Tag Archives: Time’s Fugitive

Happy Nude Year! Or, Words We Mishear

by Jennette,

Happy Nude Year!

One of my friends from college has a funny and slightly unique way of wishing people good tiding for the upcoming year: Happy Nude Year! She’s been saying this for years, and my husband and I often use it ourselves. Yet probably three fourths of the people we say it to don’t hear what we say. Granted, it’s close to the original, but the “D” in “nude” is definitely discernible – and our friends are not hard of hearing! Those who do hear it usually laugh. Others just return the standard greeting and go on their way. I guess it’s like proofreading something you’ve written – you miss a lot of mistakes, because you see what you expect. People hear what they expect.

On another note, I’ve finished the markup of Time’s Fugitive.  (Can we have a round of applause, please? Okay, I’ll settle for the sound of one hand clapping – mine.) Now all I need to do is type it in, read it aloud, refine and polish… sheesh, I’m getting tired again already. But really, the biggest part of the revision work is now done.

For New Year’s Eve, DH and I will spend a nice, relatively quiet evening with the neighbors. We can drink all we want without having to worry about driving, especially given that it’s amateur night for that. After owning a bar for over ten years, it’s nice to not have to go out.

What are you doing for New Year’s? Got any funny variations on common phrases to share? In any case, have a happy 2012 – and a happy nude year, too!

Illustration via Microsoft Office Images

How do YOU Unwrap Gifts?

by Jennette,

A MUST for my brother's gifts

Is there one in every family? I thought it was just mine, but after a funny conversation during our gift exchange at work last week, I have to wonder.

It all started with the mention of gift bags – which not only look pretty, but can be a huge time-saver. A coworker said, “Gift bags are a MUST for my stepdaughter. I never wrap presents for her. Otherwise, she has to painstakingly remove every single piece of tape, and damage the wrapping paper as little as possible–”

ME: “Oh my gosh, my brother does that!”

COWORKER: “Yes, it’s like she has to save the paper, but she never reuses it!”

ME: “Neither does my brother!”

IN UNISON: “It drives everyone nuts!”

“My mom does that too,” another coworker said. “But she actually does reuse the paper.”

Coworker #1 and I agreed that this was different, as there was a reason for preserving the paper.

Yet another coworker wondered how old these relatives are, thinking they were children.

COWORKER #1: “She’s twenty-one!”

ME: “He’s forty!”

Somehow, I bet this guy is one of those who unwraps s-l-o-o-o-w

Coworker #1 theorizes that her stepdaughter does this because the longer it takes her to unwrap her gift, the longer she gets to be the center of attention.

I’m not sure what my brother’s motivation is. Maybe he just likes to savor the moment and the anticipation. He’s unwrapped presents this way since he was a little kid, and after a few years of suffering through packages that took him a half-hour or more to open, the family got so that we simply moved on and ignored him, only returning attention to him once he got his gift unwrapped. He’s been married for six or seven years, and his wife and mother-in-law still give him wrapped gifts. Invariably, he’s still sitting on the floor with unopened presents long after everyone else is done and people are leaving.

I, on the other hand, dig into my gifts with gusto. Paper flies, and is always torn through the middle. When I was a little kid, my parents always found it amusing. I throw the paper less now, but I still have fun.

What about you? Do you tear into your presents like a tornado, or savor the anticipation? Do you have a family member who unwraps presents piece-of-tape by meticulously-removed-piece-of-tape? Or if you’re “that guy,” what’s your reason for dragging it out so long? Curious minds want to know!

Whatever holiday you celebrate, I hope you have (or had) a wonderful one! Or if you don’t celebrate, here’s hoping you at least enjoyed a day off work, or good pay if you didn’t even get that.

Photos via Microsoft Office Clipart

My Town Monday: Serving Those who Served for the Holidays

by Jennette,

Veterans line up for a homemade meal at the AMVETS monthly luncheon

On the third Saturday of every month, our AMVETS chapter takes a variety of delicious, homemade foods to the Dayton VA Medical Center and serves lunch to dozens of resident veterans. The vets always appreciate the good food, and after lunch, the AMVETS host Bingo, which the vets always meet with enthusiasm.

