October Goals & TBR

Hey everyone, I hope you are all having a great start to October ❤

We are already two weeks deep in October and even though I didn’t accomplish much, I still accomplished a few things that were very important to me, however, there are still a few things I want to finish or start, so I thought why not share my October goals with you 😉 and see how I will finish this month.

October = Fall to me and soon winter will come as well (omg how I want winter to come). You can already feel the air cooling down a bit and the days are getting shorter, which for a lot of people I know is not a great thing but for me it’s amazing. It is a sign that winter is closer than ever and maybe, just maybe this heat will soon be over (fingers crossed). Fall for me is cozy blankets, yummy hot drinks, and lots of reading.

I accomplished a small daily routine that helps me get up early in most of the days and even in the evening, I have a routine that let’s be more organized and productive. How amazing is that?

If you want to know more of my new morning and evening routine, let me know in the comments or through my social media and I will post a morning and evening routine for you all to see and maybe it will help you if you are struggling. (wouldn’t mind any tips as well if you want to share) 😀

But for now, let’s start this post with my monthly goals.

My October Goals are:

1. Re-organizing my summer to fall/winter closet.
2. Re-organize kitchen cabinets.
3. Finish outlining the series.
4. Continue editing (2 chapters at least).
5. Prepare for NaNoWriMo (oh yeah, this year I am all in).
6. Finish all my commitments before Nanowrimo.
7. Read 8 books (OMG, yes… 8 books, hehe) 😀

Books I’m reading this month

I haven’t read much lately, I was in a huge reading slump due to all the stress and this month I want to do 3 reading marathons to kick start my new reading 🙂

The week (14.10-20.10), I want to marathon read Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children Series By Ransom Riggs for the fourth book A Map of Days that just came out (I can’t wait to read it).

Next week (21.10-27.10) I want to marathon read The Boahim Series By Raven Oak. The first book was amazing ❤

For the last week of October (28.10-30.10) and for Halloween, I want to read 2 more books (why am doing this to myself, lol?)

 

These are my very ambitious goals and huge TBR, but I know if I will push myself I will be able to achieve most of them, and maybe even all 🙂

What are you reading? Any goals you wish to accomplish this month?

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Patreon / Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr / Nanowrimo

Advertisements

August…. Wow!

Hey everyone, did you noticed it’s already August?

WOW!

I wanted to share with you how was my July and how August was so far, and maybe even try to set some simple goals 😀

Well, let’s start with July,

July went by as fast as a bullet, I am not kidding… It flew by so fast that I barely had a moment to realize, wait… It’s July. I was so busy with my mom and my husband’s family that we had no time to take a deep breath and rest before jumping back into the deep water, called August.

I barely had time to write though I have written over my monthly goal, which is great. I wrote 6.3K and my goal was 5K, so yay for that 😀

I didn’t edit a single word or blogged as much as I planned and I didn’t finish my newsletter 😦 I still have time to finish things with the newsletter as it will go out on the 28th.

A happy news of something great that happened on July was that I’ve reached 1000 followers on Coffee n’ Notes. I am so happy to see my blog grow, thank you so much (again) to you all ❤

August so far:

From the end of July, my mom felt super bad and we went to the ER where she had a CVA like episode. When I arrived at the E.R. my mom was paralyzed from the neck down and even her mouth was closed tightly. I could only communicate with her through her eyes and after a few hours with a very hushed whisper, it was scary seeing her like that, but I knew she will get better and luckily she did ❤

Only when she was hospitalized they said it might not be a CVA but it was something else. The doctors started to run around like headless chickens (do headless chickens really run? but that’s a question for some other day), so after I had enough of them, I’ve suggested to do an EEG and see what is really going in her brain and that way will know everything (well… mostly everything). The next day we saw her neurologist in the hospital and he did the EEG and he saw something.

That something was Epilepsy (that might have been there for a while now – maybe from her last CVA). A few more days went by and she got treated for Epilepsy and she didn’t have any episodes since.

My mom is out of the hospital. She’s still feeling a bit weak but I hope she’ll feel better soon. This is the short version of what’s been going on with my mom and our family.

My goals for August:

1. Rest as much as I can (we have a lot of doctor appointments this month and I’m starting this month with already feeling exhausted).
2. Write 6K.
3. Edit. For the love of god… Do some editing.
4. Post the book reviews and finish the blog posts for this month.

How was your month?

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Patreon / Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr

Life Update & April’s Goals

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a great Sunday and a wonderful weekend<3

I really thought it is time to fill you in on what’s been going on here at the Balli Family (it was hectic, lol).

