author | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, October 20, 2011

Time management has been a challenge for me for as long as I can remember. And keeping my house clean?

(Excuse me while I go have a good laugh)

Okay. Anyway, yes, the day job makes a convenient excuse. Not sayin’ it’s a good one, but it’s mine, and I’m sticking to it. Actually, I no longer worry about it, because now that my husband’s retired, he does a lot of it, and trades work with a friend to do some too (don’t hate me!). But when I was laid off a few years ago, I knew I had to step up.

Enter Flylady.

Before: My shoes were out of control!

Flylady’s website is full of tips to get your house (and other aspects of life) under control through routines. She sends out motivational emails every day, and sells products on her website that she’d personally used and determined to be the best value for what they do. She also has a lot of great sayings:

“Your house did not get messy in one day, it’s not going to get clean in one day!”

“You cannot organize clutter, you can only get rid of it!”

“Baby steps get the job done!”

“Just fifteen minutes!”

What a difference ten minutes makes!

Words to live by!

While I was out of work, I did a good job getting clutter under control, and I kept up with the house fairly well. But reining in clutter is an ongoing task, and I haven’t kept up with it since going back to work several years ago. Yesterday, I tripped over shoes in my walk-through closet and decided enough was enough. Surely it wouldn’t take that long to declutter my shoes, so I noted the time and figured I’d spend fifteen minutes on it and see what I could get done.

Buried in that junk, I found three pairs of boots I hadn’t worn in at least two years, and five pairs of shoes that were worn out (and I also hadn’t worn in a year). Those went out. Behind them, way in the back of the closet, were a cleaning bucket I’d thought was lost, and a laptop I had from my first software development job, that I bought in 1997! Even if it could run modern software, the screen was just about shot the last time I fired it up. So I found a place that recycles computers for free, without using toxic chemicals or shipping it over to China, and I put the boots in a bag for the next AMVETS pickup.

Time? 10 minutes!

Okay, five more minutes. I decided to tackle my husband’s shoes, since his size-14s are even more of a tripping hazard than my shoes. He didn’t have any to throw out, but I did move a few he doesn’t wear often to the back, behind his slacks.

Fifteen minutes total, and I was done!

The rest of the closet awaits for my next fifteen minutes, some other day, maybe tomorrow!

Have you ever put off something because you thought it would take a long time – then when you finally jumped in and got to it, found that it didn’t take long at all? Have you found anything as ridiculous as a non-functional, 14-year-old laptop??? Got any decluttering tips? Please share!

by Jennette, October 19, 2011

Halfway through the week… and I only have half of a chapter revised. So I’m thinking, my goals of working through five or six chapters was, shall we say, a bit ambitious.

I could come up with a number of excuses – as noted on Sunday, we had dinner company, then the video card in my computer decided to go kaput, which took me two hours to diagnose. That in itself was annoying, but then I realized I had several things to be thankful for:

I was able to work on the computer and figure it out myself, rather than take it somewhere, which would have not only taken more time, but cost more $$
I didn’t lose any work – even though when the video card died, it spontaneously shut down the computer, but I use dropbox, so everything is backed up, as soon as I hit Save. Word’s autorecover worked quite well too.
The video card that died was an add-on upgrade – meaning it was in addition to a built-in video interface, so I can still use the computer. It’s not powerful enough to run on my big monitor without looking stretched and fuzzy, but at least it works.
I ordered a new video card and it’s due in tomorrow.
The new video card cost $69.99 – then has a $15 mail in rebate. So it could’ve been so much worse on the wallet!

Still, the weekly goals need a little backing down, especially in light of the fact that I have a busy weekend coming up. So instead of working up through Chapter 10, I’m going to shoot for Chapter 8. It’ll still be a push, but hopefully doable!