During the holidays, the AMVETS make the December luncheon extra special, with a visit from Santa, a care package stocking for each vet, and entertainment.

The vets eat while the girls sing

I’m the chauffeur for the entertainment: my daughter and whichever friend(s) can join her. This year, one of her choir friends came along, and they sang several Christmas songs. My daughter played flute for a few while her friend sang, too. Even though they messed up a few times, no one seemed to notice or care. The vets, as well as the AMVETS serving lunch, gave the girls a hearty round of applause. Even though all I did was drive the girls out there, it’s a good feeling to contribute to something that makes the day a little merrier for those who served us and sacrificed so much.

Of course, it’s just one of many activities our local AMVETS chapter does to give a little back to their fellow vets who are less fortunate, health-wise.

Do you participate in any special charitable activities over the holidays – or all year long?

More at the My Town Monday blog

Goals, and Facing Facts

by Jennette,

On a positive note, I again reached my writing goals this week, although partly because they changed. I finished the type-in through Chapter 11, then marked up Chapters 18 and 19, but decided against sending the first half to the beta readers at this point.

Time's Fugitive book cover

Coming in FEBRUARY!

Because it’s time to face facts and come clean: Time’s Fugitive is going to be late. I’d wanted to release it about now; that’s not even close to happening. There were two reasons for this: 1) earlier on in this challenge, I wasn’t focused enough and tended to push the work aside when it was just too hard. The other, more insidious problem was that I grossly underestimated the amount of time this revision would take. My estimate was based on the revisions for Time’s Enemy, and while the lengths are similar, Time’s Enemy had already undergone several exhaustive revisions before I discovered Holly Listle’s How to Revise Your Novel system. So the Time’s Enemy revision was relatively painless, but Time’s Fugitive needed a lot more work, for me to make it into the book I wanted, with the quality that I’ve committed to delivering to my readers.

One thing this challenge has taught me is what is a more realistic goal, and how to set that goal while taking in mind what else I have going on that week. This week, I knew I had two holiday events to attend today, plus decorating (my tree’s still not up :facepalm:) and getting Christmas cards out. I met my goal this week, but it wasn’t a super-aggressive one. It wasn’t easy, but it was doable.

So that’s what I’ve learned through this challenge. The eighty days of ROW80 ends on December 22, so for my final writing goal, I’m going to keep it simple: one more chapter marked up. How about you? What have you learned lately about what you’re capable of, whether or not you’re a writer, or participating in ROW80?

More Holiday Stress-busters

by Jennette,

We all have too much to do during the holidays. So much that, for many, a time that’s supposed to be filled with fun, friends, and laughter ends up being filled with tension, anger, and resentment – maybe even stress-induced illnesses. I remember my mom being sick on many a Christmas. Now I know that it was probably stress-induced – she has fibromyalgia, so would be even more susceptible to this than most people.

So how can we reduce the stress, while still having fun and making things meaningful for our loved ones? I touched on a couple of ways in my ROW80 update post, last Sunday. Here are a few other tricks I’ve tried:

Parties and other time-commitments
For many people, there are simply too many of them! Sometimes, they even conflict, forcing us to choose – and possibly disappoint someone. I can’t speak to that situation – it will be unique depending on you, and the others involved. But sometimes there are simply too many commitments and they’re keeping you from doing other important things – like spending time with your family, doing the job that pays the bills, and oh yeah, that shopping. So do you really need to go to every one of those parties? Ask yourself these questions about each one:

  • If I don’t go, will someone be disappointed or hurt?
  • Are there people there I care about, who won’t understand why I can’t make it?
  • If I don’t go, will it adversely impact me (for example, career or business issues)?
  • Are these people who don’t live nearby, and whom I don’t see at other times of the year?
  • Do I really want to go? (<- This one’s important!)

If you answered NO to these questions, then skip it!

Shipping Gifts

Just say no to waiting at the post office!