Life has been too challenging and stressful this past two months. Almost not a day had gone by without something stressful umping at us and it took its toll on me, so I took a break from blogging, writing, editing and a bit from social media.

I felt I was stretched out too thin and I couldn’t find a single moment to myself where I could sit down and write or even just journal and when I finally did have a bit of time, I was already too exhausted to write.

I’ve also taken on a lot of book reviews which I am so far behind now, but I started to get back on the horse and write those reviews 😀 After I will finish with most of these reviews, I will take on just a 1 or 2 a month and not more.

My mom is doing good, there are days that she feels great and there are days that she sleeps a lot, but overall there’s a huge improvement ❤ My husband’s brother is slowly getting better as well, after a few months of struggling.

I really hope that things might get slower this April so I will be able to focus on my goals and my own health issues that I neglected over the past few months.

My goals for this month are simple

Post 6 book reviews this month 😀 Overall blog posts: 8

Organize and keep my home clean (daily and weekly).

Finish organizing my mom’s papers.

Organize my writing files on my laptop (it’s in chaos right now) and upload them to the cloud.

Yep, these are my goals for this month. It’s still a lot overall I think not too much 😉

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr

Monthly Update

Hello everyone, missed you all so much. I hope you are all having a nice and relaxed Wednesday. Weekend is almost here (almost) ❤

My month is a bit crazy, full of doctor’s appointment, huge holiday and lots to do overall. From the start of November, I am really hoping to do some changes… Some I’ve already started. You might have already noticed but if not… I’ve changed my blog theme and I really love it 😀 Also doing some changes to old and new posts and I have a few other projects I am working on right now.

For now… I am waiting for next week where I will have a bit more time on my hands and I will be able to start working harder on every goal I have. But until then… I’m waiting.

Today, I am having a day at home, which I am dedicating to relaxing (finally). My entire body hurts and I feel exhausted pretty much every day, these days. I thought today is the best day to update you on some of my goals and some of the things that I did this month (which is not a lot, lol).

Writing:

From the start of the month, I knew that I won’t have much time to editing or writing, due to a long holiday and a lot of doctor’s appointments for my mom. So no editing/writing at all this month. I did start to work on my new outline, so I can’t wait for NaNo to start this year.

Reading:

Well… Here I have some progress 😀 I wanted to re-read the Harry Potter Series and I am so happy that I finished the entire series 🙂 These books always inspires me and fills my energies, for writing and more reading ❤

I ‘ve also finished The Young Elites By Marie Lu

Home:

I did manage to do a few thing around the house, but not as much as I wanted.

I also had some time to re-watch some series like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and finally had a bit of gaming time (wish I had more though).

Already planned out the last week and a half weeks of October and I am getting very excited for NaNo, and maybe even achieve some of my November goals.

How was your month so far? 

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr

Monthly Update

Happy Thursday everyone, I hope you are all having a great week 🙂

October is almost ending (yay), and I really wanted to give you some updates on what is going on with me 😀

Home

As soon as we got home from Rome, we received a phone call. We had a family emergency, so we did a quick wash for our clothes from Rome and drove to Tel-Aviv. We stayed there for the entire holiday of Rosh Hashana. After the holiday, my mom had a few doctor appointments, so it was a busy week.

After that, I got really sick (and still am) and there was a huge holiday of Sukkot (which is finally over, yay). This month was so crazy and busy, that Rome really feels as if it was years ago, lol. Mom did such an awesome job on the decorations for the Sukkah, so proud of her ❤

View this post on Instagram

Mom made these decorations for the Sukkah (for the holiday) ❤️😍 I am so proud of her and it turned up so pretty 😍💕 #sukkah #sukkot #happyholiday

A post shared by Galit Balli ☕ (@galitballi) on Oct 18, 2016 at 9:01am PDT

Mom is starting school in a few days and I really need to feel strong enough, so I can take her and be with her. She (and I) is going to learn Psychology and Economics on Sundays and Arabic on Thursday. I think we are both getting excited to learn a few new things and I started organizing my new backpack with some school supplies (yay) 😉

Me

I think I am sick for almost the entire month, lol (so annoying). I’ve been coughing none stop. I took antibiotics for a week, but I am still coughing like crazy. This week things got a bit worst when I’m coughing, at the end, I have a choking feeling, that really scared me. So on Tuesday this week, I went to my doctor and she thinks (just as we started to think) that what I have is called a Whooping Cough. So I’ve started taking new antibiotics and I really hope it will help 🙂

Writing/Editing

Sadly here I have no news. I did manage to edit a few pages and wrote a bit, but as I got sicker I mostly slept the days away. I miss my writing and even the editing, lol. NaNoWriMo is almost here, but as things are today, I don’t think I will be able to do it. But I still have high hope of doing some kind of writing and editing throughout the month of November (wish me luck).

Blog

While I was sick and feeling more down (I’ve been sleeping a lot these days), I didn’t notice that my blog had its second-year anniversary 😀

Omg, thank you so much, everyone and thank you for sticking with me, even when I’m not blogging as much as I used to  ❤ I can’t believe that I am blogging for more than two years (yay). No matter if I blog a lot or not, blogging truly changed my life for the better ❤

That is all for this month’s update, how was your month so far?

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr

Monthly Update

Hello everyone, I hope you had a wonderful week ❤

I thought I really need to explain my huge absence from the blog and even from the social media, lol. I don’t think you know just how much I miss reading your blog posts and just the normal chat we usually have.

May was a huge blur to me, so much is happening, my anxiety is rising high, as well as my social anxiety. I haven’t accomplished much this month and all I remember from this month is being tried, lol.

• I barely ate normal food, lol.
• I barely wrote a word.
• De-Cluttered a lot.
• Did 4 book review (so happy with that).
• Drank very little water.
• I have edited just a few pages 😦

I always say that life is crazy right now (I don’t like saying that btw, lol), but lately, things are spiraling out of control and summer is just around the corner. Life maybe is harder now than I thought it would be, but I’m still not willing to give up on my dreams.

I made myself a small little plan. I may not write as much as I did before, or even edit as much as I want, but it will be some progress and it’s better than nothing, right?

June is my birthday month and my birthday is only 6 days away. I don’t plan much for my birthday, maybe I’ll grab a drink with hubby but that’s it. Oh, maybe some more sleep 😉

I think most of you know (if you follow my Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat), that I’m re-organizing my closet/writing room and I am throwing out the huge closet in the room.

However, for now, I’m mostly re-arranging the area and moving things and just de-cluttering the room. I have a nice vision of what the room will be like, but for now, it’s a huge mess everywhere, lol 😀

My next Quarterly Goals are very small and very specific, in a hope to make it work better with my hectic schedule 😉

That is all for now, I hope you had a wonderful and productive month 🙂

Thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr

Where I was…

Hello, my fellow writers, buddy bloggers, and wonderful readers, Happy Thursday to you all ❤

This post is like a mini monthly update but more so to show you what I’ve been doing this month and explain to you all of my sudden M.I.A., It will be long (sorry) so grab a yummy snack and a drink and sit comfortably 😀

The first two months of this year were busy but I was able to keep things going smoothly but then came good old March to kick everything aside, lol.

So you wanna know what I’ve been up to this month, here it is 😀

The first week (1-5.3.16)

The first week went by so fast. With my mom being sick and me not feeling well, it was hard to do anything. Hubby and I also had things to do around our apartment and the week ended before I could do anything. I was able to write, but only just a few pages.

Second week (6.-12.3.16)

The second week was WOW! Here is where the madness truly began, lol. On Sunday, we finally got The Call from the hospital that my mom has a date set for her surgery (Yay…). We were so excited but soon enough we were overwhelmed by all the things we still need to do, doctors to see and x-rays to do, lol.

To make things even nicer, hubby fell at work on some wet stairs and hurt his back and knee, we rushed to the doctor and to the hospital. They did some x-rays and patched his knee, that luckily he didn’t break nor his back, but it hurt like hell. We were 7 hours at the hospital (Just hell).

Next day my mom had her pre-surgery checkup, we brought all the medical papers and did all that we needed. Needless to say, I was already exhausted both emotionally and physically. The check-up went well (yay) and so we got back and continued to prepare.

Two days later, hubby got very badly sick with high fever, It was Saturday.

Third week (13-19.3.16)

The third week was just a hectic madness that continued from the week before.

On Sunday, I rushed hubby to the doctor again and she said he has the flu (wow). An hour later I took my mom to a doctor’s appointment to check out her lungs before the surgery.

On Monday, I came down with the flu (Yay Me) and had a high fever and still needed to organize things for my mom. I went to our doctor (again, lol) and she gave me a medicine that made me even sicker so I stopped it and continued only with my antibiotics.

The next day I felt like shit (sorry). With both hubby and I sick and My mom needing help with all the pre-surgery papers and doctors and I had to cook something for hubby, I felt like someone just sucked the life out of me.

I was exhausted and drained. I barely could move, but I couldn’t let my mom miss this surgery she’s been waiting for so long. So I doubled my normal medicine and took some multivitamin and vitamin C and pain-killers (“I see a unicorn… LOL“), all so I had enough strength to hold on and be with my mom.

On the 16.3 my mom was hospitalized for a pre-surgery checkup and that the doctors will see her, I was with her until late noon, then I went home to rest and organize a few more papers.

On the 17.3 Hubby had to go to work that day, even though he was still feeling like hell, so I drove him to work (an hour away).

My mom entered the surgery, it was long and the waiting was killing me. I was starting to feel better with the flu, but I was overworked and exhausted emotionally. She felt okay after the surgery and everything went A-Okay.

After I left my mom at the hospital to rest and heal, I took hubby from work and did some grocery shopping and finally went home to rest.

18.3 On Friday my mom was released from the hospital and I drove her to the home she is in. I helped her get organized and she fell asleep fast. I drove back home and was finally for the first time this entire month (or even two months) able to just rest, sleep and do nothing.

On the 19.3 My mom got really sick (maybe the flu) and I felt bad for maybe making her sick, but I am happy she wasn’t sick in the hospital and was able to go through with the surgery with no hiccups.

For me… I got something new, lol. My entire mouth got filled with a lot of cuts and aphthae, I felt just horrible. I couldn’t drink, eat or even talk. I think my body just had enough, lol.

Fourth week (20-26.3.16)

For a few days, I couldn’t talk at all, eat anything that has some kind of texture to it and even then it was painful. Sadly my mom is still very sick, so I haven’t seen her yet since the surgery 😦 Planning on going for a quick visit today).

Next week and the last few days of this month my mom and I need to arrange some doctors appointments but after that, I hope things will slow down a bit (even a lot more) and I will be able to do some of the much-needed things I need to do around the house and with my writing.

Sorry for the long post. That was my month so far, can’t wait for April and start things slowly 🙂 Thank you so much for all the supportive tweets, comments I got all over my social media. You are all so very dear to my heart, so thank you so much for being so amazing ❤

I hope your month went much better than mine and I wish you all a wonderful day and weekend 🙂

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr

January Update

Happy Tuesday to all my fellow bloggers and readers, I hope you are having a nice day and amazing week 🙂

If you remember I have done a bit over a week ago, a post about my Quarterly Goals, however, I did miss posting these Monthly Update (a lot), so I thought why not start again 😀

Btw, my computer is still not responding, freezing and acting up so much, that I can’t even write a simple blog post on it. It’s not in the budget to buy a new one right now so for now, I am mostly writing and reading your lovely posts over my tablet and phone. It’s hard but at least, I can do something.

As the new year started and the first month has ended (wow, where did January went?) I wanted to do a monthly feature of a monthly update. I used to do this last year, so if you want to walk down memory lane, then here is last year’s January Update 😀

• Written 20 pages in my current manuscript (Not great, but okay. I will do better).

Having no computer makes writing a lot harder, but I am writing as much as I can on my tablet and phone. So far I haven’t looked at my word count and I am so happy about it 🙂 It helped me focus better on my goals (who new) 😀

• Finished revising Immortal Earth (Book 1 of The Earth Legacy Series). Finally got to those blessed words “The End” and not wanting to burn the entire manuscript, lol.
• Edited 10 more pages of I.E. Making it a total of 45 edited pages (mostly line editing before I give it to a copy editor).

Sadly here, I don’t have much to share. Again, having no computer or printer makes things harder but, I did edit a few pages on my phone and tablet (I can’t tell you just how hard and annoying it is, lol).

I’m a bit disappointed with myself that I haven’t made more progress here, but I hope I will get used to the editing on my tablet or phone and maybe it will make the process easier (wish me luck).

• Monthly Blog posts: 8 (Yay me) 😀
• Read only a few blog posts.

Here I am somewhat proud that I kept to my monthly goal of 8 posts, but I am also a bit disappointed that I’ve missed an entire week of blogging due to a hectic week.

I did manage to finish reading all the blog posts I wanted of a few bloggers these couple of days, but I still have a few more bloggers on my list to go through.

Here, I made a bit of a progress, lol (Yay, feeling like a grown up, lol).

