Category Archives: Weeknotes

Weeknotes

Weeknotes: Sabbatical Week 13

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A new month already!

Creative Work

  • wrote out all my favorite scenes on index cards and used those to visually lay out plot order options
  • watched a few videos about series planning

Professional

  • sat down with my husband and talked through names for my consulting business — and decided on an option!

Play

  • went apple picking with friends!
  • baked an apple pie with some of the apples I picked
  • went to Homebrew Website Club twice
  • read a novel and a novella

Household

  • more progress on our yard — supposedly today is the final day of install!

Health

  • got an EKG at my annual heart followup, all seems to be going well
  • one of my weekly friends walks has been cancelled altogether 😢, and the other one we called off this week for schedule conflicts — so now I need to figure out how to get more exercise on my own 😭

Family

ponderosa pine trunk in front of a sun-dappled dry meadow of low golden leaves among dry grasses and a grove of trees

  • headed over to Eastern Washington for a memorial / family get-together — 6 hours of driving in one day 🥱

Meta

  • wrote (most of) a long reflection blog post about the mental impact of the past three months off of work

Weeknotes

Weeknotes: Sabbatical Week 12

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apple crisp in red ceramic pie dish on bright red tablecloth with black and white grid illustration of branches

I keep thinking I should stop calling this a sabbatical, but maybe I shouldn’t unless I make a dramatic switch in how I’m spending my time?

Creative Work

  • Worked on series planning, solidifying the bigger picture arc, what I know about the bad guys, and what (and who) each of the books in the series will be about loosely

Professional

  • Set up an email list for my pen name and added it to my website
  • Set up welcome email for the new list
  • Collected blurbs of self-pub sci-fi romance books to study (haven’t yet done the studying part 😉)

Play

  • Watched the most recent Batman movie (I love Batman!)
  • Read one new novel and re-read a novella and half a book
  • Explored a boardwalk we’d never visited before in our town
  • Baked an apple crisp

Household

gray pavers laid as incomplete path under wooden arch in garden

The path is starting to look like a path!

  • Calculated and updated tax withholding from my husband’s paycheck
  • Garden install is dragging along, we seem to be getting only a couple people coming by a day — but at least it’s looking good!

Health

  • Got our bivalent boosters!!! Yay!!!!!!
  • I also got my flu shot at the same time
  • Took a walk with one friend, but my other regular weekly walk has been cancelled due to scheduling issues 😢
man walking along boardwalk through a marshy area, into the sun, casting a long shadow and shading his eyes

There’s still new stuff to find in our town!

Weeknotes

Weeknotes: Sabbatical Weeks 10&11

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I meant to wrap up my sabbatical, but between a family emergency and the unexpected startup of our long-on-hold landscape project, last week I wasn’t able to do any work, and this week seemed to fill up with appointments, webinars, and writing.

Creative Work

  • Devoted multiple work sessions to writing this week, about 7 or 8 hours
  • Went to a special “writing cave” on Saturday and tried out writing a blurb for my book, which was a helpful technique

Career

  • Worked on my new work website at Create Day and other work sessions — added styling, updated layout, and rewrote the copy
  • Attended part of a webinar on networking, but my internet dropped midway!
  • Attended a webinar presenting a case study project that a former colleague worked on
  • Attempted to watch a webinar on marketing, but had to drop to deal with the yard
  • Joined a professional organization and registered for a virtual conference in December

Play

  • Went to Homebrew Website Club both weeks, and Create Day
  • Played more Diablo with friends

Learning

  • Finished reading a couple non-fiction books and spent a bunch of time organizing and formatting notes (still not done though!)
  • Went to IndieWeb Create Day and worked on my website, which involves a lot of figuring out how to do things with modern CSS

Household

  • Our landscape project finally started! We had to do some prep work to get the yard ready, and I’ve needed to answer some questions, though I’m mostly trying to stay out of the way
  • Updated my portfolio spreadsheet and met with a financial advisor through my husband’s work to ask some questions about retirement
  • I got excited and rearranged my office so I could have a more attractive Zoom background for professional calls 😂 This involved ordering some office supplies to adjust my setup. I also redid my gallery wall (or started, anyway)

Health

  • Skipped a couple walks due to smoke, got in a couple other walks

Meta

  • Turns out Sunday isn’t a good day to post these either 😅 Shooting for Monday morning may be a friendlier approach for myself

Weeknotes

Weeknotes: Sabbatical Week 9

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My husband had this week off work so we treated it as vacation slash deal with junk around the house. We got a batch of the best blueberries ever and have been gorging on them.

Creative Work

  • Did some good thinking on paper — I came up with a way to remove the virus from my plot, and need to decide if that’s a good idea

Career

  • Took the week off working 🙌

Play

  • Went to Homebrew Website Club
  • Let my husband teach me how to play Diablo and played with him and some friends a couple times
  • Watched Bill and Ted Face the Music
  • Read several fiction books
  • Baked brownies

Learning

  • Finished reading The Emotional Craft of Fiction
  • Read The Last Draft
  • Listened to half a podcast lol

Household

  • Tackled the donate pile in the spare room — sorted through everything to donate and gave away some clothes on Buy Nothing
  • Did 20 minutes of yardwork 💪

Health

  • Did a walk with a friend, skipped my usual second walk with a headache 😠

Weeknotes

Weeknotes: Sabbatical Weeks 7&8

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Sculpture of oversize crooked "nails" in multicolor stripes alongside a new light rail train yard beside the gravel trail of the Eastrail

Creative Work

  • Did 3+ hours work on my outline

Career

  • Added desktop layout to my new website and got the menu laid out
  • Chatted with a colleague about collaboration
  • Attended an email marketing webinar
  • Went to a really helpful workshop on teaming strategies
  • Final Squad check-in for the month

Play

  • Finished watching The Sandman Season 1
  • Watched The Lost City
  • Went to Homebrew Website Club twice
  • Hung out with friends online at virtual coffee shop
  • Baked blueberry cake, banana bread, and brownies
  • Baked online with a friend
  • Went to dinner at a friend’s for the first time since November
  • Read a couple cookbooks
  • Read a couple fiction books

Strawberries and blueberries topping an 8x8 pyrex dish of cheesecake with a thick cornflake crust

Learning

  • Relearning CSS, figuring out flexbox in multiple scenarios

Household

  • Got a quote for a heat pump and electric water heater
  • Did a big house cleanup and have a plan to tackle another chunk
  • Did one week of meal planning but skipped the next; really does make a difference to do

Health

  • Took a couple days off working
  • Walked with friends twice each weekend
  • Had several check-in appointments and booked several more
  • Finally got my insurance info updated with Walgreens
  • Doing some stretching

Meta

  • Switching these updates away from Friday, which just doesn’t feel like the end of the week to me