I am blessed to have my close family nearby, so I’m not as affected by this as many. But I do know if I was, I’d be planning ahead – and doing all I could to avoid the post office. There are never fewer than ten people in line at mine on any day, and near the holidays, the place is a madhouse! I think I’d almost rather go to the mall; it’s that bad. Of course, the number one key is to plan ahead and get things taken care of early. But aside from that, the good news is (at least for those in the U.S.), most of the time, you CAN avoid the post office! And I don’t mean paying the higher prices at a commercial shipper either. All you need is a computer, a good quality printer, label paper, a credit or debit card, and maybe a postal scale to take advantage of two AWESOME services provided by the US Postal Service: Click ‘n Ship, and Carrier Pickup. Just set up an account at www.usps.com, type in the address info, weight, etc. Enter your credit card, and the system will automatically generate a label with the proper bar codes, tracking info, etc. that you can print on single-sheet labels and stick on those packages. Use the free boxes the USPS provides for Priority Mail and Express Mail – go in and grab some after hours, or even if you brave the parking lot, you can at least skip the line. It gets better – after you print your label, you can schedule a pickup at your home for the day you ship your package – for free! The 13-ounce, must-hand-to-a-postal-employee rule doesn’t apply either: they have your info in their database, so they know you’re OK. You don’t even need to be home for them to pick up your packages. I’ve had them pick up 17 boxes at a time once – no problem! I haven’t been to the PO in months, if not longer; and then it’s only to check my PO box.

Let Shutterfly do those holiday cards!

Holiday Cards
Christmas cards are my bane. A lot of people just buy a box of cheapies from Wal-mart or wherever, sign them, and send them off. If you’re one of them, then you’re ahead of the game. The only way to speed up from that is to simply not send any. I do know people who don’t, and I’m envious. Yet I do send them, for a couple reasons. One, they help me keep in touch with people I might otherwise not, but want to; and two, they’re a Big Deal to my husband. Even though I don’t think he ever sent a Christmas card before we met. They are his opportunity to brag, and in years past, I used my Graphic Artist Skillz to design a custom card with our photos on it, print them up in our printer, print the envelopes up….  it was awful! I’m a good designer, but I don’t work fast, so this was a huge time-suck from the get-go. Then they would invariably be a pain in the butt to print, jam the printer every other card, run the printer out of ink or toner… you name it. Last year I said, no more! Instead, I asked my husband and daughter to pick out photos they wanted to include, and I purchased digital licensing for the photo we had taken of our dogs a few weeks ago, a free sitting at the PetWants store grand opening. I uploaded the bunch to Shutterfly, picked out a design, and click! Cards on the way. I got a lovely box of them in four days, and with coupons, they were under $1.00 a card. With the cost of card stock (not to mention the aggravation factor), the ones I did at home probably weren’t any cheaper. Instead of printing the envelopes, which always seem to jam, I’ll print labels. My husband can then sticker and stamp ’em, and they’ll be good to go. If you really have more money than time, Shutterfly will even address and mail them for you, but this wasn’t available with my coupons, so I’ll do that part myself.

Holiday Newsletters: These are an artifact from a time before email, Facebook, free long distance, and texting. Do most of the people you’d send a newsletter to already keep in touch via the above? Then give yourself permission to Just Say No!

Baking: just say no – or pick up something they’ll really like, like I mentioned in Sunday’s post.

Santa still wraps, but he uses gift bags, too!

Gift Wrapping: If it’s free at the store where you bought it, and the line is short (or you’ve got time), use it! A lot of malls and specialty stores have Girl Scouts or similar groups offering gift wrapping for a small donation. Another tip is to use gift bags! As Melinda VanLone commented on my Sunday post, they take only a few seconds – and they’re reusable! While I do wrap some presents, especially those that won’t fit well in a gift bag, I also use a lot of gift bags. I hardly ever buy them – almost all of mine once contained gifts to me, my husband, or our daughter. My brother has a weird habit of unwrapping presents by meticulously removing every piece of tape with as little damage to the paper as possible. It takes him at least a half hour to open one present, and it drives everyone nuts. From me, he gets all his presents in gift bags – a double benefit!

Online shopping: Avoid the crowds, lines, and craziness – and save time! Do it online. My favorite store is Amazon.com. In many cases, you’ll also save money – their prices are tough to beat, there’s no sales tax (fair or no), and most things will ship for free if you spend over $25. It takes a little planning ahead, but otherwise, what’s not to like?