If you’re doing ROW80 (or even if you’re not), how’s your week going?

by Jennette, October 13, 2011

It’s an Ohio thing, who knew? I didn’t, that’s for sure! But, I wanted to do a little digging into this so-called “Hallmark holiday” and find out what it’s really all about.

My Sunbird was not a convertible, but looked much like this one otherwise. There's a reason cars are special to me!

See, for me, Sweetest Day is something more. I admit to being cynical about it until 20 years ago, as I was about Valentine’s Day (“holidays that are great for someone who has a Valentine/Sweetest, and make the rest of us feel like crap”). What changed it for me twenty years ago was, I met my husband. Not on Sweetest Day, but on the night before Labor Day.

We met in a bar after a fireworks display. A friend of mine, who knew him through a friend, said hi, introduced us, then be-bopped off to someone else she knew, leaving me there at the table with the guy I had no idea I would marry, and his friend (whom he hasn’t seen since). I got his number planning to have him work on my car, a Pontiac Sunbird with a bad oil leak. I couldn’t afford a repair shop bill – heck, couldn’t afford any repair bill at that moment – but a month later, I had some money saved so I called him.

I dropped off the car on a Monday night. He called the next evening to let me know what was wrong with it (cracked head gasket) and how much the repairs would cost, then we talked for an hour about all kinds of things. When I picked up the car a few days later, I paid him $400 to fix what would have cost three times that (or more) at a shop, and he asked me out for the following Saturday night.

Sweetest Day editorial that appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in October, 1922 (click to enlarge)

That Saturday was Sweetest Day. He left roses on my doorstep earlier that afternoon, while I was out shopping.

Some sources credit Herbert Birch Kingston for starting Sweetest Day in Cleveland in 1922. His original purpose was to spread some cheer to orphans, elderly shut-ins, and other downtrodden or lonely folks by giving them gifts of candy. Kingston was employed by a candy maker, so there was certainly a commercial component to Sweetest Day’s origins. Other sources claim it was totally commercial, the concoction of a federation of Cleveland area candy industry insiders. Although the initial intention was to encourage people to gift candy to anyone, it’s mostly celebrated in romantic relationships modern-day practice.

So, Sweetest Day is a bit more than just a “Hallmark holiday” for me. (Despite its long history, Valentine’s Day is still pretty much that.) I had never really heard of Sweetest Day before high school (1980), but it turns out it’s been around a lot longer – and it was started in Ohio!

The sources I found all stated that Sweetest Day is still largely celebrated in the Great Lakes states, and not much elsewhere – also something I didn’t know, being a lifelong Ohioan.

Sweetest Day is this Saturday, October 15th. I still don’t know what I’m going to get for my husband. Often, we just go out to dinner, which is what we did on our first date.

Do you do anything for Sweetest Day? Or is it a Hallmark holiday for you (or less)? Do you have a fun story of how you met a significant other? Please share!

Car photo via motorbase.com (unattributed)
Sweetest Day newspaper clipping via Wikipedia.org

by Jennette, October 10, 2011

Motorcycles as far as the eye can see! The blue one on the left is mine.

Oregonia is a normally-quiet little hamlet just outside of Lebanon, Ohio. But every year on the second Sunday in October, it’s overrun with bikers, biker wannabes, race spectators, and people who just want to party.

The Motorcycle Hill Climbs have been held annually at Powell’s Farm (no relation to me) since 1948. The Dayton Motorcycle Club has hosted the event since 1973. Local lore says that when the original owner passed away a few years ago, the will stipulated to his heirs that the property would be made available to host the Hill Climbs for the next 50 years. As far as I know, the event has been cancelled only once in its history, due to rain. It was rescheduled for the following Sunday, (which has happened more than once), but this one also had rain.

A view from the bottom of the Devil's Staircase

The big draw, of course, is the motorcycles. Not just the dirt bikes in the race, but those in the parking area. Thousands of motorcycles, of every shape, color, size, make and model, from the most plush touring bikes and trikes, to battered, historical fixer-uppers that are barely roadworthy. My husband and I rode up with the guy my husband does funeral work for – who rode one of the special edition Harley Davidson police bikes, with the purple flashing light for funeral use. He got some long looks, LOL.

