Sunday Evening Post: #79
The temporary 4th dog, and the cool magnetic blocks his 4 year old brought with her
Okay we’re late in the day, but at least it’s still Sunday this time around. It’s been a rather stressful week. The car had to go in for service, and we didn’t get it back until Friday. We also babysat a 4 year old Thursday night and Friday, as well as her little dog. We have learned that 4 dogs are a bit too much for our house- but it’s not us, it’s the dogs. They are happy with just the three of them, and feel no need for another dog in the house.
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. I think I have a guest post lined up for Life by Pets.
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.
December submission: Yes
January submission: Yes
Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits. Haven’t worked on it this week
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. 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. We received a recommendation for a good broker from friends and hope to set an appointment this week or next
Replace all the windows in the house. This won’t happen until spring or summer.
Publish new photography/flash fiction book. My artist will be launching another Kickstarter project on Monday. We’re going to wait and see how that goes before starting on this
Wow! You are the most organized person I know! I wish I could be so disciplined in my writing. I have the day off today and my goal is to catch up on my comment responses and my blog readings, so I can start to focus on finishing up the book I wrote for NaNoWriMo, can you share your time management secrets with me? I just can't seem to manage it!!
I am not actually disciplined in my writing. Putting my writing goals out there like this is an effort to force me to be more disciplined. Right now, I pretty much only write for about an hour before our critique group meets every other Sunday, or when we do these writing retreats. I want to spend more time on my fiction writing (and less playing Bejeweled Blitz), so I'm using public accountability to help me focus.
Accountability is risky. I know sometimes I'm very vague with my goals as a form of self-protection. 🙂
Good luck with your goals. I don't know the specifics about your house but for many people window replacement is a losing proposition because it has such a long payback that can't be made up with energy savings. The housing agency I work for usually recommends other options for people. And my husband and I have repaired and rebuilt windows in two old houses to save us a bundle.
Accountability is risky, but public accountability tends to make me more accountable to myself. It means that even if I fail these goals, I will know why- and it won't be that I just didn't work toward them.
As for replacing the windows, while I assume there will some energy savings, that's not really the point. The windows in our house are pretty old. We've had some level of mold around the bathroom and kitchen windows since we bought the place, but now, we're getting some around the picture window in the living room as well. In addition, the three windows along the back side of my house and the three in the basement/garage are only single pane. I'd like for them to be double pain. And once we're at replacing those windows, the only ones left are the two for the front bedrooms. And I'm silly enough to like having matching windows, house wide.