January goals

Here is what I have achieved:

• Get my credit card frozen so nothing can get spent on it.

The credit card runs out at the end of this month so spending will stop then

• Start writing my first short story for my series.

I have started writing the first story

• Contact Mills and Boon and ask them some questions about how many words they like to have in a novel and how many per chapter.

I have contacted them and I have had a response from them about what I need to do

• Start working out why I get so short tempered, and see what I can do to stop this.

I have worked out some of the reasons why I get short tempered and I am working on doing my best to get back in control

• Start doing Yoga and meditating once a week.

I have started meditating a few days a week and doing Yoga once a week

• See the twins nursery teacher and my eldest son's school teacher and see if they can offer me some tips at getting them to listen to me without having to raise my voice and getting mad at them. 

I got some information from the twins nursery teacher. I have now scanned some of the information and got a copy of the book that she lent me. Hopefully that will help us.

I think I have done really well this month. It helped that I did not set myself too much to do. But it does feel good to have achieved what I set out to do.

Today I managed to...

Scan the information that my twins nursery teacher passed on to me. I will now be able to give her back the print outs and the book that she lent me.

It has taken a while to get it done, but at least I have managed to do it. I will be able to type out all of the information at leisure. It will be a good way of soaking in what has been said as well.

I have still not managed to...

Scan the information that the nursery teacher passed onto us.

I will make a note to make sure that I do it tomorrow.

It really has not helped that the twins have discovered how to use the computers, so I have not had much time during the day to do it. By the time night comes around I have been too tired to do it. Hopefully my partner will take the younglings out tomorrow so I will be able to get it done then.

There is a slight positive move with my temper. I am still getting short tempered, but I have been able to deal with it a lot better. I have been able to calm down a heck of a lot quicker than before. I have also found that I have not let myself get into such a temper that I have been unable to control it. Hopefully this is the start of eventually being in control of my temper.

I am also being good with restarting doing my bingo wing exercises. I do not have bingo wings, but as I am in my thirties I know that this is likely to start happening to me now. I have also notices my muscles getting looser on my upper arms. I have got some homemade weights (they weigh 1.7KG each) I did not make them too heavy as I want to tone my arms rather than look like Madonna with big muscles. I did them a while ago, but I sadly got out of the habit of doing the exercises and I ended up taking quite a break from doing the exercises.

However, for the last few days I have been doing the exercises two or three times a day with the weights and following them up with some press ups. I can only do five at a time at the moment. I have found that I am managing the five a lot better now. At some point I will increase them up to ten. I can feel the burn after the exercises. I need to keep this up for some months though before I start to hopefully see some results. I just need to make sure that I keep doing them and keep any breaks that I have to being as small as possible (no more than a week if possible)

Oops

Oops, I again forgot about the sheets. I doubt I would have managed to do it, even if I had have remembered though. In the morning I was very busy and the younglings have started hijacking the computers during the day, so there is little chance of getting that done once the twins are home. I am feeling tired, but I will see if I can get some done tonight before I go to bed (I am planning on getting another earlier night in bed.

I did well by getting to bed at a better time. I think I can eventually get to bed at a good time so that I get a decent sleep. Last night while I got to bed at a decent time was hampered by the fact that it took me a while to get to sleep. It has not happened for a while but I was not able to sleep very well. I think though that the meditation is helping me to empty my mind because as soon as I realized that my mind was racing with too many thoughts I started to empty it and calm it down. It did not take me long to fall asleep after that.

I have been managing to meditate every day. I am happy with how it is going. At the moment if I can keep meditating most days then that would be great.

I did some work on my short story

I managed to get some work on my short story in the morning and I am going to see what I can get done before I go to bed. I think tomorrow morning what I will do is just work on getting a good list of names to choose from. I need to name the town where the short story series is set as well as thinking of names for the new characters that I am going to introduce.

I however did not scan in the sheets that I had meant to. I completely forgot. I will have to see what I can do tomorrow. I will have to go to the shop in the morning, so time will be short in the morning. I will just do what I can.

My main object for tonight is getting to bed at a better hour than yesterday so I get a good sleep.

I have been good girl tonight

I did Yoga again tonight. I thought about not doing it for this week as I had the thought 'blimey Sunday has come around quickly again' I then thought that it would be a good idea to at least get some done though as it would not take up much time. I ended up doing the whoe DVD. I am really glad that I made the effort.

