Hello hello and welcome back to another update! Let’s jump right in.
Thanksgiving was wonderful, and having already given up on NaNoWriMo the day before, I was able to really relax and enjoy myself and the family that surrounded me. Black Friday in my house is Baking Friday, and my mom and I and whoever we are able to recruit, tackle our annual Christmas Cookies: Spritz, Sugar and Spice, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Chocolate Chip, Russian Tea Cakes, Razzleberries, and more.
At the beginning of the week, I was lucky enough to be able to help out at my Alma Mater, which hosts a telethon every year for Big Brothers Big Sisters. You know, those things you flip past on community TV stations where local musicians, magicians, acting and dance schools perform their hearts out and a group of people tell you how important something is and conduct interviews while in the background people answer telephones to take donations? That. I love that. When I attended the school, I got involved initially for the extra credit, but quickly fell in love with the live broadcasting. Mostly because of the people involved, but going back to help out every year is one of my favorite things. When I lived in the area the past two years, I went back in the weeks leading up to the program because I was executive producing. Not being in the area this year meant I couldn’t do that, but I was able to be a floor director for the day, which was almost as much fun, and much less stressful.
I was also able to stop by and see my lovely ex-coworkers, which was really nice since usually I don’t get the chance to go back to places I’ve worked after I’ve left. Not for bad reasons, but I usually only leave jobs when I move. This time, however, I continue to have friends who live in that area, so I have multiple excuses to drive the hour down there when I’m at my parents and I don’t have to feel bad about using all of that gas because I’m combining the visits into one.
December has been moving along pretty smoothly. I’m only waiting on one more package to arrive, and I have three pictures frames that I need to buy before I’m completely done with my holiday shopping. thank goodness I did my shopping when I did, because I just got a call from the bank that my card needed to be shut off because of some company having a data breach (not my bank having the breach, thank goodness), so now I can’t do anymore shopping until my new card arrives, which won’t be for another week or so. Luckily I have cash for gas to get from MA to NJ for the holidays. This does mean that I can’t go out exploring the city’s Christmas displays though, which I wanted to a post about, because I can’t get any more money out of my account to use for subway tickets, which makes me sad. At the same time though, it’s saving me money, so I really shouldn’t be complaining.
That’s enough of that, let’s take a look at how I’m doing on my goals so far.
TOTY 24 Goals: Write Every Day – Except for the book reviews I’ve done in the last month, I haven’t written a thing. Well, that’s not really true. I made a brief foray into the distant recesses of my book series to hammer out some more plot ideas for my NaNo project from last year, but that was it. Really!
Apply to Full-Time Jobs – COMPLETED!
Apply to Grad School – I think I’m psyching myself out when it comes to this. I can’t even bring myself to pull up the essay requirements or contact my references to ask for letters. I really need to just buckle down and get it done. If I don’t get in, at least I will have tried. If I don’t try, then I fail by default, and I will never forgive myself if I do not try. This is something I really, really want to do, but I don’t know… I almost feel… unworthy? is that the word I’m looking for? I’ve never known what I wanted to do, and I’ve never been the best of the best at anything. I used to think that my calling in life would appear as something that only I could do, but I just don’t believe that anymore. I follow at least 15 travel bloggers on various platforms. If there was one person meant to do it, why would the others even bother? Clearly, someone out there is always going to be better than you. that’s the whole point. It drives you to be your best, rather than half-assing it because you know the people will come anyway. It’s supposed to be a bit of a struggle. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be interesting. Am I giving myself a pep-talk right here and now? Maybe. This whole grad school thing, even though it’s going to cost even more money, and take even more time when I could be working in the field already, is something I need to do for myself. I ‘m not the kind of person who can jump into a business field completely blind. I need to know how the industry works before I can go in and rock the socks off of any potential bosses. Publishing is the only idea that I’ve come back to again and again as a potential job. I’m really blabbering on and on about this, so maybe I should just make a separate post about why I want to go into publishing because this is going to take a while to explain.
December Goals: Read 6 books: So far I’m at three! and working my way through at least two more that will be done by the end of the month. These are part fun reads, and also some prep for reviews coming out next month/year. So far I read Life and Death by Stephenie Meyer, which is the gender swapped retelling of Twilight in honor of that book’s 10th anniversary. I also read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay by J.K. Rowling, which I read in a day and it was phenomenal. I also saw the actual movie twice so far, and it’s something I just want to watch over and over again because I keep noticing new things! Last night I finished a romance, There’s Something in the Heir by Jenny Gardiner, which is the first book in her It’s Reigning Men series, and I am a sucker for punderful romance titles. You just know they’re going to be sweet and cheesy.
Write 5 reviews: I reviewed Life and Death as well as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay, but Life and Death is just chilling in my reserve pile because I have many other things coming your way first!
Write 6 posts: I’m having some trouble downloading my photos from the phone to my PC, as my computer is probably about 6 years old now and I’m quite literally running out of storage space. I desperately need to buy an external hard drive (or, you know, just by a new computer). So I haven’t finished any of the posts I had planned about exploring the city, and those may all have to wait for the new year when I can put some cash towards one of the two solutions. Which of course also means this is the only post I’ve written all month. I have a few more ideas for end-of-the-year stuff, but it remains to be seen how much media I can fit on my computer in order to create something I like.
Write 10,000 words of the Everest Chronicles: Yeah… I’m definitely going to need this break to extend into January. My brain just can’t handle anything when Christmas is on my plate. I’ve been reading as much as humanly possible since I bailed on NaNoWriMo. I think I’ve read six books so far, and I’m in the middle of three more, but on the way out my reading slump I temporarily DNF’d (Did Not Finish) at least two others that I can think of. I love books.
Connect Blog(s) to a Facebook page: This is something I’d really like to be able to do, to have a single, combined feed, so you don’t have to jump back and forth between the two sites to find everything, because after a while that becomes tedious to say the least. Additionally, Facebook makes sharing things significantly easier, which would really up my exposure, which would be nice. I think.
Walk 20 miles: I set this goal at 2/3 of last month because of all the snow and ice and the like that are preventing me for putting my cousin in a stroller and hitting the trails. Still, I’m at about 17 miles thus far, and it’s only halfway through the month. A lot of this is due to the sheer number of stairs in my aunt and uncle’s house (we call it the stairmaster because all we do is walk up and down stairs all day), but anything that helps with fitness during the dead of winter is fine by me.
Books to read this month: Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand Grace, Not Perfection – Emily Ley Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson Landline – Rainbow Rowell Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert