Welcome, October

 A month ago I was in Duck, NC, sitting in Duck's Cottage, writing in my journal and thinking about what the month would hold. And now it's October, one of my favorite months of the year. It finally feels like fall here in Ohio, so all the windows are gloriously open, the nights actually feel chilly, and it's definitely candle-lighting season at my house. 

September was a month of great progress, both inner and outer, and I'll be writing about that over the next few days. My October Power Sheet tending list is huge. A lot of it is small things, but there's a lot I want to accomplish this month! One of the big things is finally finishing my ebook and getting it ready to sell! Yay! It's so close, guys, and I'm so excited to present it. 

Do you set monthly goals? What do you want to accomplish in October? 

And happy Feast Day, St. Therese!  Little bloggy throwback there. 

Have a great Sunday, everyone! 

2017 Goal Setting

The last week of the year usually brings a few things for me--time with family, lots of books, and goal setting for the new year!

Ever since I discovered Lara Casey's powersheets, I've adored goal setting--and I've actually been getting things done. Her shop is called "Cultivate what matters", and that's what the powersheets do. Without them, there's no way I'd have finished my manuscript, written book proposals, sent queries, or upgraded my website/social media presence. That's probably the biggest thing the powersheets have done for me, but I've made progress in other ways, too. 

(And, no, I don't get paid to say this--I just love powersheets!)

I got my 2017 set in November and spent a few days doing the prep work. This is one of the best parts of power sheets. It's where you really get down to the reasons why you want to do things--why do you want to save money, or take that trip, or get that thing? What's your real motivation? Are you afraid to do big things? What's defeated you in the past from reaching your goals? (Lara's current blog series dives into this stuff, too!) 

So after doing the prep work and figuring out my "big" goals for the year, I then break those goals down into monthly, weekly, and daily goals for each month. The idea is that everything you do here is intentionally helping you meet a goal that will help you do what matters in your life. 

With all that said, here are my goals for 2017: 

1. To deepen my prayer life through more regular attendance at daily Mass and more times of daily prayer/devotions. If I don't have a deep, solid relationship with God, nothing else matters. 

2. Pay off the rest of my debts and grow my savings account. One of the things I really like about post-transplant life is my ability to travel, and I want to do more of that--and traveling takes money! So by cutting back on buying things I don't need (I'm doing the contentment challenge in January to help with this), I'll be able to pay off debts and have money for fun things like traveling! Again, there has been progress in this area, but I need to be more consistent. 

3. Be physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy by instituting regular workouts, weekly meal planning, and keeping up with my journal (I've been letting my journal slide of late. I don't want to do that!). I have grown in this area this year, but it's erratic growth. I need to make it a much more permanent part of life.  

4. Get the book published, offer a ebook for sale, grow the blog, and write what matters. I want to write things that matter to the people who read them--things that help you, inspire you, make you laugh, whatever. I don't want to write click bait. I want to write things that improve the lives of my readers. (So tell me what you want to read, OK?) 

5. Fuel my creativity by continuing to learn Italian, working on new art and knitting projects, and, of course, reading. I love learning new things! 

6. Simplify my space: Less stuff, more beauty, more organization, and increased hospitality. I made big progress on this this year as well--cleaning out my closet, taking many books to the secondhand shop (along with CDs and DVDs). So I'm proud of the progress I've made here. But there's more to do!

So those are my six big goals for the year. Each month, these get broken into monthly, weekly, and daily things I need to tend (in powersheets parlance). Daily things are things I want to make a habit--like exercise, checking my checkbook against the online transactions, reading the Bible for 10 minutes every day, practicing Italian. Stuff like that. 

Weekly things are things that get done every week: Daily Mass at least once, making a meal plan, doing a basic clean of the house, putting a certain amount of cash into my emergency stash here at home. 

Monthly tending are bigger things that I can do throughout the month. Some examples from my January tending list are editing my Nano 2016 novel, going to confession, completing a 30 day exercise plan.  

Some things are broken into monthly and weekly categories. The contentment challenge is broken into three months, with a weekly topic in a corresponding book. So there's a monthly "task", but also something to read each week. So the weekly devotion is written in my weekly tending list, so I don't forget to do that. 

I also write the daily tasks into my planner. That also helps keep me on track, because if my powersheets aren't easily available (though I always keep them on my counter, so I can find them quickly!), I can see at a glance what I'm doing that day. It's also great for things like the weekly cleaning--I can dust on Monday, vacuum Tuesday, etc. 

I find this is a better system than making resolutions. Resolutions are OK, but they usually don't have a plan or a why attached to them. "Lose 20 pounds" is a nice resolution--but how to do it? By going through the powersheets, I have an idea of how to do the things I want to do, how to achieve my goals, and how to be accountable to myself. I only have so much time here and I want to use it to the best of my ability!

Do you have goals for 2017? What are they? 

Summer Scribbles: Journal keeping

Today's SITS girls prompt: 

Do you keep a journal? 

I sure do. 

I have since I was 12 years old, actually, and my Aunt Patty sent me a Hallmark diary for my birthday. It's one of those that had the little combination lock that after about 20 uses just popped open without the combination, so it wasn't the world's best security measure, but my siblings knew better than to try to sneak my journal (although I didn't really try to hide it. It was always on my nightstand.) 

Since then, I've always kept one. Sometimes I write with more fervor than others, but I've always had one with me, and I save them all. In my house there are two big bins full of my journals. My currrent one is a red Moleskine I got at the Strand in NYC a few years ago. I generally buy journals when I'm on vacation and then they get used a few years later; when I was in California I bought a Bouchon Moleskine notebook. I've also got a notebook my parents brought me back from Disney World when they went back in 2011. People also gift me journals at an alarming rate, but I don't mind this. 

My blog isn't my journal, and my journal isn't my blog. This is something I think people can easily get confused, especially younger bloggers. What I write on this blog is obviously public. What I write in my journal is intensely private. Sometimes I'll use what I've written in my journals as a springboard for public writing, but this space is not where I pour out my soul. That's what a journal is for.  

Blog is different from journal, journal is different from blog. Important distinction, at least in my world. As much as I love my readers, there are some things that I'm just not going to share with the interwebs. 

Summer Scribbles: Let's Communicate

Continuing with the SITS Girls' prompts, this week's is: 

Do you communicate differently online than in person? 

Short answer: Nope. 

Long answer: Still nope, but with qualifiers. 

I try to write the way I talk. I want my pieces to have a sort of conversational air about them, like I was talking to you, instead of you reading words I've written. Some of my friends have told me that I've accomplished that, so that makes me happy, because it's one of my main goals. I don't think you need a stilted writing style to get a point across. I want to sound approachable and like myself. 

Now, when I'm communicating on things like Facebook, or comments sections of articles, I try to be a bit more circumspect, realizing that things like sarcasm don't exactly transfer. So I try to be nicer, in a way, than I am in person. Not that I'm mean! But writing WHATTTTT?!?!? on a Facebook page doesn't really convey the same thing that it would in my voice, with facial expressions, etc. So I can't do that all the time. I try to keep it cleaner for the sarcasm-impaired. 

But my hope is always that when you read my pieces, it's like we're having a conversation, and that my authentic voice comes through.