I can tell that my muscles have not been stretched for a long time. However the exercises that I did last week did not seem so bad this week, so I know that when I do the Yoga again next Sunday it will continue to feel better. I would like to find some stretching exercises that I can do on a daily basis to help as well. I will have to see what I can find.

I need to make the time to work on my short story. I think what I will do is set aside half an hour in the morning when the twins are at nursery when I can work on my story.

Tomorrow morning I need to scan in the information that the nursery teacher gave me so that I can return them.

Getting short tempered again

Recently we had a bit of conflict with our new neighbors due to what I think was my daughter making a noise in the middle of the night by rocking in the reading chair causing it to bang against the wall.

This has made me really on edge about any noise they make in the house and it has also made me short tempered when out and about.I need to make sure that I do something so that I can get back in control of this again.

I know a good sleep tonight will solve this. Though my partner and I are arguing again over who gets a lie in on a Saturday morning. I can see that I will lose my Saturday morning lie in. I will probably get a Sunday morning lie in but I am still not happy about it. It is not my fault that he likes to get drunk.

Making progress

Even though I have been so busy I have manged to start typing out some of the information that my twins nursery passed onto me. I will also scan them so that I have got access to the pictures as well. It also means that I do not have to rush to type out it before I hand it back. I will pass it back to her on Friday.

I have also been trying to calm myself down. When I can sense my temper begin to spiral I stop close my eyes and take a big breath before I reword what I was going to say in a calmer voice.

Maybe the meditation is having an effect. I am not sure when I will get the time to meditate tomorrow as I will be visiting my friend in the morning. I will have to make some time in the evening. It is worth it, especially if it is having a positive effect on me.

Today has been a productive day

Today has gone well.

In the morning I managed to read through the information that the twins nursery teacher lent me to read. I will take notes from one of the things that she lent me and I have ordered the book that she let me read. I managed to get it from Amazon for 1p.

After what I read I have set up a calm down/time out area in the landing. There is nothing else in there except the cushions that they will sit on. It is the only place that I can put them at the moment but I think it should work.The few times that I needed to use it today went well. My youngest son spent some time there and so did my daughter. They did not like it there, but they sat there and did not move. Hopefully this will help.

I had a think about why I get so short tempered. I think it is a combination of being raised by short tempered parents and living with a short tempered partner. Also not being able to deal with stressful situations that has let to me being short tempered. I looked up some information about keeping calm on the Internet. I have printed it out and I will read through and use the techniques that it has advised.

I checked my E-Mail today and I have got a reply from Mills and Boon about how many words to write. It was better than I had have hoped. They sent me a word document with a lot of different information about what they require from their different types of romance. It will not only help me know how much to write but how to write it as well. It basically what what was available on their site but it saved me the time of looking through it. It also saved me the time of copying it and pasting it into a Word document to do the same thing myself.

I meditated for longer today and even though my mind wandered a bit more today I was able to get my focus back. It did not help that I was tired so at some points I was drifting off to sleep. I am however pleased that I was able to keep going and I was able to refocus on the meditation.

I am really pleased with how well I did today. I really like it when days are naturally productive as I can get much done on them.

I did Yoga tonight

And I can really tell that it has been a while since I last did it. I think it about a year since I last did Yoga. Though it did not help that I carried a lot of heavy bags. It will do me good though to start stretching again. The backs of my legs felt the worse. I will start off at doing it once a week and then after I have got used to that I will start doing it twice a week. I do not want to do it too many time a week though as it could easily become a chore.

I nearly forgot to do it but I decided to watch a Michael Palin programme and next to the DVD was the Yoga DVD. I then thought that i would not be able to do it as I could not find a playstation remote. After my partner located one I then could not see where I had put the DVD.

Thankfully I found it so I was able to do it. I did not do the full thing as I started later than I would have wanted and I also wanted to take it easier for the first time. I did three out of four sections though. I had onlky planned on doing the standing up sections, but I decided that when I was doing it that I could manage the last section. I am glad that I did as the last one is not that long and fairly easy.

I am very pleased that I managed to do this tonight, I just need to make sure that I keep up the good work.

I started writing my short story

I started writing the first short story in a series of short stories that I am planning on writing. I did not write much of it but I chose which one that I would start with and I thought out the main plot to the story. As a result of working out the plot I have now thought of an idea of another story for the series.

