Jumping Through July – Vision Card Update

In December I made my vision cards to help me navigate through this year.  I keep them in my planner and really don’t look at them much until around June when I take them out to make notes on the back about the progress (or lack of) that I’ve made in each category.  Let’s take a look:

My Craft Work:  I have not been as active in the studio this year as I’d like to be.  I have put up a YouTube video about some cards that I made and I have gotten a couple of Etsy sales but given the fact that I have some extra time thanks to COVID, there are a lot of things I could have done to promote more on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.  I have some e-courses to go through to help me with that so that’s going to be my focus for the next few months.  I am afraid that we won’t have any holiday boutiques this year and that’s where I’ve made some pretty good sales in the past few years.

 

 

Experiences:  Well, as we all know most of the country has been in Shelter-in-Place mode since March.  Our area is no different.  Even the beaches have been closed until just recently so I’ve not gone anywhere except the grocery store and to take our son to work.  What I have been doing though is noticing different things around the neighborhood as I walk Benny twice a day.  I’ve seen several changes in the houses in our neighborhood as people paint or work in their gardens.  I’ve taken some pictures and used them in my One Second Everyday video.  We still have some time left this year so maybe I’ll get a chance to get to the beach again.

 

The house:  So far we have done a great job of clearing out the backyard.  It was full of weeds at the start of the year but using some weedkiller has helped and it is now back to ground zero status.  We plan to get some artificial grass and pen off an area so that Benny can go out there and our daughter wants to plant a garden in a plantar box so that’s the next step.  I may get my fire pit after all!

 

 

 

 

 

Relationships:  Obviously there has been no gathering of friends lately.  The last event I went to was a Super Bowl party in the beginning of February!  I have been Facetiming with my sister and my niece, at least a monthly email check-in with a girlfriend and talking to my mom on the phone at least once a week is keeping me going right now.  I did do a Zoom crafting get together which was fun.  Maybe I’ll try another one of those.

 

 

 

Finances:  Interestingly, the year started off with a huge change in my transcription business.  At first I was in a panic because I was not getting much work, then things picked up but in March it came to a crashing halt again.  I had been mainly a medical transcriptionist but I had the opportunity to take over some other kinds of typing and now I do Zoom meetings and interviews.  It is still slow going and thankfully I’ve been able to collect unemployment, something that is usually not available to the self-employed.  I actually have been able to pay off some credit cards and add to our savings.  Hopefully things in this area will pick up again too.

 

Health and Wellness:  Unfortunately I’ve been at a standstill so far with the weight loss progress.  I have lost a total of 75 pounds to this point but I have another 20 to go.  I know I need to increase the exercise and I have to recalculate the “numbers” so I know what my caloric/carb intake should be to allow for that weight loss.  In my mind, I am determined to get to goal this year.

 

 

 

While COVID has changed the course of lots of things this year, I still feel comfortable with progress I’ve been able to make to this point and I have some clear intentions for the next six months.  How about you?  Did you make vision cards this year?

from WordPress https://scr4pl80.wordpress.com/2020/07/10/jumping-through-july-vision-card-update/

Jumping Through July – 2020 – I did it!

I managed to clean up all the duplicates from my WordPress blog going back to 2017.  I deleted 2014 – 2016 completely since they were so old and moved forward from there.  Donna from Retirement Reflections asked how I did it so I’ll tell you what I found easiest for me.

First I went to the Dashboard on my site and clicked on posts:

 

Then I chose the month and year I wanted from the drop down menu:

I clicked “Filter” and that brought me to a page that looked like this.  I could tell the duplicates were the ones that did not say “Blogger, IFTT” so I checked all the posts that did not say that in the tags column and chose the bulk action to put them in the trash.

Once they were all in the trash I emptied the trash.  This is the part that took the longest.

Then I went back to the dashboard and chose the media tab.  I set it to the month and year I was working on and then chose “unattached” from the drop down.  I chose “Bulk Select” and clicked on all the pictures.  I learned that I could click the first one and then hold command and shift keys on my Mac and click the last picture and that would select them all.  Once they were all selected I deleted them.

