I'm going to be closing this journal.  I started it to have a public, more professional blog, but I rarely use it.  I will probably add those of you who are not alredy friends on my personal blog, and you are welcome to do the same.  I will be posting about books over there occasionally, though not as frequently as I post about other things.  (And I haven't been all that active lately at all, though I hope to find a few more snippets of time to blog.)
My personal blog, if you'd like to friend me there, is:
roseleaf

I will be posting more public entries on the other blog.  I was using this username when commenting on non-LJ blogs, since it was the public one, but for those of you who are not on LJ, you will be able to see some posts over there now, too.

sljbattleofthebooks.com/

I never thought it would win, but it totally deserves the recognition.  :-)

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2010/02/11/st-martins-sweet-valley-high-novel/

A new book about the Sweet Valley twins!  When they're all grown up!

This character that I need to know well was so clear to me for the first time this afternoon.  I'm very excited.  While learning about her, I also got some ideas as to how she will fit into my story and make the changes to it that she needs to make.  There's a small danger at the moment of her eclipsing the main character, who needs to stay the main character, so I'll need to go back and get reacquainted with her before too long.  I've taken too long of a break!

It was very, very good to write again today.

Oh, and we have reached the status of recognized regulars at our coffee shop.  Love it.  What a great afternoon!

Today, I'm thankful for

1. That we moved our writing in the coffee shop day to today because I subbed yesterday, and I actually get to write!!!  Attacking the thesis!  I won't be revising it directly yet, though.  I need to add a character, so I'm going to be working for  a while on figuring out who she is exactly.  Today will be character building and back story.  Once I figure her out, I'll go back through and figure out where she belongs in my story.  Then, I'll read The Fire in Fiction and revise the whole thing.  And hopefully that will all happen in this calendar year.

2. Sunshine!  And blue sky!  And temperatures above freezing!  I actually do enjoy winter and snow, but wow, is it nice to have a glorious day like today.

3. Finished syllabi and the adjunct faculty meeting tonight.  I'm not actually all that excited about the meeting itself (the first hour is training for the new telephone system.  Seriously???) but it's nice to be getting back to it.  I'm excited for the semester.

For those who know the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle stories, or those who deal with today's children and parents on a regular basis. 

http://laurelsnyder.com/2010/01/02/the-last-days-of-mrs-piggle-wiggle/

HT to FuseNews for pointing this out.   www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/320051632.html

2009 Wrap Up

Prepare my book for publication.
*sigh* Nope, not even touched.

Get my Maryland, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia teaching certificate.
I'm counting this one as completed because I did all the work of getting everything together and sending it off to the Maryland certifcation people.  In May.  I called in October to check on it, and they said they'd received it all and it takes 10-16 weeks from when it was assigned.  Which basically tells me nothing, because who knows how long it takes to be "assigned."  I'll call again soon, but things have been going well at the college so I think I'll quit subbing after this school year.  I would miss getting to spend a day every now and then with elementary school kids, though...

Prepare for the Advent Conspiracy year round.
Eh.  Got off to a fairly good start, but slacked in the fall and so ended up crunching everything at the end anyway.  For those of you unfamiliar, the idea is to give gifts of time and talent more than feeding into the commercialism of Christmas, but there's a component of getting things done ahead of time so the season of Advent can be the season of Advent instead of crazy-trying-to-get-ready-for-Christmas.

Put my time where my mouth is and become active in causes important to me.
Failed on this one, too.  I lost a friend for what I think is a stupid reason and backed off of causes in general.

Read 100 books.
Woo hoo!  Got this one.  128, not counting picture books or audio books.

Goals for 2010

Prepare my book for publication.
I really mean it this time.  :-)  I ordered Fire in Fiction  by Donald Maass with the proceeds from my year of review writing, and hope that will help me get excited about diving into revisions.  I'm working on getting writing into a solid place in my weekly schedule.  I don't think the writing every day idea will work for me at this point, but writing every week is doable.

Prepare for the Advent Conspiracy year round.
We've got the planning off to a good start.  It's just a matter of keeping up with it.

Read a shelf of my unread books.
I'm pretty sure I'll keep up the quantity, but I'd like to read more of the books I already own.  ;-)

Take a picture every day.
Starting now, since I haven't been keeping up with this for the first six days of the year.  Part of this is because we're going to put together calendars for our parents for Christmas, and it's so nice when we've got a lot of pictures to choose from.  Also because I want to get better at picture taking, both in quality and in the habit of doing so.

Do something to focus on a relationship daily.
I'm terrible at keeping in touch.  I want to call people more frequently, e-mail and write letters to individuals, and keep up my blogs a bit more.

November and December have been crazy, so it's unlikely that any general plan of how to spend my days would have survived.  But, i found out that it does NOT work for me to plan to clean the whole house in one day.  So a revised plan goes back to spreading that out a little each of the days that I'm not working at the college.  Monday will still be mostly dedicated to school work, and Wednesday will still be my writing day.

One thing that we've discovered works really, really well for us is that my husband and I have started spending Wednesday afternoons at a local independent coffee shop.  We love the environment, and both of us find we are much more able to be productive there.  It's much better for me to write without a computer...everything else about a computer is too distracting for me.  It's much better for him to work (on writing sermons, usually) without the phone nearby.  His office is in our home, and the phone rings constantly with personal and church-related calls.  Obviously, both of us have many things to do that can't be done there, but it's nice to have the dedicated one afternoon a week.  It's also nice to be together, yet not obligated to be entertaining each other.

We don't have anything but an independent coffee shop locally.  The nearest Starbucks is 45 minutes away, which I wouldn't have thought possible in this day and age :-).  But we love this coffee shop.  Good service, good atmosphere, yummy yummy coffee.  If you ever happen to be in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, stop by Trader's Coffee.

Posts on resolutions and 2009 book list to follow.

I'm trying a new schedule this week.  I've been splitting up the housework between the days I'm home, getting work done when needed, and fitting everything else in around that.  Which means I haven't written in a very long time.  I decided to try cleaning the house on one day of the week, because when I split up the tasks, I feel like it's too easy to put them off onto another day.  I do occasionally sub MWF, and I work pretty full days at the college on T & Th.  I think that I'll still be able to find time for the things I had scheduled for the day, even if I get a sub call, it just won't be a full day put into it.

This week, I'm trying:

Monday - College prep work -- getting things in order (basic plans, papers to get copied) for the next three class meetings (Tues, Thurs, and the following Tues.)  That'll get me far enough ahead that I should be able to keep up well with a devoted Monday.  Grading will fit in the evenings.

Tuesday - College

Wednesday - Writing -- whoo hoo!  A whole day for it!  I'm hoping this works out.  Today, I'm still catching up from a bunch of things, including work I missed on Monday, but I've already gotten more directed writing done than I have in months.

Thursday - College

Friday - Clean house.  Because this is my husband's sometimes day off, so I can recruit him to help when necessary, and I can do some on Saturday if I need to.

Laundry gets done throughout the week, because that really is much easier for me if I spread it out.

So far, so good.  As I said, today hasn't been as devoted to writing as I'd like it to be, and part of my time will be devoted to getting my office into a state that isn't driving me crazy, but I don't foresee getting as behind on the general things in life as I have been this month.  I also don't usually do the grocery shopping on Wednesdays, which is taking time away today, too.  The real test will be Friday.  If it kills me to try to clean the house in a day, the plan will need to be revised.  :-)