The best tip of all? Do as Flylady says: plan ahead, do a little bit every day, and BUDGET your money – that way you won’t be as stressed for the holidays now, and you won’t be stressed when the bills come later!

Got any more holiday stress-busters to share? As much as these make it look like I have a handle on things, there’s always some last minute gift I forgot, commitment I didn’t plan on, and extra stuff to do, so I’m always looking for more ways to make the holidays fun for everyone, and as stress-free as possible!

My Town Monday: A Dickens of A Christmas

by Jennette,

This past Friday night, my daughter and I went back in time. Well, not really, and certainly not like the characters in my books, but in a figurative sense, with help from the residents and volunteers of the St. Anne’s Hill Historic Society.

48 High St. Gallery

Every year since 1986, the group has conducted a tour of homes in their historic Dayton neighborhood. It includes a walking tour of the area, led by tour guides in capes and top hats. Most of the homes are from the Victorian era or the early 20th century, and are lavishly decorated. The homeowners were friendly and enthusiastic, and happy to tell their homes’ stories and answer visitors’ questions. All who were asked, permitted us to take photos inside as well.

Our tour started at 5PM, when it was getting dark, so none of the photos I took turned out well. So most of the photos shown are from the St. Anne’s Hill website, which features a very cool online tour. The 2011 “Dickens of a Christmas” Tour started at the 48 High Street Gallery, which is home to the Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors.

The first residence in the St. Anne's Hill neighborhood

St. Anne’s Hill was one of the first neighborhoods plotted outside of the immediate downtown area, by Daniel Cooper, one of the early city planners, in the early nineteenth century (sources vary on exactly when this happened). The first reference to the area as “St. Anne’s Hill” appeared in newspaper ads for a greenhouse in the early 1830s. Where the name came from remains unknown.

A Swedish botanist named Eugene Dutoit built the first residence, a farmhouse, on his 111-acre farm and orchard on the north side of Fifth Street. The original house still stands at 222 Dutoit Street.

The Dragon House

One of the first homes we visited was called “the Dragon House.” Located at 629 McLain, the turn-of-the-century Victorian house was called such because it once had a metal dragon figure mounted above the porch (if I recall the story correctly). The homeowner still has the dragon, stashed away in the basement waiting to be restored. What was really cool, was the address numbers were formed of dragons! Unfortunately, my photo didn’t turn out, and they’re too small to see in this one. The interior of the home sports some amazing woodwork, that reminded me of the interiors of the Piatt Castles. It was also full of beautiful, restored antique furniture. My daughter says she wants to buy the Dragon House. I told her she’d better win the lottery LOL. However, there was a flyer lying on the newel post that stated the owner is planning to put it up for sale this spring.

The majority of the neighborhood was built by craftsmen and industrialists. When the original Dutoit farm was split up and developed, much of the houses were smaller, simpler homes for working-class families. With original construction dates ranging from the 1830s to the 1960s (just a few of those!), there’s a lot of diversity in the architecture, yet it all goes together.

The Bossler Mansion

It was interesting to see how some of the homes were decorated, furnished, and remodeled inside, particularly the three smaller homes we visited on Henry Street. These had very contemporary-styled decor, or an eclectic mix of antique and modern furnishings. All of the kitchens and bathrooms (that we saw) had been updated, and some were very modern. My daughter was drooling at the claw-footed bathtubs in some of the homes.

The tour concluded at the Bossler Mansion, where servers in Victorian garb served coffee and homemade bread pudding. This Second Empire-style home was built in 1869 by Marcus Bossler, a builder and stone worker, who lost the home a few years later in order to avoid bankruptcy caused by another project. The mansion was later divided into thirteen apartments, several of which were still occupied when Lee Smithson, the current owner, purchased the house in 1980. Mr. Smithson spent the next five years overseeing a complete restoration, doing much of the work himself. An accomplished chemist retired from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Mr. Smithson is also a foodie, and has catered numerous weddings and other events at the Bossler Mansion. He resides in the third floor, and even allowed visitors into his personal space. This included the cupola, from which we could see a dramatic view of the city – probably one of the best around!