I just need to start working out names and places. I think I will have a page where I can just brainstorm names for people and places. I do find thinking of names rather difficult. I think I will use a lot of traditional Scottish names as well as Pictish names as well. I will see what I can find.

I also had a look on the Mills and Boon website. I found some useful things on the website. There are some tips for aspiring authors and how to submit work.

Tips for aspiring authors
Submitting work

It does not state anything about how many words they would ideally like but I have noticed that the E-Mail that you use for submissions is also one that can be used for enquiries. I have sent an E-Mail asking them how many words they like to have in their novels. Hopefully I will get a responce to that.

Starting my first short story of the year

The month goes by so quickly, so that before I know where I am we are half way through. It has also made me realize that I should not set myself too many monthly challenges as it would become too difficult to achieve and at time become a chore. Another reason is that I must remember to make time for me to complete the yearly challenges.

I have not heard from Mills and Boon, so I need to find another way to contact them. I might see if I can find a phone number so I can get a direct answer (either that or palmed off with an excuse)

I have managed to meditate every day since I started. I know that it has only been a couple of days, but I am very happy about it. Even though I was really snippy with my daughter today I do feel better for meditating. I do not meditate for that long but I think that it is better that I am at least getting something done. When the twins have started school I can meditate for half an hour easily. Also by then I will have gotten into a good routine regarding that.

I meditated today

I have been meaning to meditate for some days and I managed to get it done today. I did not meditate for long but I felt that it did some good. I think I could happily manage to meditate for about fifteen minutes a day.

I have got lots of meditation guide MP3's but there were none that I was really happy with. I decided to just listen to some calm music and meditate from what I have learned so far.

I think it went really well. I felt really calm afterwards and when I can feel myself getting stressed I can remember the feeling that I had when I was meditating.

I also got some books to read from the twins nursery teacher. I will not bother speaking with my eldest son's  teacher. The books seem to be good and I will start reading through them tonight and see if there is anything helpful in them.

Today I managed to...

Speak with one of the nursery teachers about getting the younglings to listen to me. I had a fright when my eldest and my daughter ran across the road even though I had told them to wait. My daughter then decided to run back, even though there was a car backing down their drive toward her.

I was shouting to stop and thankfully even though there is snow about the car was able to stop.

The teacher was really helpful and said that she would look through some things and write down something for me. That is really nice to do so much for me.

I will decided when I have seen what she has done for me before I decide whether or not I speak to my eldest son's teacher.

She did tell me one thing. She said that with children they turn raised voices and shouting into background noise. She said that there are times that they will notice more if I go right up to them and tell them quietly. I will try that one out for sure.

I also managed to contact Mills and Boon and ask them how many words like to have in one of their books. I hope they reply to my question. I did not ask them about how many words per chapter as it seems to vary per author, so I am guessing that it is down to the author to choose how many words per chapter and how many chapters there are.

January challenges

I think it time that I start up my monthly challenges again. I stopped doing it but i think it is good for me to do this. It will be a good way to motivate myself.

My January challenges will be:

1. Get my credit card frozen so nothing can get spent on it.
2. Start writing my first short story for my series.
3. Contact Mills and Boon and ask them some questions about how many words they like to have in a novel and how many per chapter.
4. Start working out why I get so short tempered, and see what I can do to stop this.
5. Start doing Yoga and meditating once a week.
6. See the twins nursery teacher and my eldest son's school teacher and see if they can offer me some tips at getting them to listen to me without having to raise my voice and getting mad at them.
   

I think that will do for this month. If i am able to manage doing this then after a while I will be able to increase what I set for myself, but I think this should be good to start with.

Challenges for 2010

It is that time of the year again when challenges are made. I am really happy with how I managed last year, so hopefully I will be able to do just as well this year and obviously I would like to improve on last year.

My challenges for 2010 are:

1. Keep paying off the credit card bill and keep spending on it to a minimum.
2. Start saving money aside for Christmas.
3. Finish the decluttering.
4. Set up a system for cleaning the home and maintain a clean home.
5. Keep updating my quest journal.
6. Start writing my short story series and start selling it on E-Bay.
7. Work on my temper.
8. Get the younglings to listen to me and do as I ask before I get mad at them.
9. Start meditating
10. Start doing yoga again two or three times a week.

I think that is enough to keep me busy but not too much so that I am overwhelmed.