Goal #12--Set up a dining room--CHECK!

Yay! After nearly eighteen years of marriage, we now have a formal dining room. I feel so grown up! And I think it's time to plan a dinner party...if only there were a free weekend between now and June.

 It started with paint...at 8:30 PM on a Friday night. 

Yeah, these are our favorite kind of dates, sad but true!

 Today we drove around checking out Craig's List finds and brought home this 

$20 table to fill this empty space. A pop of red and some family pictures make it feel homey.

I still don't know about the piano, but there isn't anywhere else to put it right now. 

Eventually we will get a nice plant to put in the corner by the window. 

But all in all, I'm really happy with the clean lines and modern feel to the room. Some day we will also find the perfect rug, maybe. Nathan is still trying to convince me that's a good idea. I'll also start collecting different color runners and look for some kind of centerpiece to put on the table. Maybe something for each season and holiday! Yep, that sounds like a good plan. A little here and there throughout the rest of the year. 

What do you think?  

Getting Started

I wanted to update you on the progress I'm making on a few of the goals I set.

Goal #5--Publish the rest of Talia's story--3 novels and 2 novellas
Book 2 in the series, Search For Knowledge, is drafted and I've started revisions.

Goal #12--Set up a formal dining room.
We've ordered a table! All we need is for it to show up and I can start decorating and check this one off the list. This is the table we picked out.

Goal #15--Get Fade Into Me published
Fade Into Me is now finished with several rounds of revisions. The query and summary are coming along pretty good and I plan to start sending out queries in the next week or two.

A Full List!

As of today, my list of 50 things to do in the next ten years is complete. Yay!

Thank you to those who texted, commented, tweeted and facebooked ideas for me. I'm really excited about some of them and promise to blog about the experiences as they come.

The ongoing writing goals will be blogged about regularly on My Writing Journey, but I'll post any big news or goal accomplishments here as well.

Question for you--

Do you think I have to wait until my 40th birthday to actually get started on the non-writing ones?

Getting a head start...

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. 

 ~Leonardo da Vinci

A lot of my friends are setting 50 goals they want to accomplish between their 40th birthday and their 50th birthday. I think it's a great idea. This might seem like I'm cheating by getting a head start since there are still six months before my birthday, but it might take me six months to come up with 50 realistic goals.

It would be easy to fill it with places I'd like to visit or other "bucket list" items. However, I'm carefully thinking about what I can do with my current financial, physical and emotional capabilities.

This blog is a place where I can document and share with others the trials and triumphs as well as the lessons I learn on this journey. Today, I'm sharing quotes about how important it is that we keep learning, growing, stretching to be and do more.

"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built." ~Eleanor Roosevelt 

 "A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."

~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins."
~Charles Stanley

"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear."
~Rosa Parks