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Second “7th of the month” Journal Post

Welcome to my second “7th of the month” journal post. I will be following the same pattern that I started in January’s “7th of the month” post by discussing events that fell into the following three categories:

  • Holler,
  • Personal, and, of course,
  • Writing.

Therefore, each of my “7th of the month” journal posts will focus on each of the above-mentioned categories – probably in that order, too – from the day the previous post was published (on the 7th of the month) to the day before the next post will be published (the 6th of the new month). Here goes…

Holler Happenings:

One of the first purchases made in the new year (2023) was of two big “herbies” (similar to the big trash cans that waste management companies in the big cities give residents to use for their weekly trash collection). Since the holler isn’t close enough to a city for weekly trash collection, we’re responsible for disposing of our accumulation of trash. I’m hoping that the two new “herbies” will let us go a bit longer between trips to the local dump. Only time will tell… Now, I’ve got to figure out where to store all of the trash cans. I’m thinking about building an enclosure for the trash cans – something similar to what I’ve seen in the back of a local fast food restaurant. The only trouble with this plan is that the price of lumber is still quite high.

With the price of food skyrocketing these days, the title of a book that I spotted while perusing Amazon Prime’s reading selections caught my eye: “A Year Without the Grocery Store”. I would LOVE to skip going to the grocery store for an entire year, especially since I experience something akin to “sticker shock” every time I go to the grocery store! I’ve only skimmed through the book, so I haven’t been able to put anything into practice yet. I’ll try to give you an update about this in future “7th of the month” posts, and if I don’t, feel free to leave me a comment to remind me.

Since winter is the time for making plans for gardens, that’s exactly what I spent some time doing this month – since I am bound and determined to harvest something one of these years! I managed to come up with a list of six goals for my 2023 (and beyond) garden, and here they are:

  • build more SFG frames AND covers for all of them;
  • use my new “grow tent” to start LOTS of seeds indoors;
  • reclaim the area between the peach trees (near the pond in the front yard) and create an “al fresco” dining area, a bean pole tipi (something I’ve wanted for a long time), and/or a medicinal garden;
  • learn how to can and preserve food from my garden (assuming I’m, indeed, successful at harvesting something from my garden);
  • turn the side porch into an outdoor kitchen (a space for the canning and preserving);
  • build/purchase a storage shed for all of my gardening supplies and seeds.

As I hinted at when I added “(and beyond)”, I have a sneaking suspicion that I probably won’t be able to accomplish all six of these goals this year, but they are always at the back of my mind – “the big picture”, if you will. Even though I may not be able to cross off all of these goals completely (especially the last two), I will be “taking baby steps” when it comes to them. For example, I’ve got to spend some time clearing off the side porch by organizing many of the gardening supplies that are currently located in that space, and by doing this, I’ll be just that much closer to accomplishing those last two goals. Every little bit of progress helps!

The last thing I want to mention in the “Holler Happenings” section is placing a Pampered Chef order. My darlin’ daughter has recently started hosting Pampered Chef parties, so I thought I’d support her efforts by placing an order through her party – to give her an opportunity to earn some of the benefits for hosting parties. So… I spent some time perusing the Pampered Chef Web site, and while doing so, I came up with a list of a dozen possible items to purchase. After prioritizing the items on the list, I then had my daughter help me place my order – to make sure that she received the credit for my order. Without further ado, here’s a list of the items I purchased through my daughter’s most recent Pampered Chef party:

  • Mix ‘N Chop (to help “Sweet Thing” when he makes his meat sauce and taco meat);
  • Can Strainer (to help him when he makes his big batches of chili);
  • Burger & Slider Press (something we’ve been wanting to get for quite some time);
  • Apple Wedger (an all-metal one to replace my cracked plastic one); and
  • Salt & Vinegar Seasoning (to put on fries cooked in our InstaPot).

My daughter threw in a jar of “Everything Taco Seasoning” (since she knows that we eat a lot of tacos), and I selected an avocado tool (even though I don’t really like avocados) since I didn’t really like the other “free” offering. Overall, I’m very pleased with everything I purchased, and I’m looking forward to her next party, so I can order the remaining items on my list.

Personal Events:

The first thing I want to mention in this category is that I created a “Winter Bucket List” – a list of things that I want to accomplish this winter. Because I know that “all work and no play” isn’t good, this list contains both things that will require some effort (read: work) to accomplish and things that can be used as rewards for getting the work done – in other words, activities that I think are fun. I’ll have to type it up, print it out, and post it somewhere prominent, so I’ll be able to tell how close I am to accomplishing everything on this list. This was an idea I first came across in one of the newsletters I receive from Maria Gracia, the founder of the “Get Organized Now!” Web site.