Beer is sold at the Hill Climbs by the cup – and by the gallon. Years ago, the gallon jugs were numbered. I’m not sure what the purpose of this was, but by the time we arrived, typically between 11AM and noon, people with single- and lower two-digit numbers were usually passed out, jugs in hands or nearby. I had my own, ubiquitous jug – of water.

The races can be pretty exciting. The Oregonia Hill Climbs is the last race of the year for the AMA Pro Hill Climb Racing circuit. Called The Devil’s Staircase, the dirt track goes up something like a 40 degree incline, which doesn’t sound like much, until you try to walk up it. Then imagine riding a motorcycle! The hill is stepped, which presents the greater challenge: the rider must get up enough speed to crest the first step, fifty feet up, then slow enough to not wipe out. If the first step doesn’t cause a rider to wipe out, the ones near the top of the 330-foot hill sometimes do. The winning bikes in the Unlimited and Extreme classes make the climb in seven seconds or less.

Sometimes dirt clods go flying into the audience. One time several years ago, a rider lost it and his bike went over toward the audience. Usually about one in ten participants either drops his bike, or breaks a chain (with the same result). One motorcycle caught fire yesterday as it crested the top of the hill. But not to worry – fire fighters and medical crews were standing by at both the top and the bottom. (The fire was extinguished immediately, and neither rider nor bike were hurt.)

A lot of bikers come to Oregonia on the day of the Hill Climbs and don’t even attend the races – instead, they party on private property, or go to the Little River Cafe down the road – a historic bar/restaurant with lots of outdoor seating. My husband and I usually leave after the first couple of racing classes, in the interest of getting out before the drunks do. It’s not unusual for someone to get hurt leaving the Hill Climbs – unsurprising, considering the amount of beer served. Law enforcement is always present, too.

If you live in the area, have you ever been to the Hill Climbs? If not, is there an event like this in your hometown?

More at the My Town Monday blog

by Jennette, October 9, 2011

Sequencing was a challenge (as I knew it would be), and making time to work on this was too. But it’s done!

This week’s goals

1. Last minute sanity check – IOW, note important stuff I’m afraid I’ll forget

2. Dig into the real revisions: going through my notes and actually writing the changes on my manuscript pages. This is Lesson 16 and starting on Lesson 17 of Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel system. I say “starting on” because the actual cut is brutal, and this manuscript will definitely be more work than either of my last two, and I’m trying to get it done faster, too. Here’s hoping I’ve learned enough to do that.

Several people expressed interest n HTRYN. She’s not currently taking new students, but will be starting on Monday, I believe. I’ll add a direct link when it’s available.

Good luck to everyone participating!

For more info on ROW80, see the “A Round of Words in 80 Days” blog

by Jennette, October 6, 2011

Okay, not a real award, like the Rita, or even the Wrters Digest 100 most useful blogs, but what the heck, it’s fun. You can play too, as long as you play by the rules (at least somewhat):

1. Thank and link to the person who nominates you.

Thanks to my writer friend, Stacy McKitrick! Stacy keeps a fun blog called Stacy’s Rantings and Whatnot, where she ~~rants~~ writes about TV, writing, sports, travel and whatever else strikes her fancy. Check her out!

