Current Biggest Goals

1. is of course finishing all the edits to my book.
2. finding ways to cut corners and save money.
3. plot out rest of the series so that if someone is interested in my book I can tell them what the next one is about.

That's all for now, my goal is to finish another draft of the novel by Friday so I can get my volunteer readers to comment on it, do another draft, then send it off!

Anyone still trying to follow this blog??!!

I would like to start posting again...and hear from everyone!! Let me know who's still remotely interested!! Hope everyone is doing great!! It would be great to hear what everyone is working towards these days.

Crickets!

But for your info, the book is going well. I'm chugging right along with it.

Anjali's worksheets are a little touch and go, sometime we do well and sometimes we don't.

Soon I'm moving Nadira into Anjali's room. I've started getting things ready.

New Goals, New Itch

It's been so long, dear friends, so long...

Awake and Arise!

I've got a few new goals I've been working on, that I'd like to share.

I've printed out a ton of preschool worksheets and Anjali and I have been working on them. In general I believe in learning through immersion, but since she'll be starting school in a couple of years, I figured it would be good to get her used to the common teaching methods being used in public school. The past few days she had me worried, she was pretending not to be able to count to ten. She's known how to for months. I know it was just a game, but it still had me worried. Too often bright girls pretend not to know the answers, I don't want Anjali to be one of them. Today she broke down and counted to get a sticker, lol.

I'm reading "Alice in Wonderland" to her right now, we're about half way through. With the new baby, the beautiful Nadira, our reading has declined greatly. I want to get back on top of that.

And my final goal I've started working on is writing, writing, writing. I've started my second novel, it's not the one I thought I'd write. It's YA, it's called "Meg Dare and the Bermuda Treaty", and so far I've got about 29 pages down, about 7,000 words. My goal is 2,000 words per day minimum. I've got that unsettled feeling, like I don't fit inside my own skin. I'm writing at nap times and late at night, eating junk food and chocolate. I'm dreaming about the novel, when I'm reading I'm reading about writing. I want to finish my first draft by April 1. My goal is for it to be about 80 to 90 thousand words.

Which leads to my words of encouragement to my slumbering friends. If you have a goal, a goal that is big, that you want to have as a career or a lifestyle, if there's something you want so bad you physically ache, seek it. Study it. Pray it. Be it. Do it. Breathe it. Let it become part of your very bones, so that when you're not doing it you feel so wrong that you absolutely have to do it. Become obsessed.

AWAKE! ARISE! Seek your dreams, make your goals, whether it's working out, being a better mom, eating healthy, or becoming a florist, a writer, a dreamer, a doer, an activist! AWAKE! ARISE! Plan, plot, and DO!

My weeks have started over

Hi all, so instead of counting my weeks of Health Mania...I now have a new mania, as do many of you(well not new for many of you, but still). Baby Mania has begun again in the Stansel family! I begin week 10 today. So, I'll try to keep the blog more up to date like I had been, just different things to talk about here lately. Fatigue. Allergies. Nausea. Hormones. Fun stuff, right?!!

I do feel very blessed, though, even with all of the obstacles that come with pregnancy.

My first Dr's appointment is Dec 16th....I'll keep ya'll posted!!

More Baby Mania

So mostly these days I'm just trying to stay sane. I can literaly feel my body gearing up for labor, and I'm getting soooooo impatient. At the same time, I'm feeling soooooo rushed. I remember from Anjali, I know that once this new baby's here, I'm not going to want to/feel like doing anything else but rocking and cuddling and sleeping. So I feel like I'm preparing for the end of the world or something, frantically trying to get everything done, alternating between wanting more time and just wanting this to be over. And, of course, the frustration of not knowing exactly when it'll be over.

But a more pressing deadline is hovering on the horizon: the in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving. So, if nothing else, I've got to get things in order here before next week, regardless of when this one shows up on the scene.

And the biggest frustration? Poor Faiyaz is slaving away at work, and while I really appreciate his hard work and dedication, he's got a huge mess in the office and another on the dining table that only he can clean up. And it's driving me crazy! So I might lock him in the office this weekend, just till he gets it clean. That's where we're putting my mother-in-law to sleep, so it really has to get done.

And on top of all that, I'm trying to work on a quilt for Anjali and a hat for the new baby. I am insane.

The baby count down

Alright, so I haven't posted here in eons, so sorry.

It's three and a half weeks until my due date, but on Friday the doctor said I probably won't make it (hurray!) so I'm excited.

And my inlaws are coming for thanksgiving in two weeks.

So I'm frantically trying to get house ready for new baby and inlaws, which both might get here around the same time :)

And I've got the most ridiclous to-do list. There's the master one, of big projects for before the baby, and then a daily one, broken into three sections. Yep, I have a morning to-do list, a naptime to-do list, and an afternoon to-do list. There is something wrong with me, seriously. But I'm staying on top of things for the most part, so maybe the crazy lists are the secret.

Oh, and I still don't have a name for this poor child! BLAH! Fai and I can't agree on one.