October was a bit of a write-off due to getting a jury summons. In Northern Ireland, apparently you are in jury service for 4 weeks (not on a jury, just summoned in case they NEED a jury).

While I wasn’t needed every day (if there’s no cases on), here was enough days we all got called in and had to sit around waiting in case we were called. Thankfully, I wasn’t called to be in a jury but it still sucked up a lot of time.

Regarding the start of November: Sadly over this last week, our town had unprecendented rainfall, this caused rivers and loughs to overflow and hit us with a devastating flood.  Thankfully, our home and those of our family are all on a hill so we have not been directly affected.  However, our town has suffered.  Many of the shops, including essentials like supermarkets and pharmacies have seen chest high waters that have ruined them.

As of today, the water levels in the rivers have still not receded enough for the council to start pumping the water out of the streets. Roads are blocked, services halted (such as bus and postal) and we are just one of several towns in the area who have been affected.

It is heartbreaking to see and we are not even sure if many of these mostly local, small businesses will even survive after this.

I wrote these goals before the flood started and while I’ve amended some I am keeping others. I need to keep myself distracted during this difficult time.

Last Month’s Goals

You know the drill, let’s see how I did with October’s goals.

1. Get The Blessed Completed- PARTIALLY DONE – I was doing really well, then hit a bad streak with mental health and decided I hated the manuscript. Had to step away before I did something stupid. Sometimes I feel like my brain is broken.

2. Prep For Christmas Rush – DONE – Made lots of new items, ordered more stock and even created new templates for my business social media, created 50+ graphics and then scheduled two weeks worth at a time.

3. Read 3 Books – DONE – Actually read like 5 books this month, this is what happens when you aren’t able to work because of jury service!

4. Try 2 New Exercise Classes At The Gym – DONE –I actually had enough days off from jury service to try two new classes out at the start of the month.  I have some other classes I want to try in November then I’ll decide which ones I want to do regularly.💪

Added Goals

Because I’m a glutton for punishment and hit a lot of goals in the first week, I added some more and then completed them!

5. Make More Items For Fayre – DONE – Got a lot more items made, prepped the displays, started packing a box ready and made a list of items I need to make to be 100% ready.

6. Close Evernote – DONE – As part of my continued project to Declutter My Digital Life, I decided to get rid of EverNote. I opened it in 2013, filled it with lots of notes then promptly forgot all about it. So, I took the time to go through all the “notebooks” in Evernote, deleted most notes and notebooks and only transferred about 1/4 of the contents into Trello. 

7. Brainstorm “Sea Song” – DONE – Yes, you read that right. It’s ANOTHER story idea, it’s been rattling around in my head so I wanted to get all the notes down into a Scrivener file. Not to write it! (jeez, I can’t start writing another) but just get all the notes down and out of my head!

8. Decide What To Do With Ko-fi – DONE – I have been stretching myself thin over so many platforms. So I wanted to decide what I wanted on each one.  With Ko-fi, I decided to share the guest posts of the Podcast to give more exposure to our lovely guests and also be sharing (once a month) writing updates. I know they were originally on here, but I’m bouncing them to ko-fi. I think it works better.

November’s Goals

Okay, let’s see what I’m tackling for this month.

1. Tackle Dark Hart

Writing Goal: Dark Hart is infuriating because it’s almost done!! I just need to fix something and I’ve been putting it off because I am struggling with my perfectionism that has been pushing my procrastination into overdrive.

2. Outline Sea Song (working title)

Writing Goal: I really want to start getting outlines drafted for all my new ideas as they crop up. So since this was the newest, I want to scratch out the outline.

3. Get The Blessed Completed

Writing Goal: I just need to keep showing up for this manuscript. It’s the only way to push through all the noise in my head.

4. Craft Fayre!

Business Goal: Okay, so it’s not a “goal” but I have to get everything finished and ready for the Fayre which is this month and then I have to attend and not be completely awful – at, you know, talking to people, setting up the stall… smiling.  I’m not great at doing this stuff out in public.

5. Read 1 Book

Reading Goal: November is going to be busy so I am going to reduce this goal down so I can focus more on writing and business.

6. Finish Xmas Shopping & Travel Prep

Homelife Goal(s): I am so behind. I usually have all of my Xmas shopping ordered by early October but I just didn’t manage this year.

Also my family have all been super difficult this year, between not sending their lists, buying things for each other and not letting everyone else know so we don’t buy the same, changing their lists randomly or scribbling it by hand!!

I’ve just not been eager to deal with all this. I also need to make sure I have everything for travelling back to England in December.

~ ~ ~

Due to the flooding, things have become complicated so I’ve had to amend my goals. That means removing health goals connected to the gym – since at this time it’s inaccessible and I don’t even know when they will re-open. 

It also means costs are going up as our grocery stores are either inaccessible or have been trashed by flood water which means we are having to go a lot further out to get supplies – so that’s more petrol use, higher costs of food etc.

So might as well try and work on my writing more this month.

Happy writing & stay safe

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