Goals check for the week of August 5

I am now in full countdown mode until the end of my summer schedule -- currently three more days.  Last week and this week have been very busy, though, so not much progress to be expected until the kids go back to school.

1. Novels: Between how busy I've been and the computer problems I was having -- my computer suddenly slowed down to the point that the Internet would hardly load, let alone Scrivener -- I didn't work on research or revisions at all last week, aside from a book I am reading, for pleasure as much as for research: The Girls of Murder City, about the actual murderesses in Chicago in the 1920s that inspired a women's crime reporter to write Chicago.

The computer problems...  Well, that's been quite the ordeal.  There was the dropping of my computer and the subsequent trip into the shop in July, and then a couple of weeks ago my iPhone suddenly and mysteriously lost all of my contacts.  I hadn't been backing up to the cloud, so I had to restore the phone to my last backup -- and in order to do so, I had to clear a substantial amount of space from my hard drive, as I had way too much crapola on my computer.  Time for a little spring cleaning!  Finally got that done and restored my phone, and then my computer started acting up, making me wonder if there was a virus on my phone that was transferred to my computer when the two of them "talked."  In any case, I had to restore my computer to factory settings -- involving lots of additional backing up, and the reinstalling of programs.  I still have a few more things to reinstall, but for the most part I'm back up and running, which means I'll be able to get back to work on my novels next week when I go back to my reduced schedule!

2. Blogs and websites: No progress yet.

3. Other writing projects: No progress yet.

4. Books: Les Miz is still on hold, though I may try to go back to it soon here...

5. Horses: Last week was a rough week in this department too.  Panama got hurt on Monday, a strange injury that appeared to be deep gashes or punctures.  He was very sore for a couple of days, so I didn't ride until my lesson on Thursday.  My trainer went to ride Rondo on Tuesday and discovered he was extremely footsore from the farrier appointment on Monday, so he didn't get ridden all week either.  And then on Thursday, after a lesson on Panama, I discovered another (more minor) injury, and on Friday another, and on Saturday three more.

We think he was getting hung up in the bottom of the chain link fence, which had become exposed for some reason, but we think (hope) the problem has been fixed now.  Panama's injuries are healing, and Rondo got shoes Monday morning, so he is now more comfortable as well.  But all the wound care and fence fixing kept me extra busy last week and weekend, and meant that I wasn't able to do much with my horses because they were sore.  I had a light jumping lesson on Panama on Thursday, and the kids rode him too Thursday afternoon, and that was it for riding last week.

So there you have it -- what happens when I have horse problems AND computer problems in one week is that I get nothing done.  This week won't be much better, I'm afraid, but at least it's the last one of my summer schedule: I know I have more productive weeks on the horizon.