In addition to this list, I placed another order – for the 2023 edition of the original Lunar Phases Calendar, a tradition that I started quite a while ago. I’ll use this calendar to determine when I’ll be digging out our telescope for some “moon watching parties” this year! Some of the other things that fall into the “Personal Events” category are as follows:

  • tried a new recipe for “InstaPot” fries (the main reason I purchased the Pampered Chef’s Salt and Vinegar Seasoning). By the way… Even though that appliance is now called the “Instant Pot”, I’ll always know it – and refer to it – as the “InstaPot” since that’s what it was called when it first hit the market. It just has a certain ring to it that I like. So, yeah… I love my “InstaPot”, and I always enjoy trying out new ways to use it. The next thing I think I’m going to try to cook in it is a rib-eye steak.
  • had more enjoyable phone calls from my darlin’ daughter, who calls to “check to see how we’re doing” – though she invariably calls when I’ve just sat down to eat, I always enjoy her phone calls.
  • listened to more UK games – when I remembered to do so! Until I got used to their Tuesday and Saturday schedule, I ended up forgetting about some of the games until afterwards. OOPS!

Writing

As far as my writing is concerned, I spent some time finalizing my writing goals for the first 100 days of 2023. Given how distracted I can get, I’ve found that having a list of such goals helps me stay focused – and redirected should I find myself distracted. As with my “Winter Bucket List”, I’m going to have to print out and post my writing goals somewhere prominent in my office, so I’ll be able to do periodic progress checks to find out how productive I’ve been. In addition, I started organizing my two writing spaces: “my wall” in the office, where my desk is located, and the area at the end of the sofa in the front room, where I go for some peace and quiet. I spent much of January doing research for – and developing – a story (historical romance) that will be set in the Dutch colony of Curaçao (a Caribbean island that has family ties). Like most of my ideas for stories seem to do, this story quickly became yet another trilogy. By doing this research, I guess you can say that I spent part of my winter enjoying a beautiful Caribbean island! A wonder way to spend some time – even though it’s just been as an “armchair traveler”!

One more thing… Beginning this month (February 2023), I’m going to start a new feature on my Web site. Every Tuesday, I will be publishing something called a “Tasty Tuesdays” post. These “Tasty Tuesdays” posts are a throw-back to my LiveJournal days when I enjoyed sharing some of my favorite recipes. Since I miss posting on a weekly basis, I thought “Tasty Tuesdays” would be an excellent way to get back into doing so. At this point, I’m planning to follow the following schedule for these “Tasty Tuesdays” posts:

  • First Tuesday of the month = a favorite recipe of mine;
  • Second Tuesday = a recipe for something sweet;
  • Third Tuesday = a Dutch recipe of some kind (in honor of my fascination with the Dutch);
  • Fourth Tuesday = a recipe from my Auntie Pat’s collection (that she recently gifted to me);
  • Fifth Tuesdays = a barbecue or picnic-related recipe

All right, I think this sums up the month of January for me quite well. I’d love to hear what y’all did last month, so please take a moment to leave a comment! Looking forward to hearing from you! In the meantime… Take care.

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First “7th of the month” Journal Post

After publishing my NaNoWriMo 2022 “wrap up” journal post on the 7th of last month, I thought it would would be fun to put together “wrap up” journal posts about what’s been happening in my life – a series of “time capsules” of sorts. While perusing my “Holler Happenings” notebooks (where I keep all of my various lists and notes), I noticed that everything fell into one of three categories:

• Holler,
• Personal, and, of course,
• Writing.

Therefore, each of my “7th of the month” journal posts will focus on each of the above-mentioned topics – probably in that order, too. Here goes…

Holler Happenings:
I spent the majority of “the month” (from 7 December 2022 to 6 January 2023, which will be the typical time period for each of these journal posts) doing a lot of brainstorming – to come up with a list of projects that I want to accomplish around the holler. All of these projects revolve around making improvements to both the holler house and the holler itself. In addition to these improvements, I also brainstormed a list of projects related to my “kitchen garden” – since I’m still determined to actually harvest something one of these years.

Personal Events:
For 2023, I decided to do something that I’d heard about during discussions regarding New Year’s resolutions. Instead of creating such resolutions, several people recommended coming up with a “word of the year” – a word that will help one stay focused on goals throughout the year. Since I gave up setting New Year’s resolutions quite a while ago – in favor of creating goals that I’d work on throughout the year (my birth year instead of the usual calendar year), I found the “word of the year” idea intriguing. So…
After a great deal of thought, I’ve settled on a single word (which was definitely tougher than it first sounded) and my 2023 “word of the year” is…

ACCOMPLISHING

I selected this word since I want to (finally) accomplish LOTS of projects during this brand-new year!

