I haven’t done much reading lately due to my November commitment. I also did absolutely no web design, nor did I do anything, actually, to help support my family. December is also a rocky month, and so my goals are not too high, but I here is a quick list of things that I would like to accomplish and work back into my daily routine.
- Regular reading of actual books currently purchased and on my bookshelf.
- Design of real estate website templates for my coworker who then creates the actual sites.
- Wii Fit exercise – at least 30 minutes/credits per day.
- Walking – a few times a week with a friend who could use the company, I think.
- Publication of new Squidoo Lenses. I’ve been nominated for Giant Squidhood, I just need another 40 lenses or so, and could write about…
- The books I’m going to read.
- Things I’m learning in my design travels.
- Life experiences I’ve had and how I’ve dealt with them.
- My favorite things.
- My vacation to Prague two years ago.
- My father’s disease.
- The tattoo I recently started planning. (Excitement!!)
If I could get a schedule going, where I do X on Monday, and YY on Tuesday, etc, that would be the bomb. Having a schedule is, in my experience, the single best way for me to get things done.
When I went back to school in 2000, I began working the night shift at my job. I had the absolute best job, because I got to work for two hours, and study or read or whatever for the remaining six. My schedule was strict. Beginning at 11 p.m., I would work until midnight, where I would then take one hour to surf the Internet, chat, play games or read. Then from 1 a.m. until I was either done with my homework, or if it was a project I couldn’t complete in one night, until 4 a.m., I would study my ass off. Then from 4 a.m. until my shift was over, I would get to do whatever again – work, play, read, chat, whatever. Do you know what happened to my grades when I started that schedule?
I got A’s everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. It was a wonderous thing, especially since I had never considered myself anything more than a B average student.
So that’s the deal. As I work through December, I’ll keep giving updates. Maybe Monday mornings will be my update days, as Sunday evenings are usually the evenings when I have the least time. :)


I am having a very rough November. Have I mentioned that before? I’m sorry if I have. I have been on such an emotional roller coaster, and most of it has been down.
It’s nearing the end of November. This is the home stretch for all of us NaNo-ites. We’ve got seven days, not including today, to write the last words to either finish our story or hit that magical number, 50,000 words. For some, they have already surpassed their word count goal, and they’re already to the editing stages. Others have written far more than 50,000, but still have more story to write. And there are people like me who still have about 20,000 words to write, story be damned.
In the past, the concept of narrating something onto a tape recorder has never worked well for me. I’m awkward, I don’t know what to say, and it’s just generally a waste of time. I remember how in college I purchased one of those mini-recorders, thinking I was going to make some great memories of…something.
I spent 30 minutes writing last night and somehow the results didn’t get saved anywhere. I’m most frustrated because the words I wrote pretty much have to get rewritten due to the direction the story must take and how it must get there, and I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to do that without them coming out worse than before. Now I’ll be paraphrasing myself, and I’m fairly sure that I won’t get as many words out to cover the same ground.
And what are you doing to make it happen?