2. Share seven random facts about you.

Hmm, this one was kinda tricky. I mean, I’m not that interesting. That’s why I make stuff up! So anyway…

Some stuff I like - and some I don't
I hate, I mean loathe, green peppers and celery. I can deal with the latter if it’s cooked, as that takes out the stringy texture and mostly kills the taste, or I pick them out if they’re not tiny, but peppers tend to leech into the surrounding food upon cooking, which pretty much ruins whatever it is for me.
I bought a car. ~~Turned out to be an alien robot, who knew?~~ I ordered it a month before it even went into production. It came with new friends, who knew?
I can curl my tongue, and make the Vulcan “live long and prosper” gesture. It always surprises me that there are people who can’t do this, including my husband and daughter!
Despite my artistic background, I never was able to get into scrapbooking, quilting, knitting, crocheting, or anything like that. I do like sewing clothing, though – I wish I had more time to do it. I’ve made numerous sweatshirts, dresses, hats, slacks, bridesmaid dresses, and even a wedding dress for one of my college roommates. The dress outlasted the marriage, but she’s been happily married to husband #2 for over 10 years now.
I am a Dale Carnegie graduate, which came in really helpful when…
I met my husband at a bar. If not for DCC, I wouldn’t have kept talking when the mutual friend who introduced us be-bopped off to talk to someone else and left me at a table with him. I started dating him after I paid him $400 to fix my car. I figure I’ve gotten my money’s worth – quite a few times over, as we’ve now been married 17 years!
My Earliest Memory
The earliest thing I can remember is going to get my dad’s new car – a ’69 Camaro – when I was 2-1/2. I mostly remember the weird look on my mom’s face when we went to the dealership, which I later found out was because she’d had no idea my dad bought a car! It’s still in the family, too – my brother spent two years restoring it, and it’s beautiful!

3. Pass this Award along to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know about it!

Well, I’m only going to list a few, as most blogs I follow are mostly about writing. Some of these aren’t so new to me, either. If you’ve already received this award (or don’t do memes like this), you can repeat it, or ignore, no problem. Everyone else – these are some fun blogs I follow that aren’t all about writing, so check them out!

The Evil Jim Winter – Edged in Blue

Athena Grayson

Michele Stegman – Thoughts from a Writer’s Block

Catie Rhodes – Full Tilt Backwoods Boogie

Julie Glover

My Town Monday – a group of writers who collect links from the comments – fun facts about places all over! Anyone can participate, so if you’re looking for blog topics, MTM is a good way to get them – and share!

Woman carrying a basket of bread and vegetables photo via Microsoft Office Clipart

by Jennette, October 3, 2011

I am taking part in a new writing challenge – well, new to me at least. It’s called Round of Words in 80 Days, and the idea is to set a measurable goal not only for the challenge as a whole, but each week. We report our progress each Sunday and Wednesday, so I’ll be doing that here. If nothing else, it will keep me accountable on my revisions for Time’s Fugitive.

So here goes:

My goals for the 80 days are:

Finish revisions on Time’s Fugitive by November 7, with the ultimate objective of a release by Christmas (although that depends on my beta readers and editors too). I have specific steps to achieve this, so it’s not just a big eat-the-elephant goal.
While Time’s Fugitive is with the beta readers and editor, my goal is to either outline the second half of the book I started for NaNoWriMo 2009 and never finished, or to outline a new Saturn Society novella – I’ll figure out which when the time comes.

This week’s goals are:

Mark where changes are needed in Time’s Fugitive to fix plot holes
Review scene sequence and timing issues, note fixes where needed. This sounds simple, but it’s time travel – with multiple characters traveling in multiple times – so it’s not. Especially since I want it to make sense to readers. 🙂 After all, that’s all of us writers’ ultimate goal, right?

by Jennette, October 3, 2011

Continuing last week’s homage to our area’s German heritage, let’s take a look at one of the biggest food festivals in southwest Ohio: the Sauerkraut Festival in Waynesville. And yes, it’s huge: according to the Sauerkraut Festival website, the event drew around 350,000 visitors last year, who ate seven tons of sauerkraut!