If you live in the area and are interested in history, the St. Anne’s Hill Christmas tour is a must-see. I’d like to go again, preferably during daylight hours so I can get a better view of the homes’ exteriors and maybe some decent photos. The $20 tour admission was money well spent, and will go toward the Historic Society’s continued work in preserving their neighborhood.

If you’re in the Dayton area, have you ever toured St. Anne’s Hill? I’ve done my own driving tours before, as one of my books’ main  characters lives there (in 1905, on a fictitious street). Walking the neighborhood and talking with the residents adds a whole new perspective! If you don’t live in the area, does your town offer something similar, and have you taken advantage of the opportunity?

More at the My Town Monday blog

Reducing Stress when You’re Busy Busy Busy

by Jennette,

After many weeks of not hitting my ROW80 goals, I’ve finally nailed one! Well, I nailed last week’s too, but I purposefully set the bar very low, after not hitting it for so many weeks. This week’s was a challenge, especially with all of the extra holiday stuff to do, but I did it!

One thing that helped immensely was to let go of guilt and “ought-tos” and just do what was really necessary. For example, maybe you like to wrap elaborate, beautiful gifts. I used to too, but this takes time. And it just gets torn up anyway! So several years ago, I decided to just let myself do what the rest of the family does, and wrap it, and stick a bow on. That’s it! The best thing? No one seemed to care! Oh, they used to notice the beautiful, beribboned packages and appreciated them, but it’s an extra, not an expectation. So I let it go!

Same thing with gift tags. I used to make my own, out of recycled Christmas cards. Fun to do, cheap, and boy did they look nice, but it took a good couple hours! Now, my family gets store-bought stick-on labels. And they’re OK with that!

This year, I decided not to make a food item for my RWA chapter’s holiday party. In the past, I’ve taken beef rollups, mini quiches, and other goodies – none of which were difficult to make – but all took time. The kicker was that I always seemed to have a lot of leftovers to take back home! Some things didn’t go over that well at all, even though they were tasty (IMO and my family’s). I also noticed in past years that the food was all appetizers and desserts, yet the party was held at noon – lunchtime. I figured something more “main dish” would be appreciated, so I just called in an order for footlong subs at Subway, asked them to cut them in quarters, and picked them up on the way to the party. Even though someone else also brought mini-sandwiches, my subs were a hit! I had two quarters left over, and my husband quickly took care of them. For the gift exchange, I “gifted” a book on Amazon, and chose the printout option. I chose a craft book that I personally love – Holly Lisle’s Create a Plot Clinic – that can be useful to a writer at any point in her career. It was for a Kindle book, and I don’t know if the woman who received it has a Kindle or smartphone, but an Amazon Kindle gift book can be exchanged for anything, so hopefully she’ll get something else she likes if  Create a Plot Clinic isn’t for her. A thoughtful gift, and another task made easier!

So that’s how I got the type-in done for six revised chapters this week, even though I’m learning this is a task that takes longer than I thought when the book needs a lot of work.

This week, I want to get Chapters 10 & 11 typed-in, and off to the beta readers. Then I’m going to dig back into the markup, and get through Chapter 18 & 19. This will get me through the big black moment.

How are you doing on your goals, whether or not you’re participating in ROW80? Got any tips on reducing holiday stress? I’ll share some more here on Thursday, so check back!

 

By the way, thanks to all who joined in Samantha Warren’s Blog Scavenger Hunt! I had fun participating, and hopefully a lot of readers found a lot of fun books!

The Stylish Blogger Award: Favorite Things

by Jennette,

Last month, blogging friend Debra Kristi honored me by awarding me the Stylish Blogger Award. Thank you, Debra! She actually posted this on Nov. 5th, but I had other posts booked already, and Stacy McKitrick had awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award just a few weeks earlier, so didn’t want to post something similar so soon.

The Stylish Blogger Award works in much the same way: post seven random things about yourself, then name four or five blogging friends you’d like to pass the honor on to. I’m posting seven of my Favorite things:

Favorite drink: Mountain Dew. I love this stuff. I could drink it all day, but in the interest of health (and my waistline), I limit myself to one per day. Among the many cool things we saw when I went to China a couple years ago with my daughter’s choir, was finding Mountain Dew at the Terra Cotta Warriors museum in Xian. Being made with cane sugar, it tasted like our Throwback Mountain Dew, which is the best!

