I believe…

I remember with respect and gratitude all the souls who served and lost their lives. They paid a steep price.

I remember that fighting is not a solution. It’s a last resort with an unbearable cost.

I remember that the brave didn’t start the wars…they finished them with their blood, sweat, tears and sometimes, their lives.

Thank you to all who served. And to those who died…

I remember.

TGIF!! Time to share five random things about our week:

1. Wizard has been getting out of grocery shopping. I’m very sulky about it. I LOATHE grocery shopping. Next week, I’m making him go with me.
2. I ordered my glasses five weeks ago and still waiting. The office finally called me yesterday to tell me there was a problem. You think? Sorry, is my annoyed sarcasm showing? I’m more annoyed that they brushed me off twice when I called to inquire about the glasses, than the fact that they ran into a problem. Anyhow the problem is they are supposedly having trouble cutting the lenses, and the lab will call them back soon with an update…we’ll see what happens.
3. I’m working a lot this week and wish I had more pages to show for it. But I’m logging the hours and efforts, so the rest will come, it always does. Side note: Having to thread Ram and Ginny’s storylines in to this book along with Eli and Savi’s is crazymaking. I’m pretty sure the Wing Slayer Hunters stay awake nights plotting ways to melt my brain in some kind of twisted revenge for making them work so hard to get their Happily Ever Afters.
4. I’m writing this Thursday afternoon right before Wizard and I leave for dinner out. We’d originally planner to go out for Mother’s Day, but Wizard had an allergy attack so we’re finally getting around to actually going. We are both looking forward to going out.
5. In the column of good things I do for myself, I’m still doing Yoga. It’s helping me destress, and I think it improves my sleep slightly. In the things only good for my mental health–I bought dark chocolate covered almonds. But I haven’t opened them yet

That’s my five now I’d love to hear yours.  I hope everyone in the states has a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Selling Motivation is pretty big business these days.  You’ve probably heard all the big time gurus who’ve made millions off selling motivation: Tony Robbins, Rachel Hollis, Dave Ramsey and a quite a few others. There’s a whole slew of folks out there happy to sell us motivation. They’ll offer an online class, personal coaching sessions, workshops or expensive multi-day conference.

They swear they can motivate us to fix our body, health, job, marriage or finances in five easy steps.

We can buy motivation anywhere these days. Seriously, motivation is big business. If you’re not convinced, take a look at the diet and fitness industry. Motivation is HUMONGOUS there.

Motivation is selling a dream to the buyer while enriching the seller. That’s all fine. Motivation is a great way to jump start a project, or help us keep believing in ourselves, or sometimes, or just give us a kick in the backside. Motivational events are also great places to network with people who have similar goals.

But you know what Motivation gurus can’t sell us?

Internal Drive. We either have it for our dream goals or we don’t. It’s internal, meaning its derived from our mind/body/spirit, not from an external source. Internal Drive is the fire in our belly to do the steps to achieve our goal no matter what.

Even when it’s boring.

Even when it feels overwhelming and impossible.

Even when we make mistakes, fail and have to start over again and again.

Internal Drive will push us. Internal Drive is the voice in our head that nags us back to the project, the voice that wakes us in the night, demanding we figure out the answer to the problem.

Motivation fades away.

Internal Drive won’t let up until we finish.

So sure, when we need a small push to get over a hump,  or to network with a community who have similar goals as us, motivational gurus or groups can be helpful. They may even be worth the investment.

But when we want the staying power to achieve long-term success, we need to look inside ourselves for internal motivation.

It was a great weekend! Middle and his wife came over for his birthday. Youngest and his wife came too. It was great to see them, and of course, we missed oldest, his wife and Turbo, but they had another commitment. We had beef and chicken fajitas, rice, watermelon and lemon pound cake with ice cream for dessert. I had way too much food, but that just means we have a few days worth of meals, which was exactly what I intended

Maggie also had fun, sure that her brothers and sisters-in-law came over just to play with her, pet her, and feed her special treats.