 

After both the duplicate posts and the unattached media were deleted I went back to my main blog page and checked to see if the posts I wanted to keep were there with the correct pictures and they were!  I did this for each month from January 2017 to the present.  Once I figured it out, it really didn’t take that long.  I had been using 3.8 GB of space and now I am down to 1.3 GB so I have some room to grow.

I think my next project is going to be going through the posts to check to make sure all the links work.  That may take some time too but since the transcription work still isn’t pouring in, I have the time.  Also, I need to do the same thing on my Blogger site since I know there are some issues with that space as well.  Have you had to do an overhaul on your blog?

from WordPress https://scr4pl80.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/jumping-through-july-2020-i-did-it/

Jumping through July – 2020

It’s the 4th already.  We will be shooting off some safe and sane fireworks in front of our house tonight and while we have invited another family to join us, and a neighbor or two may be out there also, I’ve told everyone we are staying outside, social distancing and wearing masks.  I’m not taking any chances at this point.

 

 

I have been going through my WordPress blog posts and deleting the duplicates.  I could have just tossed up my hands and started all over but I like a challenge.  I am up to June of 2018 and it is going pretty well.  Most of the time there are only 10 or 15 posts in the month so I don’t have that many to go through and I figured out how to toss just the duplicates and not the ones I want to keep so it is going pretty fast.  October of 2018 is going to take a while though because it shows I have 62 posts!  I must have been doing some sort of challenge because I did actually write 30 posts.  Whatever could I have been going on about?

Short one today.  Thanks to Linda for the #SoCS prompt of “Toss.”  Hope everyone has a wonderful, safe 4th of July.

 

from WordPress https://scr4pl80.wordpress.com/2020/07/04/jumping-through-july-2020/

June Journeys – 2020

LA over at Wakinguponthewrongsideof50 gives us this quiz today. 

1. Favorite kind of vacation:  It’s been so long since I went on a real vacation I don’t remember what they are like.  I’d like to go on a cruise and/or a long train trip but I won’t know if they would be a favorite until I try one.
2. Favorite Flower: I don’t have one favorite.  I go more by colors, I love a bright multicolored bouquet. 
3. Favorite Football Team: Don’t really care about football but love the Cowboy’s uniforms.
4. Favorite Children’s Show:  That I watched was Romper Room and Charlie and Humphrey.  That I watched with the kids was Sesame Street and The Elephant Show.
5. Favorite Perfume/cologne:  Not really a perfume wearer but I do like the smell of Jovan White Musk.
6. Favorite Day of the Week: Saturday
7. Favorite Flavor Starburst: Lemon
8. Favorite Cartoon Cat: Snagglepuss, if I can call a cougar a cat.  “Heavens to Murgatroyd!”
9. Favorite Music Genre:  Rock and roll, but not heavy metal.
10. Favorite Car: I love driving and used to have a sports car but at this stage in my life I want something I can be up a little higher in.   

Still figuring out the WP thing but I think I have gotten the hang of how to delete the duplicate posts and the photos that go with them and that is freeing up some space, it’s just time consuming.  Fortunately most of the months I only post a handful of times.  The really hard ones are the months when I did a challenge like the A to Z.  So, tell me some of your favorites.

from WordPress https://scr4pl80.wordpress.com/2020/06/26/june-journeys-2020/

June Journeys – 2020 – The Vincent Ehindero Blogger Award

Well I’m going to try another test here.  I switched my simulcast so that it goes from WordPress to Blogger instead of the other way around.  If things go right, this post will still be on both sites.

My new friend, Becky at Strikeouts + Sprinkles has nominated me for the Vincent Ehindero Blogger Award.   Thanks Becky, I am honored.  I started following Becky because of our shared interest in baseball, although to be honest I don’t even remember how I came across her blog.  Perhaps she commented on someone else’s site.  You know how that goes.

In any event, Becky has given me the following questions to answer:

If you could play a scene in a movie, what would it be and which character would you play?

Maybe Debra Winger when Richard Gere comes and sweeps her off her feet in Officer and a Gentleman.  Or Jo from Little Women when she gets her first story published.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

A nurse.  From as early as I can remember, that’s what I wanted to do.  I didn’t make it to actual RN status but I did become a medical assistant and was able to work in a doctor’s office giving injections, taking blood pressures, doing EKGs and things like that.  I did that for about 5 years and then became an office manager for the doctors and that’s what I did for the rest of the 25 years I worked in the office.

