Only three more days of NaNo. I need 1,200 words tonight to be on track. It has been such an ordeal this time. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions. I’ll be glad to see December!
Managing to keep on track–i hope.
I’m trying to learn a couple Christmas songs. I’ve always wanted to play Lucy and Linus and now I’m also challenged by the song in Polar Express
I pulled out all the Christmas songs to play with.
Nearly finished with the Balloon diamond painting.
Duolingo is still fun for me.
The only knitting making progress are my experimental slipper socks.
No finishing here. Just cuties.
Milo keeps watch inside and out.Shiloh is always nearby.
Another ponytail holder made with leftover sock yarn.
When I do one more inch of knit stitch it’ll be time for the heel.
An inch and a half of ribbing then an inch of knitting. The heel feels far away.
These slipper socks are easier. The inch or so of ribbing will go quickly. The inch of knitting then heel. This feels close.
My next ponytail holder is a different size of yarn and crochet hook. I hope it works.
Hehehe! The beach is nearly done!
Which brings me to plans. And possible roadblocks.
When the beach is finished I’m setting up an office. Diamond Painting will need to be put away for a while. I want to start recording my books, podcasting, and writing, and, well, preparing for NaNoWriMo.
Except for Stream of Consciousness Saturday, I have at least three book reviews to write. I feel I need to get at those and get ahead.
Ugh! What I’ve been putting off saying since I typed the title: today my husband tested positive for COVID. We don’t know how or where he caught it but, um, I’m worried. Our home is too small to do much distancing. My brother and son can keep their distance. But hubby and I share a bedroom. We sit about three feet apart in the living room. So…
Maybe I won’t catch it. I am enjoying my schedule of musical instruments, Duolingo, stationary bike, crafts, etc.
So hoping and praying for the best. And my husband’s health. We are 4 shots into the vaccination. So…
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 1st 2024, is “train.” Use it as a noun or a verb, use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
Thank you, Linda!
Train
Some people wake up and see their day full of organized plans like this.
It’s peaceful to know where the train is taking you.
On a good day I wake to
Mostly my trains have a spiderweb network of tracks that overwhelms me.
This blog helps me focus. In case you think yarn and weather is all I deal with, just know it’s just about all I concentrate on before life and distractions take me elsewhere.
Oh, speaking of weather
This is how 2024 started in Christmas Valley. Freezing Fog. It looks like snow. But it isn’t. And you can only see just beyond the porch.
Rosey at 20 finally likes me and my lap as much loved as her main human’s, my hubby.
Leg warmers are getting more colorful. Wow, they’ve reached 10 inches of 24. Among other projects.
So, I need to train my brain on the personal possibilities of this new year.
My stationary bike goal has increased from 5 miles in 30 minutes to more miles in less time. Today I reached 5 in 28. So win!
I know last year I planned on podcasting. Stagefright won. So it goes back on the list of things I still feel I want to do.
Besides German, Spanish, Italian, French, Scottish Gaelic, Latin, Esperanto, Japanese, Navajo, Hebrew, I’d like to add a couple more to my Duolingo list so that I am always doing 10 lessons a day. And I want to get more serious about my American Sign Language classes. My brain loves working on languages.
Hello editing. You are cruelest of all. I’ll do what I can and finished products will go see the light of day on the podcast.
I still will continue working on getting healthier.
My diamond paintings are calling so tomorrow I will play.
Why did music find itself this far down the list? With a new ukulele, I’m trying to learn to make my fingers fit the chords needed. But daily practice might get me there, right?
The recorder is calling. No more trying Carols. Now I can enjoy whatever music strikes my fancy.
Okay, piano. I hear you. I will turn around from the diamond painting table and tickle you on occasion.
Singing loud and proud and dancing like no one is watching sneak into this list.
And that’s not including the bins of organizing I’m already doing.
And I want to get over my phone fear and try to enjoy socializing a bit.
There are only so many hours in a day but all these trains want to leave the station and make their way to improvement and new possibilities. There has to be a way. Some things must be daily Duolingo and blogging (no longer on a struggling list but on the ‘it happens’ like eating list).
The list looks like last year. More has been added. Few trains ended their tracks. My brain and strength expand to meet the fun.
Linda spoke of how her writing was seasonal. NaNoWriMo, CampNaNo and Just Jot It January becomes her writing time. Me, too. It seems those programs help motivate me properly. I haven’t won every time. And sometimes, like last month as I tried another goal, I made no progress at all. But often I make the 50k. Even on the camps. That would probably not surprise my teachers. Most of my report cards had comments like, ‘Darlene talks too much in class.’
This year I’ve over-goaled my life with all the gifts I’m trying to make and so writing has fallen by the wayside.
And I still have to podcast and start reading aloud my books, starting with my memoirs. The area in my house I planned on using, suddenly has Diamond Paintings.
My recorder playing, piano and voice practice have fallen off.
There are only 24 hours in a day. Still!!! I stay up reading until 3 or 4. With my old dog waking me often, sleep also seems seasonal. Heat and smoke and bugs of summer, icy cold and snow of winter affects everything in our house. Where we hang out, how we sleep, either covered up over my head with warmth or sheet to keep bugs off. And all this affects energy and pain levels, ya know?
Maybe I need to organize my day better and my week to include everything I want to do.
Thank goodness for the treadmill. It still gets used most days of the week.
How does anyone get anything done with a job? I did do NaNo. But the rest of this, writing, knitting, especially learning new stitches, artwork, music, etc. Little got done. Too tired. Housework. Phew!
Seasons of our lives are as influential as the weather. Whew!