Last year's Sauerkraut Festival

Situated in the very northeast corner of Warren County, about 15 miles or so southeast of Dayton, Waynesville is known for its small town charm, and is considered the “Antiques Capital of the Midwest(sm).” The festival started in 1970 as a feature dinner for a sidewalk sale, which quickly became the main event. Subsequent years brought more and more vendors as well as a steadily-growing attendance, and included unusual items like sauerkraut pizza, sauerkraut donuts, and even sauerkraut ice cream! I can’t help wondering if the ham and sauerkraut pizza is as good as Marion’s. For those who don’t like sauerkraut, there are plenty of other offerings, including perennial festival favorites like funnel cakes, deep fried candy bars, pulled pork, burgers and hot dogs.

image of sauerkraut balls One of my favorite foods, which we typically only have during the holidays, is sauerkraut balls. My grandparents went to the Sauerkraut Festival once in the mid-seventies, just to get the annual festival cookbook. With no Internet and limited bookstore offerings, it was the only place she knew she could get the recipe for sauerkraut balls. Even though I was a kid at the time, and like most kids, didn’t like kraut, those kraut balls were awesome! Grandma’s no longer with us, so if we get them now, it’s up to me. They are a lot of work, but some years I still make them, they’re so good. One of my coworkers makes the festival a must-go every year – his wife goes to shop for crafts, he goes to eat. The kraut balls are one of his favorites. He was disappointed in last year’s; said they must’ve used a different recipe. If this years’ kraut balls aren’t the good ones, I might have to make some to take in to work and share.

The Sauerkraut Festival is held every year on the second weekend in October, which would be the 8th and 9th this year – next week! I will admit I’ve only been to the Sauerkraut Festival a couple of times, and a long time ago at that. I do sometimes pass through on the way to and from another event that’s always held on the second Sunday of October, which we’ll visit next week: the Motorcycle Hill Climbs in nearby Oregonia.

What are some of the fun food festivals in your area? Are there any foods you specifically look for there – and maybe learned to make because of it?

More at the My Town Monday blog

Festival photo via official Sauerkraut Festival website, sauerkraut balls via allrecipes.com

by Jennette, September 29, 2011

As I dig deeper into revisions for Time’s Fugitive, it seems lately that I never get done what I’d planned. Seeing as the release is set for December (thankfully, I haven’t committed to when in December), this is a problem. I really need to be done with these revisions by the first of November at the latest, in order to give my beta readers and editor adequate time to do their thing. So it’s time to reevaluate the schedule again.

If nothing else, it should be clear that the routines (or schedules) we set up for ourselves need to be flexible, and we need to reevaluate periodically to make sure they’re still working for us (and not the other way around). So what was going on with mine?

My Cozi to-do list: It's frightening

I was spending no more than an hour each night dealing with email, checking friends’ blogs, and checking in on my social media presences. I was doing my workout, eating dinner with my family, and spending time with my pets. I was getting my paperwork and chore stuff done. Best of all, I was getting my writing. But not necessarily done. And by the time I got done with that and was ready to do a little business stuff – finding review blogs, designing business cards, stuff like that – it was time to get ready for bed.

Of course, it would be really easy to cut back on sleep. I’m a night person, and it’s almost always a challenge to get to bed on time because, hey, I was a zombie for half the day, but by evening, I’m good to go! That might not matter if I didn’t have a kid to take to school, and a job to go to. But I do, so I need to get up no later than 7 AM. Which is even harder than going to bed on time, even when I do. But going on less sleep has more ramifications than simply a lack of energy the following day. Sleep is our bodies restore themselves, both mentally and physically. Too little of it can make your ability to focus on a task take a real hit. That, too, might not be a problem if you do a mindless job, but I am a computer programmer. My day job deserves better, as does my writing! There are other health disadvantages in inadequate sleep, including more difficulty losing weight. I need all the help I can get there!

So cutting out sleep is not the answer. Better to figure out where the schedule went wrong – and what to do about it. Once I gave it a little thought, it was obvious where my failure was: my writing tasks for the day were taking more than the allotted hour – more like an hour and a half, or even two hours.

