Welcome to the pre month end catch-all January wrap-up. In today’s “episode” I’ll be talking about books and not-books, podcasts, TV shows, food, publishing, and the premature results of my January goals. Whoa.. really?! 

Yeah… maybe. 

How about goals, books, and not-books. Reading one book in January was one of my goals (after failing at the goal of 3 books in December). ☃️ And guess what? I’ve failed again. We’ll not yet exactly but there’s very little chance I’ll be finishing the book by the end of this month. The book I started is The Passage by Justin Cronin. It’s a healthy size book and I’m only on page 20 so that’s why I say I’ll likely not finish by the end of the month. One never knows though. 

Perhaps I’ll back off that goal more in February or give up on it altogether. Why set goals around something that just doesn’t seem to fit into the daily grind? Why… because I love reading. But this conundrum about why there’s no time in life to do the things we truly love is a whole other post. So… not today Satan. 

What do I spend my time on instead? Well.. this past week it’s been podcasts and the return of my Beloved Bachelor!! Squeeeeeee!!! 

I actually discovered it was back because I was driving to Lincoln to visit my daughter and searching for a podcast to listen to instead of music. I landed on Bachelor Happy Hour which I ❤️❤️❤️. I played the latest episode and low and behold they started right away on the new episode recap. Holy crap! 

I didn’t want any spoilers so I opted to listen to one of the other Happy Hour episodes that I’ve missed over holiday break. It was the one with Clayton talking all about how he’s a healed person and it was just OK. I really don’t need an hour of “I’ve been working on myself and am a better person now” from anyone who has been the star or a reality television show. I’m like.. slow clap for you dude. Your life’s been so tough. 

Not to go off on a tangent… but anyone who has been on that show (or any reality tv show) should know that some people are going to hate you and be very vocal about it on social media. If you feel traumatized by the feedback.. turn the feedback off. Delete the apps, don’t open direct messages, and just go live your one precious fucking life. It’s that easy. You had your 15 minutes… and can probably afford to do whatever you want now. So do that. 

Anyway… I eventually could not listen to Clayton anymore and switched the channel to one of my other favorite podcasts, Chasing Life, with Sanjay. It was an episode all about Havana Syndrome which is super interesting and also kind of scary. The fact that counties could develop technology to weaponize microwaves to cause brain trauma in targeted human beings is terrible. Jury is still out if it’s a real thing but the podcast does a good job convincing that it is. 

The net result of all of this is I’ve gotten more cardio in the last two days watching the first episode of the Bachelor AND have downloaded several other podcast episodes from both series to listen offline when I go on my next little adventure. 

The extra cardio is a nice segue into the fact that I’ve kicked ass on my primary January goal, which was to stick to my diet plan including not eating red meat or drinking coffee or alcohol AND having longer fasting periods overnight. ❄️

It’s been good. I’ve had a few nights of indulgence but overall I feel very successful sticking to the plan as described. And the actual goal was to lose 3 pounds and I’ve done that, so way to go me. 💃💃💃 

The third goal for the month was to clean my closet and I’m happy to report that as of last weekend, it’s done. Yay!!. ✨✨✨ Next month will be my office which I feel is an even greater challenge. But I feel good that with one whole month, and a room I’m in every single day, I can do it!! 

Two out of three ain’t bad, right? 

Right! 

I’m effectively ditching the diet goals for February but now that I’ve got good habits and routine, I shouldn’t need the motivation of setting goals. So I’ll have to think on what else might be in store next month for the focus. 

What else? Other TV shows I’m watching include The Last of Us, Andor, and Fleishman is in Trouble. I finished the Fleishman series and it was sooooo good. As it turns out, I’m the narrator of the show, even though I can also relate to the other two main characters quite a bit. All in all, I highly recommend watching. Definitely worth the time. 

I would say the same for Andor and The Last of Us as well but I really just started those. More on that coming soon. Maybe. 🙃

And that, my friends, brings us to the last topic… all things writerly and Publishing. 

I took the month off from submitting work to focus on revising a few new poems (yes, I did just type that) and I also worked my ass off getting the winter issue of The Good Life Review out. That got released last week sans Editor’s note and full spread PDF. Those will be forthcoming in about a week. 

The new poems were submitted to Threepenny yesterday and thus starts the clock on that rejection. I give it 72 hours. They are typically super speedy and then I can add that to the growing pile of rejections I’ve been collecting so far this year. I’m not really counting but it has felt like a lot these past couple weeks… maybe 8 or 10. 🤷‍♀️

It is a serious bummer but hasn’t really deterred me from wanting to continue efforts to try. I’ll probably get back on sending work out on a regular basis in February. Still… not setting any goal for the month around that. No harm no foul,  right? 

So what’s the 3rd goal for February then? I’m not sure yet but there’s still time. After all… I didn’t even finalize my January goals until the month was almost half over. It’s all just funny money anyway. 

On that note.. I think it’s time to cut and run today. No rest for the wicked, as they say. 

Take care and thanks for reading. 

Peace and love, 

~Miss SugarCookie