These activities seem to be more weekday things when I’m out and need calming distractions from the daily grind. (Then I can complain when I don’t have time to spend lots of time on them.)

Hanging out with Steve, Daisy, and Jake all weekend has been wonderful. I just felt like I needed to be shut away from the world to recuperate from the constant running around that I usually do in the week. I go to six libraries in 5 days. My job requires me to be around people all of the time. I’m chatty all of the time. I’m efficient, helpful, prompt, courteous, and everything in between all week. I think I deserve some max chill out days, especially when the weather isn’t very welcoming.

What’s been keeping me nice and relaxed lately has been my bullet journal. Now, I’ve said before on Twitter that I refuse to post any photos of my pages because I’m just not an artist and the pages look like a janky mess. Steve, who is an artist, has suggested that it’s because I rush my designs. I rush everything because I always feel that urgency – things must be done now! Quick! Go! But, doing design and art means practice and patience, so the #bujo (yeah, I did it) is really helpful for me to focus on something tactile that, I wouldn’t say, de-stresses me because it isn’t a stress I feel, it’s just a nice, calming activity.

I remember working at the school and giving hyperactive kids coloring books and puzzles. They would be fixated on the task for a good while and I can see now that it was probably something they really needed instead of being fidgety and trying to find an outlet for their overactive brains. Personally, it’s just really entertaining and I love watching the videos on how other people use their bullet journals. That in itself is really addictive.

So … I have a new hobby? Cool.

For Netflix, I watched the first episode of Season Six of OITNB, but I didn't watch more because I'm still on The Staircase, which is really addictive.

Seriously, guys. I think I should have been a detective, or a lawyer, or at least a police officer. There’s still time to get a new career, isn’t there?

Anyway, so that’s how the weekend has gone. I have the rest of the evening to talk a walk with Daisy, take a bath, write something that resembles fiction, talk to my parents on the phone, and hang out with Steve until bedtime. I’d love to have a holiday where I just stayed home for about a week, but right now I think that won’t be until after Christmas. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep my self in check and make sure that I give myself plenty of recovery time.

Actually, I should block that out in my daily bullet journal entries.