I know it’s Monday morning. I had been intending on posting last night when I got home, when I thought I was going to get home a little after 8pm. Instead, I got home after 10:30pm. Why you might ask? Because Seattle just had its coldest weekend of the winter, and my bio-diesel powered car sat outside in it. The fuel got all gummed up and wouldn’t start. C had to come pick me up from my friend’s house. Luckily, that friend then let us push the car into her garage to warm up, and we’re hoping to be able to go pick it up today. And yes, we will be taking said friend and her awesome husband out to eat for their hospitality and assistance.

That said, on to the goals.

 

Blogging

The purpose of these two goals is, yes, to grow my blogs, but also to support and highlight blogs and bloggers I enjoy. Just like I will be posting 2 new to me blogs every week in my round ups, the point here is to draw attention to blogs that others might not be familiar with. (Blog swaps will not count toward either of these goals.)

Write one guest post per month. I have one guest post planned (I just have to write it up), and am talking with someone else about another guest post. So hopefully something up soon.

Publish one guest post per month. Who wants to write a guest post for me?

 

Writing

Writing fiction is my side hustle, though I have yet to make any money from it. I’ve found that I devote much more time to the blogs than I do my fiction, though, because I am on a schedule. I feel accountable to my readers to get posts up when I say I will. And because I am a procrastinator, deadlines are a must for me. I get the energy I need to work on something from an impending deadline.

I am hoping to transfer the power of those two things- accountability and deadlines, to my fiction this year.

Submit at least one piece to a paying venue per month. I am very close to having a piece ready for submission. It needs maybe one or two more lines added and it should be golden. Plan to get that done this week.

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits. For being away at a writing retreat this weekend, none of us got a lot of writing done. I worked mostly on the story I’m about to submit, but I did think about the novella and what the next scene needs to accomplish, so that’s something.

 

Finances

A lot of financial goals will actually end up as floating goals- ie they will be things I expect to complete well before the year is out. But I do have some long term financial goals that I think will work for year-long tracking.

Create and track a practice stock portfolio. Last week, I started the project and did the first post about it.

End the year “on budget” in the categories I’m tracking.

Category	On Budget
	Month	Year
Groceries	Yes	Yes
House	Yes	Yes
Eating Out	Yes	Yes
Allowance – E	Yes	Yes
Allowance – C	Yes	Yes

 

Floating Goals

Refinance the house. Once C’s school schedule is figured out, we can set up an appointment with a broker.

Replace all the windows in the house. This won’t happen until spring or summer.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. Plan to contact preferred artist again this week.