Here We Are Again by Robin Janney

The candle holder says 'Dream'
A gift from my mother.

Here we are again. At the end of a year and at the cusp of a new one. A time to reflect on the past year, and a time to look forward with hope.

We've completed one more circle around that brilliant yellow orb in the sky and what do we have to show for it? A few more pounds, perhaps. Fewer dollars. But life goes on, right?

It most certainly does.

This past year has been a hard one for me emotionally. I gave up on my dreams of having my own children when I had my surgery back in March. While it was medically needed, it was still a hard thing for me to deal with. The finality of it all...coupled with the knowledge that even without the surgery, pregnancy was never going to happen for me...was a bitter pill to swallow. Mr. Janney and I have not ruled out adoption, but if we do it is a someday issue. Most likely we will remain that crazy aunt and uncle.

It has been a year of uncertainty as we struggled with jobs that ended at the 'wrong time' and schooling that didn't start at the 'right time'. But - we still have a roof over our head, and food on the table, so things aren't as bad as they've felt. I mean hey - Thanos snapped his fingers and we didn't disappear, so things can't be that bad, right?

The future is even more uncertain. Mr. Janney and I have our road retest January 3rd (we failed that part a few weeks ago). We're both feeling confident that this time we'll pass. We each failed some of our permit tests the first time around, and then nailed them the second time around. Like I told my 'doppelganger' Robyn at Sage - our timing has been 'off' all year, but it seems to be working out so, hey - there must be a reason. We're just going with the flow at the moment.

So, I've been using the time until then to work on my novels. My final edit of the revised Farmer's Daughter is complete and I just need to implement the corrections. Ring of Fire will be right behind it. Then I can pour everything into Bigger Than the Beetles. And try to decide whether I have enough ideas for a 6th novel in the series based on a dream I had the other night. We'll see. (If I do, it'll be called 'Full Dragon')

Sometimes I worry that I write too long of a story. My word counts come in near to the same length as Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring....yes, I've googled this. At least I am nowhere near the word count of Eye of the World or any of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels...I'm not sure I'd have any kind of fan base if I did that. Well, it's only one person who has complained about the length of the story and it's a person whose opinion I value so it's a bit of a struggle sometimes. On the other hand, I think it would make a great tv series, so there's that much.

I guess, better wrap this up for now. Just checking in with you all to remind you I'm still working at my stories amid life's uncertainty. I hope you've all had a pleasant enough holiday season and that it wraps up without incident next week as the current year blends into the new one.

Stay safe and much love!

A New Year!

Happy  New Year everyone!

I hope everyone is safe and happy (or happy enough) this first day of 2016.  Can you believe it's almost over?  The second day is almost here!

I'm going to keep this post short and sweet, because I just wrote a post over at my own blog.  You can read it here if you want to.

I rang the new year in at my in-laws last night.  We played cards and snacked while we waited for midnight to roll around.  Then we went into the living room to watch the ball in Times Square drop. We hooted and hollered, giving each other hugs and kisses.  My first kiss was a smooch on the cheek with my sister.  And then I attacked my hubby.

Did you do anything special to ring the new year in, or did you go to bed early? No shame if you did, I've done it before and I completely understand!

Holiday Greetings from Robin Janney

I have two working days left to this year, two families to visit on Christmas day and nephews to shop for still.  Even if you don't celebrate any of the numerous holidays of this month, my wish for you is for health and happiness and peace.  See you in the New Year!

Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary! by Robin Janney

Back in the early days when I was naively using a
whole sheet of stationary!

As I was going through the little pieces of paper I had placed in my Happiness Jar over the last year (or rather, the first half of last year) I came across a piece of paper documenting how partnering up with Carol to create Broads of a Feather made me happy.  And I realized with a shock, this blog would soon hit its one year anniversary!  Which was yesterday!

Why this was a "shock" since Carol mentioned it in last weeks' post, I don't know; perhaps seeing the date in my own handwriting, obviously exuberant, just made it more real.  Or perhaps I'm just a bonehead who doesn't pay that close of attention to the calendar accept for doctors appointments.  But obviously, the venture delighted me enough that I put it in the jar!

Ok, it's not a jar, but a plastic cheeseball container.  Whatever works, right?

But I'll be writing more about my Happiness Jar on my own blog as soon as I'm done with this post.

It doesn't feel like it's been a whole year already, but on the other hand, some days it feels like Carol and I have always known each other and have always been writing together.

Since Carol went over our highlights for the past year in her blog post, it would be rather redundant of me to do the same.  Instead, it is a new year with new challenges and new goals so I'll touch on them instead.

I know many eschew the entire notion of New Years resolutions and goals.  But not Carol and me!

Both of us would like to continue a healthier lifestyle into 2015.  Me so I can better control my diabetes, continue to lose weight, and maybe get off my meds someday; Carol with the goal of running in a 5K run this spring.  Since I'm still facing surgery at the end of this month, I think I'll leave the running up to her for right now.  I just hope I can manage my diet well enough afterwards that I don't balloon back up and hopefully continue to lose weight.  At one point last year, I was so happy with the number the scale gave me that I wrote it down and put it in the Happy Jar.  Needless to say, I was not happy with the numbers I gained since then.  But the numbers are coming back down again, so I'll focus on that instead!