The lesson here is that we need to figure out how long does a task really take, and choose a realistic time frame for completion. Maybe you were able to crank out a 50,000-word novel in one month for NaNoWriMo last year, but is working at that rate sustainable long-term? For many of us with day jobs, family and other responsibilities, NaNoWriMo involves putting other tasks to the side for that month, or cramming lots of writing into the weekend. I did NaNoWriMo in 2009 and won, and that’s how I did it. Instead of trying for the 1,667 words/day, every day, I instead shot for 1,000 words on four weekdays out of five, and 3,000 on Saturday and Sunday.

And therein is my other tip for today: Allow yourself some time off. By divvying up our tasks in such a way that allow for an evening/day off, we reduce the pressure on ourselves, and in doing so, increase our chances for success. Miss a day? No worries! It’s built in. No need to stress about having to do x much more tomorrow.

And going back to the issue of tasks that take longer than we expect, the answer there is easy, too: we need to realistically estimate how much time a given task will really take, and allot for it.

The problem is, sometimes it’s hard to know how much time something will actually take, especially when it’s something that’s not always the same, like writing – or computer programming! Yes, I deal with this in my day job on a regular basis, and that’s where I learned the secret of scheduling: However much time you realistically think something will take, double it. And if there are a lot of variables or unknowns, double it again. I can’t tell you how many times these have saved face for me at work, where in programming, Murphy’s Law rules. With this kind of scheduling (and a great project manager who will fight for it with the client), I almost never fail to deliver what my clients expect, when they expect it. The times I have run up against this, have always been cases where the client refused to give us the amount of time we asked for. Conversely, clients are never upset when we deliver a project ahead of time, or are able to include wish-list features now that they were hoping to add later.

Do you find yourself not having enough hours in the day to do all you’d planned? If so, can you figure out why? Is it because things took longer than you thought, you didn’t allow yourself any extra time, or something else? Got any tips to share? If so, please do!

by Jennette, September 26, 2011

Dayton Oktoberfest This past weekend was Oktoberfest in Dayton. Like Cincinnati, Dayton has a large population of people with German ancestry and an even larger population of people who like to drink beer. 🙂 My friend Jim Winter blogged about Cincinnati’s Oktoberfest last week. Ours isn’t as big, but it’s still a significant event, worthy of the name.

I will admit I have never attended. My husband went last night with some friends, and I was invited, but declined as I have nowhere near the drinking stamina any of them have – especially for a binge of five hours!

Wall to wall people, here for the beer!

Our event is held on the grounds of the Dayton Art Institute. Like the original in Munich, beer is served in tents, but here in Dayton, they really are tents, whereas the ones in Munich are actually huge, multi-story buildings. (My husband and several of our friends went there a couple years ago.) A stein of beer (approx. 1 liter) cost $9.00, and the servers weren’t allowed to take tips. My husband got around this by telling the girl to turn around, then stuffing a couple bucks down her top. Then one of our (very drunk) friends tried doing the same thing, and ended up breaking her necklace! My husband sent him a text the following morning: “Wanna buy a necklace?” (Me: facepalm!)

There is also plenty of food. Even Schmidt’s Sausage Haus from Columbus attended. My husband enjoyed the Bahama Mama sausages, but paid for it later. 🙂 Luckily, the group went in on a limo – not a bad deal when split between ten people, especially when there were probably several DUI checkpoints in the area. As for me, not only can I not handle much alcohol, at 5’0″, my time in crowds is mostly spent looking into people’s chests and backs, which is not much fun. So, staying at home to write was probably best for me. But my husband and our friends had a good time – seven of them passed out in the limo on the way home!

Does your hometown have an Oktoberfest, and if so, did you go? Got any funny stories to share?

More My Town Monday at the My Town Monday blog

Thanks to my bigsexyhoney for the photos – you’re the best!

Life and Love in Four Dimensions

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