Goals check for the week of March 11

I can't believe in another couple of weeks we'll have reached the end of the first quarter of 2013.  It's a bit of a reminder to keep going on my goals, because with a quarter of the year gone, what do I have to show for it?  I've done passably well at achieving my daily and weekly goals -- riding the horses and working on my novel -- not as well as I would have liked, mind you, but well enough to maintain forward progress.  But what about my longer term goals for the year: my blogs, my other writing projects, my reading list?  I've made virtually no progress there, except for finally starting Les Miserables.

What it means is that I will need to step up my efforts a little bit in these departments.  In order to achieve this, I am going to make it my goal to get at least one of my blogs overhauled in the next two weeks, so that I can say I've done something else before the quarter's end.

In the meantime, here is the lineup from last week:

1. Novels: I am plugging away at revisions on my first novel, but it is slower going than I anticipated, even having done this once before.  I am currently about a quarter of the way through the novel -- and that is just reading and marking the revisions!  Last week I worked on it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and a little bit Thursday and Friday.  I was really busy those last two days (the kids had a half day Thursday and no school Friday), so I only got minimal work done.  I had a very busy weekend as well, but I still found some time to do some research and a little revision work last night (Sunday).  All in all, a great week for the novel work!

2. Blogs and websites: No progress here.

3. Other writing projects: No progress here.

4. Books: I am about halfway through Les Miserables.  It's pretty slow going, but it's not boring, most of the time (though I admit I do have an abridged copy -- I couldn't find an unabridged version in ebook form that also had an introduction and notes -- and, being a literature major, I came to recognize the value of having those things a long time ago).  However, I did take a break last week -- Thursday, to be precise -- in order to read some old vampire stories (research for my novels) and start the March selection for the sci-fi/fantasy book club I belong to.  (I am not sure I will finish the book in time, as it is quite long and we meet on Thursday, but I'll give it the ol' college try -- literally, as I'll be trying to read 1000 pages in three days, the kind of thing I did all the time as a literature major!)

5. Horses: The horses were pretty much ignored Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which is part of what enabled me to get all that work done on my novel revisions during the first half of the week.  I slept in on Thursday and had my trainer ride Rondo without me, and the girl I nanny for had her lesson on Panama Thursday afternoon (him unfortunately being a bit fired up from a few days off).  Then both of us rode (her on Panama, me on Rondo) on Friday, and she had another lesson (a makeup for when she'll be out of town for spring break) on Saturday, during which I again rode Rondo.  So the horses both got their three rides for the week, even though I didn't once ride Panama -- something I need to fix during this coming week.  I don't want to get out of the habit of riding him entirely!

All in all, a pretty darn successful week, especially considering how busy I was with the kids being off school and having other demands made on my time!