I will use this photo on my blog whenever possible, because it’s that awesome

Favorite car: Camaro – especially the new ones, but I like them all. This probably started with my earliest memory: going to get my dad’s new car when I was two and a half. It was a red, ’69 Camaro with black stripes, and my brother still owns it.

Favorite children’s book: Black and Blue Magic, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I was probably twelve when I read it for the first time, and I still remember it. It’s the story of a lonely, geeky boy who lived in a boarding house in the 1930’s (I think), where a boarder gave him a special, magic ointment that would make him grow wings for the night. You can imagine the trouble this kid got into! It’s gone through several different covers since, and when I searched, none looked familiar until I found this on a book collector site. The book was first published the year I was born, and this was the original cover. It gets a lot of blame for the book’s initially low sales.

Favorite band: Rush. Actually, I’d be hard-pressed to choose between them, Front Line Assembly, KMFDM, and Emerson Lake and Palmer right now, but Rush has been a favorite longer than any of the others. Please don’t ask me to pick a favorite album or song! I got my first Rush album, Exit Stage Left, when I was in ninth grade. What’s funny is my teen daughter is into vinyl records, and has been listening to all of my old Rush albums! I now have them all on MP3s.

Favorite movie: Beavis and Butthead Do America. I really can’t explain why, but almost all of my favorite movies are comedies. Maybe it’s because I can’t write funny to save myself. So imagine how excited I am that MTV brought them back last month, and I can now watch every Thursday night at ten PM. Only now, instead of making fun of music videos, they make fun of other MTV shows, like Teen Mom and Jersey Shore. Suddenly two shows I can’t stand are funny!

Favorite place to shop: Amazon. That goes double during the holiday season, because I HATE crowds. Amazon has just about everything I want or need, and I can get free shipping on orders over $25, which isn’t hard to do.

Favorite holiday show: The Grinch who Stole Christmas. Yes, I can be one, and once I actually was one, in a play. It was a choral reading rendition, and all the actors were girls. I got to play the Grinch, because I was the only one who had a suitably dark voice. My favorite scene in the original TV special is where the Grinch is slithering beneath the Christmas tree like a snake, collecting stuff. This is also my family’s favorite.

 

And now for the Stylish Bloggers to whom I’m passing the award! To accept, all you need to do is save the award image to your computer, then include it on your blog (or a post) where you list seven random things about YOU, and then pass it on to four or five other fantastic bloggers!

Samantha Warren: The author of fantasy novels like Blood of the Dragon and the Vampire Assassin series shows that generosity is never out of style. Samantha’s 30th birthday is this weekend, and to celebrate, she’s giving away free books every day this week, and a Kindle as a grand prize! Be sure to stop by and check out her Blog Scavenger Hunt for details on how you can search, answer, and win!

Karen McFarland: Karen blogs about odd yet uplifting things in the news, and hosts a bunch of cool guest bloggers. Whatever the topic, it’s about people – the fascinating, the positive, and sometimes just strange, but always a fun read.

Deborah Dale: Deborah’s Making the Most of a New York Minute blog touches on a variety of topics that include a four-part series on her and her family’s brush with the supernatural during their visit to Gettysburg.

Michele Stegman‘s Thoughts from a Writers’ Block covers all things writing, with an emphasis on things readers who also aren’t writers can find of interest too.

 

So check out those blogs, and in the meantime, pop in and share – what are some of your favorite things? Do you have a favorite scene in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?

My Town Monday: Crap from Dayton? Not!

by Jennette,

Score one for Urban Legends

A funny image was circulating around the web and Facebook last week was spreading misinformation along with the laughs. This story originally appeared in The Sun, a UK tabloid, and when I saw the first Facebook post, words failed me.  Supposedly, this woman from Dayton cheated on her boyfriend, a tattoo artist, and later got a tattoo from him, unaware that he knew of her cheating. Instead of a cute scene from the Chronicles of Narnia, she got a steaming pile of poo.