How would people describe you?

I would hope they would describe me as friendly, kind, creative, trustworthy and dedicated.

What is your spirit animal?

The wise old owl.   

What is your most treasured possession?

I was going to say the kids, but I don’t own them.  My studio would be my treasured possession.  I love going in there to work on my crafts.

What is your go-to ice cream order?

Mint chocolate chip with hot fudge sauce!

 

Well there you have it.  I’m not one for nominating people for awards so let me just say that you should definitely visit Becky’s blog and if you’d like to answer the questions, I’d love to hear what you have to say in the comments.  Cross your fingers that this works the way it’s supposed to!  Have a spectacular Monday all.

from WordPress https://scr4pl80.wordpress.com/2020/06/15/june-journeys-2020-the-vincent-ehindero-blogger-award/

June Journeys - 2020 Stream of Consciousness Saturday - Nail

I thought I had this blogging stuff nailed when I took John's advice and used IFTTT (If This Then That) to simulcast my blog posts from Blogger to WordPress.  Things seemed to be working so well until the other day when I wrote a post on Blogger as usual and then checked WordPress to make sure it was there.  

It wasn't so I checked IFTTT to see if the applet was running properly.  It said it was but I accidentally turned it off and then turned it back on again.  Back on WordPress, there was still no post from June 10.  However, there was a notice that said I had reached my maximum storage and it shows that I have almost 2000 posts.  

I didn't catch on right away but then when I looked closer I realized that IFTTT had resent ALL the posts from Blogger to WP going back to 2015!!  Looking at the number of posts for each month showed me that November 2016 for example had 79 posts!  Even during the A to Z my max number of posts is one a day and not even the whole 30 days!  That means that some of those posts have triplicates!

It is going to be an exhausting task to try and fix this.  As if that's not bad enough, on Blogger I notice that a lot of my pictures are not showing up in some posts.  Can't figure that one out either because that same picture will show up in a different post.  I'd say I'm tearing my nails off but I've never been one to do that.  I like my nails. 

At this point I'm wondering if I should just nail the barn door shut and start all over again.  (Using the #SoCS prompt of "nail" from the lovely Linda.) 

Anybody ever have this problem?  Got any quick fixes?  Would you come find me if I started all over?  I'm using this as a test post in a way.  If it doesn't convert to WP then I may just give up on Blogger and only post on WP since that's where my 198 followers are.  I hope my 27 Blogger friends will forgive me.   

  

June Journeys - 2020 - Five things

Hello all!  Thought I'd pop in and share what I've been doing lately.  A fair amount of transcription work has come my way, thankfully, and that is keeping me pretty busy.  

I've been watching what's going on in the world and I have no words.  I said the other day that it feels like I am in some futuristic novel between the coronavirus and the protests.  I never considered myself privileged but I am learning that it doesn't always mean that you have a lot of money.  I've been reading things that shock me and make me mad.  I'm praying that some good will come out of all of this and extremely hopeful that a big change will come in our country this November.  But I can't dwell on these things.  All I can do is do what I can in my little part of the world and listen and try to learn.  

I did get my One Second Every Day in.  That's where you take a one second video of something every day.  Here is my month of May:

I've also been taking a class with Liz Lamoreux called Here:  Five Things.  She gives us a prompt every day this month.  So far:

Five Things outside my window

Five Recipes that bring me comfort.

Five favorite movie/book/TV characters

Five ways I'm taking care of myself.

Five albums to take on a road trip

Five dreams I want to make a reality

Five things I love about where I live

Five things I noticed about today

Five memories that comfort me

Some days I really have to think hard about it to find five things.  Other days I have so many I have to add an honorable mention or two.  Liz is going to be giving us themes all month so click on the link above if you want to join in.  I've taken a few of her e-courses before and always learn something new about myself.     

Okay, that's it for me for now.  I'd love to hear your answers to any or all of the prompts above.  Be careful out there and stay healthy!