Success

I went to North Carolina on Monday and Tuesday. The goal was to find a place to live, buy furniture, and open a bank account. I did a lot of online research for apartments, townhouses, and condos before hand. I decided that an townhouse or condo would be best for me because I could get so much more for the exact same price as an apartment. I made appointments to see three different places. My mom and I thought I was going to get the first place. Then we walked inside. The carpet was ripped up, paint was peeling, there was a screen missing from a window, the place was disgusting. We went to the 2nd place and it was pretty decent. We waited for someone to meet us for the 3rd place and no one showed up. there was some sort of miscommunication somewhere. Needless to say, we weren't happy. I ended up with place two and got my rent lowered a little bit because of some minor issues in the place. I then bought a dining room table, bed, two dressers, a night stand, love seat, and a chair. I unfortunately won't get the most comfortable chair ever until the end of April because it was sold out. Oh well. I also signed up for a new bank. We were definitely successful in the very short time we were there. Now it's time to change my address for everything and change many other things before I move down south!

Jill

I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing Jill is. I don't know where I'd be without her, literally. She is always there to guide me and show me the way. I would not have survived Monday and Tuesday in North Carolina without her. That's right, Jill is my GPS. Why did I name her Jill? I have no idea. The name just seemed to fit. I am terrible at directions to begin with. Now throw me somewhere I've only been to once for a few hours and forget it! I had to have a GPS. It was the best purchase I have made in a very long time. I will be asking Jill to help me get from place to place for a long time once I move down in a little over a week. Jill is my new best friend.

Just a Few Things to Do

My mom and I are flying down to North Carolina tomorrow and coming home late Tuesday. Our flight leaves at around 6:20AM tomorrow and we should get there around 11. We will get home around 10:30 Tuesday night. We just have a few small things to do when we get there. We are visiting two or three townhouses/condos. They are about the same price as an apartment but there are a lot bigger. That's why we are looking at them. Once I sign for one of the places, we then have to shop for furniture. We will probably shop for (and hopefully buy) furniture Tuesday as well. I also need to go to the bank and sign up for a bank account. We will probably do a little bit of exploring if we have time. I just hope everything goes well. Wish us luck!

Computer Dead

My mom bought the newest Macbook Pro 2 months ago. Today, it wouldn't turn on. It was plugged in with the green light saying that it was charged. I'm a computer aide, yet my mom is much better with computers than I am. I am positive she wasn't doing anything wrong or missing something. She went to the Apple Store today and apparently the motherboard just stopped working. That's why I always tell my students to save their work all of the time while typing because you never know when something could happen and all of your work is gone. I got to thinking, what if that happened to me? I have my book on the computer. I also have it on a flash drive and an external hard drive. By the way, none of my mom's work will be lost. They aren't touching the hard drive. That's a good thing. However, if that happened to my computer and I didn't have my book on a flash drive or external hard drive, I'd be devastated. My months of hard work would have gone down the drain. That's why it's important to have back up of the backup of the backup to the backup by the backup. But seriously, it's important to back up documents and other things that you know you will need again because you never know when your computer won't turn on!

Infomercials

How many of you watch infomercials? Everyone does at one point or another. How many of you buy the product they are trying to sell to you? They make it so tempting. They try to sell every product exactly the same way. "You can buy this product for $29.95 plus shipping and handling. But wait, if you call within the next 36 seconds, we will double your order for free! You just pay another shipping and handling fee. That's not all, we will also include the handy dandy cook book at no price. A $100 value, for just $29.95." No matter what the product is, they always offer you a second of that product. Why do I need two? I don't want to give it away as a gift. What's the catch? I always wonder that. It probably takes 8 months to ship. Naturally it never works as easily as they make it look on TV. I have never ordered one of those products even though some look really cool and useful. Maybe one day I will just to see how it works. I will only do that if they triple my order and give me more bonus products for free. Gotta love infomercials!

Begin...The Rest is Easy

The day after I told my staff at the school that I was leaving, I was in the faculty room. One of the teachers gave me a fortune cookie. The cookie was unopened. I opened it up and read the fortune inside. We all know that the fortunes in fortune cookies are ridiculous. However, sometimes they relate to your life. Some people come into my dad's store and play the numbers on the back of the fortune. Strange, but whatever. Any number you play isn't going to come out anyway. I opened the fortune and it said, "Begin...the rest is easy." How perfect is that? I know I'm a fiction writer, but I can't make that up. I am very excited for the move to be over with. It's stressful making sure I find a place to live, everything gets switched over to my new address, I get all of the furniture I want, etc. etc. etc. I'll be much happier once I'm settled into my new place in North Carolina and  have a routine at the school. Life will be good. So I am about to begin my new journey. The rest will be easy!

Review of Last Years' Resolutions

I know I talked about some of my resolutions yesterday. Today I'll discuss in more detail if I reached the 10 resolutions I made in 2013. I felt like I made these a few short days ago. Time sure does fly.

-I will publish book #3 by continuing to work on it more often than I did last year.

I published that in February.

-I will get a teaching job by applying, applying, applying, and more applying.

As you are well aware of, I finally got that teaching job. I waited until December 11 to get it. I applied a lot more often than I did in 2012 and went to several job fairs. I really fought for this job!

-I will eat smaller portions at dinner and fewer desserts at night by exercising serious will power and having less junk in the house. 

Not going to lie. This absolutely did not happen. I did not eat smaller portions and I did not eat fewer desserts. I can't help it. I love food!

-I will be more productive at night after work by reading and writing more instead of sitting at the computer and/or watching TV.

At times I was good and at other times I was not. My most productive month was November because of NaNoWriMo.

-I will go to the gym more than two times a week.  No more excuses!

As I said yesterday, besides the summer, I was really good with this. I hope that where I live in North Carolina has a gym so that I can continue my routine there.

-I will be more positive about my future and stop saying, “I’ll have a teaching job 10 years from now” sarcastically.

For the most part I did better with this, but I still had my negative comments.

-I will go on all three vacations I have in mind and not worry about how much they will cost.  I will worry about how much fun they will be!

I went on two of the three vacations and didn't worry too much about the money. As you know, I also went to North Carolina in June to look for a job and to North Carolina spontaneously on December 11.

-I will put X dollars into my retirement fund by budgeting the money I make. ( I know what the X amount is.  I just don't want to reveal that amount in public).

I put that money in retirement in I think March. I hope to add the same amount this year. It might be more challenging to do though because I will now have a lot more expenses that I didn't have in 2013.

-I will find a publisher to take my book(s) by continuing to send out query letters.

I didn't work on query letters at all. Finding a publisher is harder than finding a teaching job. I'm selling my books very well and am completely content with being self-published.

-I will pay it forward to less fortunate people instead of buying myself something I do not need.

I was good at this at the beginning of the year and then I kind of just stopped. Shame on me!

 

This year, I just plan to make good choices, whatever they may be. I know that that is very general. I really don't have any or want any resolutions this year. I'm going to live my life one day at a time.