Good intentions, best laid plans, and so on

Howdy! Let's catch up a bit. Slide your chair over here and sip your pumpkin spice hot chocolate while we chat. Comfy? Now, let's see.

About my writing:
I intended to be finished with National Novel Writing Month by now. Or actually by tomorrow. Then I'd have the rest of the month to write more or edit or have a nervous breakdown. However, it's not going to happen. I have 14,000 more words to write. I should have them all by the end of the month. I would have finished except my plans changed mid-month.

First, a wise person pointed out that if I wanted people to buy my Christmas cards from Cafepress and actually get them in time to send them out, I needed to have my cards already up on my Cafepress store. Yikes. So I took time off to do that. And what frustrating ordeal it was. Formatting, re-formatting, uploading, editing, re-editing, etc., took two and half days away from NaNoWriMo. And even then, I didn't get all the cards up there I had hoped. Well, I'll keep adding to it them, and next year, there will be a much larger selection.

Second, a woman contacted me about making four mini-photo books for her. For money! So I said yes, of course, thinking it would only take a couple of hours. Naturally it took all day and most of an evening to get them to her satisfaction. But I got paid. Woohoo! I also lost another NaNoWriMo day.

And it's okay. I intend to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month, and I can still do that. I was stressing about it and then I remembered this: NaNoWriMo is for me and not the other way around. It's for me to write fast and explore new things and meet new writers and enjoy the whole maddening process.

About health:
Haven't walked every day like I did in October. Part of the problem is, of course, trying to get everything done and do NaNoWriMo, too. The rest has to do with lack of willpower. Got to power through this and keep exercising. Even though I'd rather be at my computer or reading a book or -- and I only say this because it's the truth -- eating, eating, eating. It's weird how our bodies fight getting healthy. I've really been experiencing urges to eat like a person returning from being stranded on a desert island. For the most part, I've resisted them. But not always.

About clutter:
The back bedroom is just about ready to receive visitors. Five or six more hours, and it will be ready to be dusted and vacuumed. Finally that room can be used for something besides storage. When it's finished, the next thing I'm going to do is donate 50 books to my local library. Surely in all these books, I can find 50 that I no longer want. I'm going to, even if I do have to give up some. Let's be honest: in a 1,100 square foot house, 1,000 books (approximately) is too many. I'll keep the ones I reread or use for reference or simply love, but the rest got to go. Eventually. Right now, I'm aiming for 50.

About life:
Mostly the black dog has stayed away. I find if I stay busy with creative things -- photo books, NaNoWriMo, scrapbooking, writing, creating cards, etc. -- I'm mostly not depressed with large periods of what I would call contentment. Admittedly, the financial part of my life is terrible, but I'm still paying my bills and buying food and obviously Internet access, so all-in-all, I won't complain. Still looking for a full-time job, but have started telling people I'm open to a part-time job. My little town is just not doing well. I keep wondering if I'm supposed to move. Well, we'll see what happens.

That's about it for now. Oh, here's the link to the Christmas Cards. I think you all already have it, but just in case. Have a great week!

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