Sister of Mercy's World

Dreams, Goals, and Plans

Dec 31, 2014


Blog City

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." JK Rowlings
Do you agree with this?

Yes, I do! Dreams are great and often give us the inspiration to move forward. However, if we dwell on the dreams and not apply the action, nothing will ever get done!

Blogging Circle of Friends

"Forget yesterday--it has already forgotten you. Don't sweat tomorrow--you haven't even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift--today." Steve Maraboli
Prompt: Do you agree or disagree with this quote? Why or Why not?

This quote makes a lot of sense. Yesterday is gone. You can't change what has happened. You also can't control tomorrow until it comes. You can certainly prepare for it, but you can't predict everything that will happen. All you can do is hope for the best in most cases. Today is the true time of living, so all you can do is make the best of it.

News In My World!

I've made my New Year's Resolutions! Here they are!

1. Lose 100 pounds. I will reach my goal weight if I am successful.
2. Train for the 5K that will take place where I live the last Saturday of October. My goal isn't to win, only to complete it.
3. Read 50 books
4. Buy a new wardrobe by the end of the year.
5. Write my second novel, Bloodshed on the Blue Moon
6. Get rid of unwanted/unneeded clutter in my house.
7. Build up and organize my stockpile (see below paragraph about this)

I've already made a small start on number 6. I've been going through all of the books I have and have already sold the Dean Koontz books that I had. I've also sold about 33 other books which I will take to the buyer next week. For those who don't know, I used to have an online used bookstore for a little over a year. I did pretty good at first, then business fell off to nothing when various e-readers became popular. As a result, I got stuck with a lot of books. I'm also planning on organizing my stockpile. I'm a major couponer, and I have built up a stockpile of household items such as toilet paper, paper towels, toiletries, and other hygiene items. In fact, I've built up enough of some of these items to last me for several months. My goal is to have a stockpile that will last me for a year.

I've made plans on how to accomplish the other goals too. Goals one and two will go together. I'm planning on working toward becoming mostly vegan which will help me with the weight loss. I'm also going to be stricter with my wheat/corn/dairy free eating too since I have allergies with all of those foods. I've already stopped eating meat and have even cut way back on eating fish too. In fact, I've only had fish a handful of times since this fall. Yesterday, I researched training plans to help me with goal #2.

Here's the basic plan

Jan 1-Jan 4 will be the pre-training phase. I will go on 15-20 walks each day, do 15-30 minutes of yoga, and 20-30 of light weight training with 5 pound dumbbells.
Jan 5th will start the 7 week beginning training for the 5K.
At the end of the 7 weeks, I will start the 12 week intermediate phase.
After that, I will start the 12 week advanced plan.
The last part of the plan will be a 20 week advanced marathon training program. This will take me through Jan 2016.

Along with the running, I will also be doing weight training with dumbbells and yoga. I will do the weight training on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. I will do yoga on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I've even planned for rainy days and other extreme weather days (cold weather, hot days don't really affect me). I will do at least 1-2 rounds of the 30 minute free run on the Wii Fit. When I go on my church's mission trip in July, I plan on working out in the gym that's at the dorm where I will be staying. It has a treadmill, elipitcal machine, and a recumbent bike. It also has some weight machines too.

The plan to tackle reading 50 books in a year will be to read a book a week. The reason I didn't go for 52 books is that I wanted to give myself a two week cushion to account for when I will go on my church's mission trip the first week of July and for activities during the holidays.

For number 4, I'm going to set aside at least $10 a month toward a new wardrobe. I know that I may only end up with $120 for the year, but I plan to combine this with money from selling books and other items from my uncluttering the house plans. I also plan on being able to put even more money aside when I pay off my last credit card bill too. If things go as planned, I should have it paid off by summer.

For number 5, I have worked out this writing schedule.

Jan and Feb will be spent on writing the bare bones rough draft. I have already written an outline and will use it as a guide to write the rough draft. I also vow to have my inner editor turned off too. This will be the time to get the basic story out there. My goal is to come up with the first 50,0000 words during this time.
March and April will be spent on editing the rough draft as in grammar, spelling, typos, content, ect.
May is when I will start putting my novel in my port for reviews.
May and June is when I will edit, using the reviews as a guide to fix loose ends, ect.
July is when I will do final edits on my copy that will be saved to Microsoft Word.
I hope to be ready to submit to my publisher who already has an option on this book in August.

I'm taking a break from the musical ending for today. I have way too much to do!

Bye for Now!

Sister of Mercy