Do You Listen To Books? Try the Audiobook Challenge 2021!

 Two weeks until the New Year. Are you planning to set goals? do resolutions? start a new eating plan?  

As a fan of planning in general, even though during the last two years most of my goals and plans have taken GIGANTIC detours, I'm still making plans and setting goals.  What can I say setting goals and making a plan to work on those goals makes me happy. 

If you are like me and you enjoy goals and plans to do things or try new things, you should consider joining me for the Audio Challenge by Caffeinated Reader & That's What I'm Talking About.   It's just for fun, and you might learn some new things or at least will have some adventures between your ears. 

Right now I'm listening to an audiobook I borrowed from my library on the Libby App. Yes that is right you can borrow books and listen to them on your phone. How cool is that? 

Right now I'm halfway through Booked For Death by Victoria Gilbert. 

I don't know how it will go, but my plan is to listen to a book a week. How about you? Do you listen to audiobooks?  If not, give it a try! 

Is Winter Winding Down?

Gosh I hope so!  One of my goals for this year was to not get too bogged down in my dislike of winter. If I can rate myself here, I give myself a 3.5 out of 5 on not spending too much time being annoyed by all things winter.

This year I did spend all of January doing weekday radiation so that definitely proved to be a distraction from dwelling on the cold. Plus radiation gives you hot flushes, so well timed on my part--better to have one's internal temp rise in January than in July!

Once February arrived, our house spend the entire month with at least one person sick with some virus.  Was it Coronavirus? I don't think so, but who knows! To round out the month, surgery for me.  Medical interventions not winter blues were the order of the day! Now here is March coming in like a warmer than usual lion; so far, our temps have been decent and the sun has been shining.

The nice weather has lead to a certain BFF of The Man tracking mud into the house several times a day.  Keep your fingers crossed for us as we are crunching numbers and hoping to get wood flooring on our main floor ASAP. If  all goes well, 2020 will be the year of home renovations and me having many more celebrations and fest to attend than doctor appointments!

*Accountability* - How did I do with my February Goals?

Not great!  The cold I had really knocked me out for most of the month!
I did reach my blog post goals and I did achieve the most important goal: Lastly, have a very uneventful laparoscopic preventative surgery and celebrate being done with medical interventions for hopefully ever. (not including routine tests)

Actually as I re-read it.  I have not celebrated having a routine surgery w/clear pathology. So I'm due a celebration. Note to self plan some celebrating!

Committing to writing weekly and a new adventure

I have goals for this year. One of which is to blog twice a week.  I have not managed to achieve this goal as of yet, but the time is now!  I'm naming it and claiming it and all that jazz.  Here is the first of many 2018 post from me to you.

So to begin, how have you been?  Well I hope.  Over at my house we have been continuing to duck and weave against that flu going around. May we continue to avoid it and may it be gone and Spring arrive ASAP.

In the big news to start the year category, I retired from Tastefully Simple  after 15 years.  I am very excited to enjoy only having one job (in addition to the raising of the teens and so on and so forth). One of the ways, I am enjoying my free time is to work on writing more.  Clearly not here on my blog thus far, as I've been quite lax in posting.  Anyway I'm proud to say I am now a contributor for Project Fandom !  It's a great website and podcast devoted to all things entertainment.  My first assignment was a book review for the book The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley. You can read my review here. 

Next month I start my first TV series review for the website, and yes I'm nervous about that, a reoccurring six episode assignment. This is as close to my childhood dream of being a newspaper reporter coming true.  I'm reporting weekly on a TV show, you see a parallel right?  Close enough to call it a dream come true?  I say yes!  Make sure to follow, like and share Project Fandom on your social media,. As I  said it's a great place to keep up on all your favorite movies, comics, TV shows and book--and find new favorites as well.

That's what is new with me. Next week I will have more new with me news.  So stay tuned! In the meantime, Williams-Sonoma  sent me an email recipe, as they do daily, and I was pleasantly surprised to find I have everything on hand to make it for dinner. It's a sheet pan recipe and it looks delicious.  You can see it here: Mexican Stuffed Peppers with Chipotle Sweet Potatoes.  Looks good, right?  If you are a Pinterest user, you can find it on my "Sheet Pan Recipes" board and my name is Victoria7401 if you want to follow me.

Thanks for reading!  Have a great day!

New Beginnings Need Not Wait for a New Year

You may recall a couple of posts ago, I said I would be sharing an exciting new project I've decided to embark upon this Fall.  You probably don't recall this, but you may.  Ready for the scoop?  For decades I have avoided doing something I loved and planned to make my career, to write.  

Labor Day weekend the stars aligned and I had a mental shift.  I decided to stop waiting for a 'book worthy' idea to show up in my life.  Instead I made an executive decision to stop avoiding writing and just do it.  I don't need to write the next great american novel or a best seller. I think I'd rather write  comfort food, a cozy mystery. 

What's a cozy mystery?  It's when the main characteristic the story  is not a detective or police person and they are thrust into a situation where they must solve a murder. The murder typically takes place off the page and the setting is typically a small town with a small pool of potential suspects. The main character solves the murder the old fashion way-by talking with people and deduction.  If you have any familiarity with the old show "Murder, She Wrote." then you have the idea. 

I spent the rest of September working on my outline and now I am ready to write. I am going to see what I can get done in October, and then I'm challenging myself to do      NaNoWriMo(National Novel Writing Month) this November. 

I'm exciting to spend time with my Main Character who is still nameless.  I just call her Pro so far, but her daughter is Hildegard (as per Ms. Anna's request).

Wish me luck!  

xoxo