Another goal we ladies share is finishing our works in progress, as Carol mentioned last week.  I have the middle of my third book written and need to work on the beginning and the end.  It is difficult right now, with a husband off of work because of his torn tendon (shoulder) but I was working on notes and the simple outline I use.  I say simple because it is far from being a proper outline.  I still have some decisions I need to make, on character involvement and interactions.  They don't always want to play well together!  From her updates on Facebook, Carol's Overcoming Sarah has been progressing right along.  Probably not as fast as she'd like, but every paragraph written is progress!

I am probably feeling too ambitious this year.  I've already failed at getting this post up on time.  But that doesn't put too much of a damper on my enthusiasm for my goals this year.  I will get better at social media and blogging.  I will get a blogging schedule written down, for both blogs.  I will finish my third book this year.

Can you tell I'm trying to keep myself positive?  This year is already off to a rough start.  Not only because of impending surgery and unknown treatment for hubby's shoulder, but his uncle on the one side is in the hospital battling for his life.  This is the last uncle for that branch of the family and he's already had a heart attack.  Not a great way to be starting out the new year!  One way or the other, I will work around the challenges in my life and if I don't come through them on top, it won't be because I didn't try.  I've even boldly started a GoFundMe campaign to help us out while my husband and I heal from our injuries.

There are times to be timid, and there are times to be bold.  I have a lot of bold ideas for this new year, but I won't tell you what they all are.  Mostly out of fear that I'll fail to achieve them!! Okay, okay...I give.  Maybe if I tell you, it'll help me keep focused on them and maybe I'll get them done.  Two of my bold ideas for this new year are 1. to start a newsletter of some kind and 2. finish a shorter book for submission to a publishing house.  A girl's gotta dream big, right?  I know what manuscript I want to work on, but I want to get my third book done first.  I don't know what I would want for a newsletter yet in terms of how often.

So there you have it, a few of our goals and resolutions for the new year.  What about you dear readers? Did you make any resolutions or goals this year?  What challenges are you facing already?

Surviving the Holidays by Robin Janney

Here is it the day after Christmas, also known as Boxing Day in some countries.

I did have a post mostly written for this week, but I decided I didn't like it so I scrapped it and decided to start over.

A lot of people have had a hard holiday season.  Some were dealing with grieving the loss of  loved ones from earlier in the year, others dealing with divorce, others in our area still dealing with the blow of losing their homes in a block fire.  I even saw where a man lost his life late Christmas day in a car accident.  Not exactly a "merry" Christmas for everyone.

But even when things are good, sometimes the holidays can be hard to handle.  Especially when you start adding to the family.  And when you marry, it's hard for you and your spouse to be in two different places at once.  Although my family only celebrates Christmas and New Years, I imagine some of our issues must be somewhat universal.  Usually, if we do it right, Christmas can be celebrated on more than one day...but that's not how it worked out this year.  So my husband and I spent a few hours with his family. then spent a few hours with my family.

It was a good day.

Honest, I had nothing but coffee to drink
at this point.  Maybe some Pepsi.

Crowded at my mothers, but we managed.  We fit 11 people in my mother's small trailer.  Although my one brother left shortly after we got there to go to his second party, so then it was only 10.  Thankfully this group wasn't all adults, 4 were little boys.  Sadly I didn't get any pictures there, and the only one that turned out at my in-laws was the selfie I took and the one I took of the one dog.  I enjoyed the ribbons on the packages almost as much as I did the presents itself!

And I didn't do too bad eating on what I considered my "free" day.  I've been doing a good job at lowering my weight and my blood sugar recently, but decided it wouldn't hurt me to loosen up a bit for one day and enjoy the rich food.  My sugar was acceptable this morning, still a little high but well within a good range.  Of course, we brought some leftovers home along with some desserts so I'll have to be careful the next few days not to continue the trend.  I'm sure my husband will have no trouble helping me out by eating most of it for me, even though he ought to be watching his food intake as well.

Today is Boxing Day in some parts of the world.  My company gave today to us off because of how close Christmas was to the weekend, but we'll make up for it by working tomorrow.  Which is why my second cup of coffee today is decaf.  Hopefully the small amount of caffeine in it won't be enough to keep me up too late tonight - 4:30 AM comes way too early.  I like having two days off at Christmas though, it's far more relaxing.  Too bad we can't celebrate Boxing Day here in America as well!

Since New Years is now just around the corner, it's also a time to look forward.  I don't do resolutions anymore, but I do set goals for myself.  Like getting a real social media strategy worked out for the new year; hopefully that will eliminate late posts like this one.  One gift my mother gave me was a pocket 2 year planner.  I plan on using that to map out blog posts.  All subject to change should something interesting and blogworthy happens in the world at large or in my own little corner of it.  One thing I've noticed is that on my own blog, the more personal posts get more views than those on other topics.  I also plan to have book number 3 finished.  My upcoming surgery on my foot should help with that.  I also need to do some more research on writing non-fiction and biographies as I've had one friend ask me to write her story.  I really have very little idea on how to write non-fiction for anything longer than a blog post or essay, and know even less about biographies.  But I'm a smart girl and I'll get it figured out.

What holidays do you celebrate this time of year and how do you celebrate?  I love hearing about different traditions!