Sock on the left ready to cuff. Sock on the right ready for ankle.Almost done.
But if you’ve been following. I’m spending a lot of time reading. Even reading out loud. I know that seems something small. But my eyes have never been able to see to track and read properly, even though reading has always been my favorite pastime.
So I’m in training now so that my dream of sharing my books and podcasting will happen. I picked up
12Pcs Dyslexia Tools for Kids Dyslexia Reading Strips, Colored Overlays for Dyslexia Transparency Reading Guide Strips for Kids Correction Gel Lighting Filter (11.7 in x 8.3 in) to help me track better.
I will use these on books and computer screen.
I’m still checking out Librivox to read aloud books and Audacity to help record podcasts and books.
This being October 30, I had only two days to prepare for NaNoWriMo and writing another book.
Making my second podcast/vlog I two days. I tossed yesterday’s because I didn’t understand how to share my screen. Thanks to helpful friends I think I get that now.
Our Zoom session lasted about an hour. Moving it to YouTube is my new problem. I don’t know that I’m up to background music and graphics, you know the whole kit and caboodle. I will learn as I go. No need to get fancy. Besides, I’m constantly being booted off because I haven’t saved correctly or some other techish nonsense.
When I finally get it posted somewhere, I will share. It is a writing group meet of sorts. We covered a lot of websites, programs and books. As soon as the upload finishes, I need to figure out how to add those.
Just think maybe someday our novels will don your bookshelves.
If I can get past the slow upload. BOO! To slow computers!
Per Linda:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “boo.” Find a word with the letters “boo” in it or use “boo” as is and base your post on it. Enjoy!
After frogging yesterday’s hat, I nearly have a brim finished on the new one. Within a row or two, I will put that first row in the middle onto the pegs, knit the first and the last row together, and then start the main part of the hat.
And after ‘frogging’ yesterday’s podcast attempt, I spent the morning learning about starting a new project. I used Wondershare, the free version, to try and work on what might be salvageable from yesterday. I have only gone through the first couple of steps and feel confident I can do something to help others. Here’s their first YouTube.
So my attempt for tomorrow is to show how to set up for NaNoWriMo and hopefully show how my friends start theirs in other programs. I will even walk through setting up a new project on NaNoWriMo. Though I finished (Pandamapocalypse) and won last year’s, That book isn’t finished. I got halfway through another during the first CampNaNo with Marina’s Mission. And suddenly, I had another story, Meeps creep in, but I haven’t posted word count to NaNo yet. And now, because of #Inktober, I suddenly have Crystal. Which I set up in yWriter yesterday thinking I had screen sharing going on Zoom. Nope, it was just me talking, and all you could see was my glasses as I had to get really close to the screen to see. The nice thing about NaNo now, as opposed to how it used to be, is you can divide your wordage between projects or even aim for pages edited or other types of goals. So I plan to share that tomorrow also. So the mistakes of yarns yesterday become new projects today.
This day! Yikes! It started with a sad situation for my son.
Our internet has been so sketchy today.
I attempted to do my first Podcast. I did the recording on Zoom. I thought I was capturing the set-up of my yWriter project for this November. What I got is a recording of my glasses and my voice yammering on and on. Then I could go no further because of a bad internet connection.
So to soothe my soul, I pulled out the hat I was knitting. It was supposed to be a fast one as I was e-wrapping. But 5 inches in, I found it was too large. So I had to frog-it, rippit. Now it is only an inch long and that’s part of the fold up brim.
Tomorrow is another day. I’m hoping for insight. Anyone know how to share screen on Zoom on the laptop?
On the plus side one of my NaNoWriMo project is ready for wordage!
I have spent this week attending a Podcast seminar on FaceBook. Well, actually, I took the live class on Monday but found the rest of the classes at awkward times to live watch. So I binged the rest today and I’ll have to watch Friday’s class when I get the chance. Here is the YouTube of what I watched Monday.
I’ve mentioned here that it is in my plan to make a podcast. I still feel strongly that it is something I should and want to do. I don’t know why, exactly. I certainly am lost in trying to do this but I will be doing it.
My aim is to have a chat about this 71 year-old lady and what that feels like for me. I plan to share my passions good and awkward. Crochet, knitting, loom knitting, piano, singing, recorder, artwork, and especially my writing. I could do write-a-longs or read alouds of my own books.
When I was young, and I hate to admit it but even now, I love going into other people’s lives and homes and getting to know people intimately. I enjoy feeling the comradery of a good knit and bitch or sing-a-long.
Report cards pf my youth give me promise that I can do this. What did get written on almost all of them? ‘Darlene talks too much in class.’ Not that reporting that to my parents helped at all. Neither did moving me to different seats. I always made friends with whoever I sat with. One teacher even moved me up near his own desk. Guess what? It wasn’t long before he and I were in a conversation. He spent nearly a whole class chatting before he realized that he, too, had fallen for my gabby self. So, it is called a gift of gab, right?
Another reason I want to do this is to join baby-boomers and anyone else who feels isolated. I know with my cataracts reading has been so hard. That ability encompasses so much of our lives, not just reading books. Reading the phone number to make a call, reading ingredients on a package, etc. I want to make life more accessible. I have already made this blog available on Spotify but not my own voice, just the robot voice offered on Anchor. By the time I get to the writing the blog time, I don’t have the energy to read the words.
But the gabbing is something I want to use to get to know people better. Not just hear myself speak. So I am asking all of you to give me suggestions of what I might cover. Thanks for being the great bunch of friends you are here. I can hardly wait to see what you recommend. I think blogging helps me so much and I think the podcast will, too.
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
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