The biggest news this month was the “winter blast” that hit the holler – and most of the country – right around Christmas. I didn’t really mind the “winter blast” at all since winter is one of my two favorite seasons, AND it may have initiated a new Christmas tradition: something I’ll be calling my “winter blast staycation”. Because the “winter blast” weather prevented me from leaving the holler, I decided to do things at home that I’ve always wanted to do – but never took the time to do. The three main things that I wanted to do during my (first) “winter blast staycation” were as follows:

• make a gingerbread house (from scratch);
• make a Yule Log (something I’ve been wanting to do since my high school french classes);
• watch LOTS of holiday movies (complete with candy and popcorn).

Sadly, I wasn’t able to do the first two things – primarily because I was afraid to make the royal icing needed to keep the house together, AND I didn’t have a jelly roll pan. I’m still not sure about that icing, but I’ve since ordered a jelly roll pan. From the look of it, though, I’m not sure how effective it’ll be. However, I’m going to attempt to make both of these things (as part of an upcoming holiday celebration), so I’ll be ready for this year’s “winter blast staycation”!
No “Personal” discussion about me would be complete (especially at this time of year) without a mention of one of my two favorite sports: UK Basketball! I’ve been a big fan of the University of Kentucky (UK) men’s basketball for a VERY long time – since BEFORE I relocated to the Commonwealth of Kentucky seven years ago! Back when I lived in California, I listened to UK games – thanks to the wonder of the Internet (specifically, iHeart radio), and even though I’ve had the ability to watch UK games on television, I still listen to their games – mostly because I like the play-by-play calls, something that the TV announcers don’t do! Like my other favorite sports team (Portsmouth Football Club), I’ve followed the University of Kentucky Wildcats through their “ups” (winning national championships) AND their “downs” (not even making it into the NCAA tournament). I’m happy to report that after a rough start to the season, this year’s team has gradually started improving! Go, Cats!!

Writing:
As above, no discussion about me would be complete without mentioning my writing. By the time I managed to “win” NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) last year, I was (as usual) VERY stressed and ready to throw Zenny (my current laptop computer) out the window. So… I “took a break” from writing in December – though I do try to write every day: a “Pages” entry (my equivalent of Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages” since I’m not much of a “morning person”), a “free writing” entry, a “meeting my quota” (with a quota of one page) entry, and a “Gratitude” journal entry. In the first three entries, I discussed things such as how I thought NaNoWriMo went and what projects I want to work on for the next year’s NaNoWriMo events – two camps and the main one in November. In the last type of entry, I create lists of things for which I’m grateful. As I mentioned, I try to write every day, but on the days I’m not, for whatever reason, able to write, I’ll write what I call “catch up” entries – which is nothing more that the next day’s regular entry with a “catch up” date entry such as this: Monday – Tuesday, 12-13 December 2022. This indicates that I didn’t write on Monday.
As far as what projects I’ll be working on in 2023 is concerned, I will continue to work on “The McGrath Family Chronicles” series, something that started out as a single contest entry (a story called “A Gangster’s Love Affair”) and morphed into a four-story series (a story for each of the McGrath Family members). This series sparked my interest in New Netherland, the Dutch colony out of which New York City grew, so I’ll be continuing to research the history of New Netherland and other Dutch colonies for the purpose of setting stories in these locations as well. If, for whatever reason, I lose interest in these projects, I’ve got LOTS of other story ideas to pursue. So many ideas, so little time… as they say, so I’ve got to be as efficient – and productive – as I can when it comes to my writing. To this end, one of the other things I want to work on – and accomplish – this year is to come up with a “work flow” that will take me from story idea to finished manuscript ready to submit for publication. If y’all have any ideas and/or suggestions regarding “work flow” for writers, I’d love to hear about it!

Well… I think I’d better close this, my very first “7th of the month” post before it becomes any longer than it already is! In future posts, I hope to add pictures to these posts, but I have to figure out how to do so first. Shouldn’t be too difficult to do since I’ve already managed to add a couple of NaNoWriMo banners to previous posts. In addition, I’ll have to go through my multitude of pics to decide which ones would be appropriate. Anyway… Thanks for sticking with me to the end of this post! Please leave me a comment to let me know what you thought of the type of post. Hope to hear from ya soon!