So, the idea behind the Monday outlook post was to set myself up for a more productive week. Now that the week is over, I can report my results to you…

I failed.
Miserably.
Brutal would be an understatement.

Out of the eight challenges I set for myself, I met two and a half:

1. There is new content on the Thoughts of Christmas blog. (challenge #3)
2. I went wandering down one of the river paths and took some new photos. (challenge #8)
3. There is new content on The Acorn Stash blog, and on this blog. (challenge #6 – considered only half done because there are still more blogs that need new content.)

It’s an improvement over last week since I only completed two challenges last week. But it’s still brutal.

Am I embarrassed? You betcha. But more than that, I’m seriously ticked off at myself. Mostly because I have no excuse other than that I was totally, utterly, and completely unmotivated to write. And so I didn’t.

It’s not even like I can say I had a ton of other stuff to do because I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even step foot outside the house all week until I went out Friday morning to take pictures and get groceries.

If I’m really honest with myself, I think I have to say that I’ve lost my passion for internet marketing, at least the way I’ve been doing it for the past several years. The whole keyword and market research thing has left me thinking that there has to be something more. I think for awhile I’d much rather write on the topics that interest me and make me happy, and hope that they interest you and make you happy too. I realize that I won’t be able to please everyone, and quite frankly, I’m okay with that.

And now on a more positive note…

I had no problems being motivated to train this week. With some great results, I might add! After just one week of weight training and cleaner eating, I managed a 4 percent reduction in body fat. So the week wasn’t a complete loss. :)

And I do plan to do better on both the challenge and content creation fronts this week. I’ll post my plans for the week as soon as I have them figured out, so stay tuned.

And have a wonderful week!

Here’s a summary of this week’s content:

Some Thoughts of Christmas Traditions
Christmas Shopping Survival Tips

New Wallpapers For You

Monday Morning Outlook
Order and Chaos Side by Side

In my quest to find myself, one of the things I do from time to time is pick up Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and just read bits and pieces of it. I’m sure that’s not the way you’re “supposed” to read it, but it works for me and I usually get what I need from whatever page I flip it open to. Sometimes I get it right away and sometimes it takes awhile to sink in. And then there are the times when it really smacks me in the face when I’m doing something else. That’s what happened this morning.

It was reasonably sunny earlier this morning and so I decided that I would go out and take some pictures. It’s been dreary all week and I’ve been miserable trying to work all week in the dark. Needless to say, by the time I got ready and got outside it was starting to rain again but I decided I’d go wandering anyways.

This is where I ended up starting from:

It was nice enough in the park proper, but I really wanted to get closer to the water. So I hopped back in the car and drove around to the bottom of the hill. (Yes, I know I could’ve walked it, but I don’t do hills when I’m alone since at this moment in time I’m a fat lady with a heart condition. I might’ve got down the hill just fine but there’s no guarantee I would’ve got back up it without help.)

When I got down there I realized just how boring the paved path looked, and it still didn’t get me close enough to the river, which is where I really wanted to be. The cool thing is that there’s a dirt path that runs parallel to the paved one, and there’s a lovely little sloping path that takes you down to it.

And as I was wandering down the dirt path snapping photos, I thought about Tolle’s words and realized that what he had said was staring me right in the face:

“When we go into a forest that has not been interfered with by man, our thinking mind will see only disorder and chaos all around us. It won’t even be able to differentiate between life (good) and death (bad) anymore since everywhere new life grows out of rotting and decaying matter. …

“The mind is more comfortable in a landscaped park because it has been planned through thought; it has not grown organically. There is an order here that the mind can understand. In the forest, there is an incomprehensible order that to the mind looks like chaos. A New Earth, p. 194-195

And that’s what I noticed this morning … new life growing out of dead and dying plants. The green of a baby pine tree showing through the grey even on a cold November morning when nothing green should even be poking its head above ground.

Even though I wasn’t in a forest — in truth, I probably wasn’t more than 20 feet away from the paved path and could hear people jogging and walking their dogs above me — you could still feel the difference, the hidden harmony and sacredness of something that had been left untouched. For that moment I could actually forget that I was standing in the middle of a city.

I’m not even sure at this point if I’m doing more than rambling here. It just struck me at the moment when I came back up onto the paved path to head back to my car that it really was a perfect example of man-made order and natural, chaotic order side by side.

Thanks for reading!
Have a wonderful day :)

This started out yesterday as a “week in review” type post, but I kinda got sidetracked. (Story of my blogging life, it seems :))

There are times when I really wonder if I should be posting a week in review, because I don’t always get a lot done in a week. And this was one of those weeks. But then I thought that this is really when I do need to set out in writing what I have done so that a) I can see exactly how much or how little I have accomplished, and b) it will serve as a good incentive to do more next week.

One thing I’ve found that helps me in getting more done every day is to set myself a challenge for the day. It’s a tool I borrowed and adapted from a post by Robert Plank some time ago. Sometimes I make it, and sometimes I don’t but it really helps to have a focus for the day and to set my priorities. It’s way too easy for me to get sidetracked and end up doing a lot of little things, without actually finishing any one major project. This week I met two challenges, and have five more that need finishing up.

The two challenges that I did finish were:

1. Set up Lena’s Creations store and add four different designs of Christmas cards featuring my own photography. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time now, and I’m really pleased that I’ve finally taken the first steps to getting it done.

2. Made an original video and posted it on youtube. It’s a short affirmation video and it’s also posted on The Acorn Stash blog. At the risk of sounding pathetically whiny, it hasn’t had very many views yet so if you could check it out and rate and/or comment I would be eternally grateful to you. :)

To keep me accountable this week, I’m posting my challenges here:

1. New products to be added to the Cafe Press Store
2. A new video
3. New content to be added to the Thoughts of Christmas blog.
4. A new issue of The Acorn Stash
5. A new issue of The Ritchie Report
6. New content on all of the blogs
7. A new Friday Special
8. Take some new pictures

I plan to write my little fingers off this week creating content. If I have to post my results here every day, then I figure that will go a long ways to keeping me on target. Then maybe my “week in review” post next Sunday won’t look so pathetic.

On the personal front, I’m still plugging away at my novel for NaNoWriMo. I’m way behind with only about 7000 words written so far, but I’m having fun with it. I went to a write-in on Thursday night and met a few of the other local authors who are participating. That was a really big step for my hermit self.

Oh, and I decided that I would set my fitness goal for next year to participate in a sprint triathlon. So I’ve been researching training tips and clean eating habits in order to get myself ready for that.

And that’s it for me this week. How was your week? Did you get everything done that you wanted to last week? What do you plan to accomplish this week? Leave a comment and let me know!

Have a great week!
Thanks for being here,