Goals check for the week of April 1

Last week was a somewhat iffy week.  I had a vet appointment for the horses on Tuesday that kept me at the barn nearly until it was time to pick up the kids I take care of from school.  Panama, my first horse, has been struggling with his weight lately, and as a result I have backed off on how much I am riding him.  The vet has me feeding him extra every day, though, so I have been out at the barn more often than my usual -- which is, of course, eating into my time to do other things.

Last week was also the first week of Camp NaNo, and I got off to a fairly dismal start -- though I've made up for it since!

1. Novels: Throughout most of the week, all I made progress on was my continuing efforts to read old vampire literature.  I am not sure I can entirely call that research, but since everything I am reading is because I'll be referencing it in a couple of very specific scenes in the novel, perhaps it is.  Then, Friday, I met with a few friends from NaNoWriMo (we've been meeting weekly for a year and a half now, actually, and know each other from previous years' NaNos) who are also doing Camp NaNo.  We did a few word wars, and that got me started on a short story, connected to my novels, that I got the idea for when we were at Anomaly Con the last weekend in March.  I wrote a little over 1,000 words on Friday -- about two-thirds of that with my friends, and the rest when I got home late that night -- which gave me one-tenth of my goal for the month (10k).  Although I was quite busy over the weekend, I got right back to work on it yesterday, so I think when I write up my progress for this week it should feel a little more productive.

2. Blogs and websites: No progress here last week, although I did get some ideas -- and some motivation for updating these -- from the conference.  Hopefully I will get to them soon!

3. Other writing projects: No progress here yet.

4. Books: I haven't gotten a chance to go back to Les Miserables, but I need to soon -- I stopped about halfway through to read something for my book club, remember, and I don't want to forget where I was at in the book!

5. Horses: I rode Panama briefly on Thursday, and the girl I nanny for rode him both Thursday (for her lesson) and Friday.  Because of his weight issues lately, I am satisfied with that, and won't be trying to ride him three times a week myself.  Rondo I rode Thursday (for my lesson) and Friday -- since he had his teeth floated on Tuesday, and had kind of a lot of work done, I didn't want to ride him too soon afterward, and then he had his hooves trimmed on Saturday.  I did, however, ride with my sister-in-law (one of her horses) on Sunday, so I did still get on a horse one more time during the course of the week.

Because of the vet and the daily trips to the barn to feed Panama his beet pulp (which has to soak for 30 minutes first, making it a somewhat time-consuming trip), it felt like a rather unproductive week.  Granted, it wasn't terribly productive, but it also wasn't as much of a waste of time as it felt like then.  I have high hopes that this week will be better, despite the snow day today that will keep me off my horses again for part of the week!