Then after a truly non-stop week, Sunday I was finally able to catch my breath. I wrote some pages, and Maggie and I went on a long walk on a beautiful sunny day with just a breeze I also began working on putting together some promo stuff for Carla (my assistant) that I’ve been promising her for a week

Today I’m back to working on Primal Magic, I’m still in the first quarter, but it’s getting there. I’m working in my crazy zig zag approach. I’m going to try this week to practice fiercely guarding my writing time and not letting anything other the flames or blood distract distract me.

How was your weekend?

TGIF, let’s jump into sharing 5 random things about our week.

1. I cleaned the oven! It’s a self-cleaning oven, so it’s not hard. But I could never remember to set it early enough on a day cool enough to air out the house. The harder part is cleaning the racks and top grates, but I got it done!
2. Maggie’s on a mini hunger strike. She’s feeling much better than last weekend, but now that I don’t have to give her meds with meals, I’m just her giving dry kibble in the morning. But she wants kibble plus wet food, so she doesn’t eat it. We’ll see who gives in on this   She eats her night time meal of kibble plus wet food just fine.
3. Yesterday I got a crazy high bill for my injectable RA meds. It was a panic moment. A couple phone calls got it straightened out. I’m so relieved. Ever since I switched doctors and switched to the mail-in pharmacy they use, I’ve had very little difficulty getting this med that has kept me living a pretty normal life–even through the pandemic. Yesterday was a reminded to be grateful.
4. Not as happy with optometrist at the moment. It’s been a month since I ordered my glasses and they’re still not in. Long story short, they have my money, I don’t have my glasses and I’m not thrilled with feeling brushed off when I inquire. This has never ever happened with them before. If they had said, “Oh there’s been a snafu, and we had it corrected,” or “Someone made a mistake, and we’ve fixed it,” I’d be fine. But brushing me off is not fine.
5. We are celebrating Middle Son’s birthday this weekend. Youngest and his wife are coming too. Oldest, his wife and Turbo have a prior commitment. I planned fajitas that should be easy, tracking down flank steak turned into a treasure hunt, LOL! But Costco came through for me, so it’s all good.

That’s my five random things, now I’d love to hear yours! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

A little part of me worries that this guy doesn’t have a shirt on. I mean, kudos for the rest of the equipment…well…the equipment I can see anyway But after this photo is taken, I suggest he put on the shirt.

I’ll even volunteer to help put that shirt on! I’m totally generous like that.

So what do you think, is he worthy?

**Late again! My blog schedule feature was running perfectly after my web guru did her thing, then word press updated and it’s back glitching and not posting as scheduled. Anyway, sorry for the late post!

How did I post the last blog and not even see the typo in the first sentence? I just noticed it yesterday and did the face palm thing. Oh well, typos happen.

Saturday I wrote. Love the Wing Slayers so much, but I don’t love my process. But that’s old news, so we’ll move onto….

Turbo Time Sunday! We went out to visit our grandson, and for totally mysterious reasons, Turbo ranked himself as #1, Grandma as #2 and Grandpa as #3. Poor Grandpa. My best guess is my ranking moved up because Turbo and I invented a new game where he sat in the back of his dump truck and I pushed him around. Plus Turbo laughed every time he told Grandpa he was #3, then he’d share his goldfish with him. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a 3 year old.

After all that fun, I worked about an hour when we got home, which isn’t much, but keeps me in the story. I do NOT want to do a 57th rewrite of the first two or three chapters like I’ve been doing. But I have to admit, that doing it has really evolved the characters and plot into something that might turn out to be really cool. Fingers crossed! And, oops, I’m talking about process again. Okay, once more, moving on.

That was pretty much my weekend. Well except Maggie’s a little off her food and threw up Friday. Since then, she’ll only eat  her wet food, but not dry. Naturally this started after I ordered and received big, expensive bag of her prescriptions dry food :-). But Maggie is prone to a sensitive stomach and her appetite can vary, so we’ll just watch her and see what happens.

How was your weekend?