I was skeptical from the get-go. The Sun article says the woman was drunk and passed out – which might be believable, since she got the tattoo from someone she knew, who therefore might have been willing to disregard laws against such things. But a tattoo of this size would have taken many hours and required several potty breaks – probably lunch and dinner break, too. I also find it hard to believe she’d have remained passed out for this much time, given the painfulness of getting a tattoo, especially over such a wide area.

A couple days after the article’s publication in The Sun, Dayton Daily News staffer Amelia Robinson decided to check things out. What she found:

  • There were no court records anywhere in the county relating to this case.
  • There’s no known tattoo artist named Ryan Fitzjerald in the Dayton area.
  • The woman who allegedly got the tattoo could also not be found.
  • The photo appeared a year and a half ago elsewhere online.

The original article never came out and said where the tattoo was done, only that the “victim” was from Dayton; however, the Facebook postings imply that it did. I won’t lie, a lot of crappy things happen in Dayton. But this wasn’t one of them. If this happened at all, it didn’t happen around here.

Seen any misinformation on your hometown lately? What did you do to dispel it?

More at the My Town Monday blog

 

Hunt, Answer, and Win!

Don’t forget to check out the Blog Scavenger Hunt at Samantha Warren’s blog! Just check out a couple of author blogs and answer questions for a chance to win free books, AND go into the drawing to win a free Kindle at the end of the week!

Have fun, and good luck!

A Kinder, Gentler To-do List; Blog Scavenger Hunt

by Jennette,

Last week, I was overwhelmed – and the holiday season was just beginning! My writing was suffering – there just weren’t enough hours in the day. It was stressful, and all I wanted to do was play computer games.

That was not acceptable. Something had to be done.

I looked at my to-do list, which had grown to epic proportions. Each day, there were more things on it than anyone could hope to accomplish in the time I had! I remembered an email I’d read – from the Flylady list, I think – that said we tend to put far more on our lists than we can possibly do in a day. I had a lot of things on mine that had been on there for months, and I still hadn’t gotten to them!

It was time to be ruthless. Anything that wasn’t really that important was gone.

This little button = less stress!

Other tasks – stuff to do when I had some spare time (LOL) or after New Year’s, when I planned to kick my book promo efforts up, went onto another, separate list.

Stuff I did every week, and had finally developed into enough of a habit that I didn’t really need it on the to-do list anymore, also went bye-bye.

My stress level immediately went down.

Now, the list has expanded once again, but a lot of that is one-off, holiday tasks. And a lot of those are easy, little things that don’t take a ton of time, but that I might not get to or remember if I don’t note them. And the weekly list? Down to four things at the moment, included in the above.

What’s your to-do list look like? Do you routinely put way too much on it? Or do you make one that’s more realistic – if you make one at all? Any more tips for managing that list? Please share!

Just for Fun

I am participating in a blog scavenger hunt, posted by one of my writer colleagues, Samantha Warren. Samantha writes fantasy, and is turning 30 today. To celebrate, she’s hosting a week’s worth of scavenger hunt fun and prizes. The grand prize is a new Kindle e-reader! There are a bunch of other cool prizes – one or two every day, including an e-copy of Time’s Enemy. So stop by and wish Samantha a happy birthday, and check out some of those blogs to see if you can answer a few questions and win!

ROW80 Update:

I did not post a Wednesday ROW80 update this week, as I had nothing to report. That will probably continue to be my pattern, as the Wednesday blog post update is something else I’m taking off my list.

I did meet my goal of getting Chapter 17 revised – wow, was that one a lot of work! – and I exceeded my type-in goal, and completed two chapters.

However, this pace is not satisfactory. So this week, I want to:

  • Finish type-in through Chapter 9. Type-in is something I can do while the TV’s on, and interruptions are much less of a problem, so hopefully this goal is within reason.
  • Get Christmas decorating done
  • Order Christmas cards
  • Figure out gifts
  • Begin online shopping, especially gifts that are needed sooner than Christmas for events, party exchanges, etc.

By the way, my overall goals have been shot to hell, a long time ago. I didn’t realize how badly until I just now looked up the original goal post. Stop laughing! Let’s just refine the goals right now. I just want to get this edit done, and out to the beta readers. That’s i! And I still fear it may be too ambitious, but I’m going to try, because readers are waiting for this book! If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is.

How are your goals coming?