January ... All Wrapped Up
Plenty of ticks, a few misses and some big news ....
Alrighty, January and a new year. We have a lot to get through, so without any further faffing …
Box-Ticking
My word of the year is “accomplish”, so this year is all about ticking small boxes designed to help me tick bigger boxes.
Writing
January to-do list:
Finish Murder In The Mangroves ✅
Send Philly 3 off for formatting ✅
My main writing goal this month was to (finally) finish Murder in the Mangroves, and I’m relieved to say I have ticked that box. Finally. It took more words than I expected, and just when I thought I’d figured out who dunnit, it turned out they didn’t do it. Given that was two chapters before the end, quite a bit of back-tracking was required. Anyway, it’s done and will be winging its way off to my editor over the weekend.
The next step is to get a brief together for my cover designer.
Adulting
January to-do list:
Get new wills done ✅
Replace curtains (main bedroom), replace blinds (two downstairs bedrooms), new curtains (office) ✅
Replace living room TV ✅
Get the projector TV in the movie room fixed (it’s had a long green line through the screen for months). I’m giving this a tick because we had a blackout the other night, and ever since, the green line has miraculously disappeared ✅
Maintain financial data/budget stuff monthly ❌
Health and Fitness
January to-do list:
Average 10,000 steps a day, so < 310,000 steps for January ✅
Do at least 30 mins exercise each day ✅
Mid-week alcohol-free ✅
2 x strength sessions each week ✅
1 x swim per week ❌ I’m doing an extra shift at the op shop this year, and I’m still figuring out how to fit my swim in with that and not cut further into my writing time.
Eat (mostly) unprocessed foods ✅ I’m ticking this box because my Friday morning croissant and bacon in my Sunday morning omelette are non-negotiables. Other than that, I’m pretty good.
Other
January to-do list:
Finish 2024 Temperature blanket ❌ Morris & Sons (where I get my cotton) won’t have the exact cream colour I need to finish the blanket until June. The squares are all ready to go. As you can see from the picture below, the cream is kind of important. And yes, that is a cherry tomato growing over my clothesline. The most common colours were aquamarine (a sort of blue), which represented 20-24C, and yellow 25-30C.
Begin 2025 Temperature blanket ✅ I’ll show you this one when there’s more than two rows to show.
Bring my sewing machine out of its hibernation ❌
The Rest
Reading
In case you missed it, you’ll find my bookish post here.
Watching
The Split – Barcelona (ABC TV) - the perfect ending for this fantastic show.
Darby and Joan Season 2 (Acorn) - great characters, and amazing Queensland scenery … including some from the Sunshine Coast.
CB Strike – Ink Black Heart (Foxtel/Binge) - I love this series but wish they’d hurry up and get together!
Brokenwood Mysteries Season 10 (Acorn) - if Midsomer County was in New Zealand.
Gavin and Stacey (the Finale) (Foxtel/Binge) - as feel-good and fantastic as the rest of the series.
Missing You (Netflix) - I didn’t see the twist coming.
Out and Abouting
None really to speak of this month. We live in a holiday town, so we tend to hibernate until school goes back and things get a tad less feral, and we can get bookings (and decent service) in restaurants again.
Cookbooking
This month’s cookbook theme was Healthy-ish. My post, a review of Kathy Slack’s From The Veg Patch, can be found here. Next month, it’s seasonal faves.
Project 52
The one where I’m cooking a new recipe each week from a cookbook I own. I can, however, only count each cookbook once. In January I cooked from the following books in my library:
Some of My Best Friends Are Cookies, by Emilia Jackson
The recipe: Chocolate Ripples
The Hebridean Baker, by Coinneach MacLeod
The recipe: Oat and mincemeat cookies
First Cream The Butter And Sugar, by Emilia Jackson
The recipe: Oat and raisin cookies
Eat To Your Heart’s Content
The recipe: Steak with anchovy dressing and Broccoli with spring onions, chilli, soy and sesame seeds
Looking Ahead
Philly’s new adventure …
The official release day for the third Philly Barker adventure is just days away. As always I’ve been super slack on my marketing, but I hope Philly forgives me.
You can find all the buy links here.
The really big news…
I’ll be presenting a session at the annual Romance Writers conference in Hobart in August. I’m beyond excited for this.
My topic? How to use astrology to create textured characters and believable conflicts. It should be a lot of fun.
Over to you …
Alrighty, that’s enough from me … what’s been on your calendar in December? Perhaps you’d like to update us on your word of the year or intentions? We’d love to hear about what you’ve been up to…
My co-hosts are:
Deb at Deb’s World
Sue at Women Living Well Over 50
Donna at Retirement Reflections
You did very well. Congrats!
I see a whole lot more green than red!! Yay YOU!! We updated our wills a couple of years ago. Had put it off forever and it really wasn't that dreadful after all.
Super duper proud of you to complete your writing goals. Looking forward to the release of the new Philly. We are writing more regularly now, too. My PC is working on a book and is about 75K words in. You inspire me to encourage him to keep going.
Would love to sit in on your presentation for Writer Wonderland in August. Would it by chance be available online? Love the idea of using horoscopes to define and describe characters. Had never thought of giving characters birthdays!!