• I updated most of my Social Media covers so they will look clean & better 😉
• I wrote the query letter and listed out all the publishers I wanted.
• I also registered for CreateSpace for the new WIP, that will be self-published and started to see what I can afford to do, what not and all the how’s, lol.
• I have a huge giveaway coming up and I already started working on it 😉
• I started accepting questions over on Tumblr so feel free to ask me anywhere you want, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and at Coffee n’ Notes. I got so much (mostly anonymous) questions and it’s just so fun going through them and answer, so feel free to ask me anything ❤
• I cleaned up my Monthly Newsletter 🙂 Btw if you haven’t signed up yet… What are you waiting for? lol. I also changed it a bit, as I started doing something new that you will see in the March Newsletter. That is why the January Newsletter wasn’t sent out (sorry for that). I will send out February Newsletter as planned 😉
• I also searched for cover artists and editors. So far I liked 3 from my list. If you know any good and not too expensive editor and cover artists feel free to let me know ❤

• I started reading again (Yay), I missed reading so much. I read much slower than before but I hope it will go faster again, soon.

Overall I think I have done okay, but I still need to are needed. What do you think? Should I get a “well done” pat on the back? Or not 😀

How was your month? Did you accomplish a few of your goals? and what are your goals for February?

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr

Mini Update #2

I’ve planed so much today, but I managed to do only a few things, lol. I was too tired and didn’t have the right mindset to do much today.  The newsletter will come out on the 28th of this month and not today (sorry), but I still have a few changes I need to do and I will not make it by today, lol.

On other more happy news, my mom is starting to settle down there and she seems to like it there.  There are still a few things I need to do, but slowly the stress is lowered down and we only have some small issues to work out.

My home is slowly getting into his normal shape of a home and not a messy blob of things, lol. It’s still taken me a while to organize everything, but at least I am getting there, lol.

As far as my editing goes, I have nothing. I wasn’t able to sit down and edit, but overall through this month, as you know, I have started a new story and I did manage to write a lot (which makes me feel more than happy, lol).

There are so much more I need to do on daily basis, lol and as a result I am blogging less (sorry again guys), but I did schedule my week (yey me, so proud), wrote some posts in advance (yey again) and I hope this will help me be more free to other things I want to do like read your wonderful posts and maybe even read a book ((happy smile)).

That is all for this mini update 😉

I hope you are all having a wonderful Monday, and feeling great.

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

Let’s chat on:

Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr

 

New month… New Goals

Before I will start with my February Goals, I wanted to know if you saw my new blog header and the new tagline I wrote underneath the blog title. It is very similar to the one I had before, but a bit cleaner. If you cannot remember the one I had before, I am linking it here and I would love to know your thoughts about the new header vs. the old. Thank you ❤

I have a few goals for this short (too short) month

Home

I get too distracted and I end up not doing what I want (or what is needed). My goal for this month is that after my writing session and after I eat something yummy for lunch, I will start with cleaning the house and starting making dinner for at least 1 hour. This way I will still do something, but not a lot.

Reading

I want to read at least 1 book this month. I don’t know if I will be able to buy a new book, but I will continue with Terry Pratchett’s books, I have a lot I haven’t read yet, and find a few on sale or free books I can read.

Coffee n’ Notes

I really want to push myself a bit harder here as well and try to post a bit more.

I thought of doing a Friday Musing (I will post something that really inspired me that week or that day) and try to post a bit more throughout the week 😉

I want to organize my blog a bit better. I don’t think I will change my theme, yet. I love it too much to change it, but I do want to reorganize it so it will look better.

Time

As always, time is a bit slippery for me, lol, so I want to “grab time by the horns” and manage my time better.

I have a huge block of time for writing which is about 4-5 hours. The rest of the time isn’t set properly, so I get distracted when people want my attention and before I know it hubby is home and I no longer have the energy to do things around the house, as all I want is to chill out and relax or play GW2 or just watch T.V.

Writing

After I wrote and deleted tons of words (did it twice, lol) I am a bit behind on my word count for this month, but not by a lot. I missed a few writing days (weekend and migraines) so I pushed myself harder these last few days.

By the end of January I did try to be a bit more organized with my writing and so I have downloaded the free trial of Scrivener, just so I can learn how to use it and see if I can use it daily. With Scrivener, I already see more improvement in my beats organization, which is a great start for loving this software.

If you don’t know what are beats, beats are from saving the cat by Black Snyder. I use beats a lot in my outlining and writing, as with it I see my whole plot better and I don’t get stuck.

• A side story… Yesterday was a slow writing day. I needed to write a scene with that basic fear in it. Now I have been in situations where I felt fear, But it was different. Anyway, I couldn’t write it as well as I wanted. My friend always says to Summon what you want and it will come. At that moment when I thought of what she said a huge black fly entered the room and circled around me. I hate bugs (a lot!) and it was one of those flies that can bite or sting you, so I was really scared. I know it sounds silly to most people, but hey, it worked, lol. I ran out of the room, grabbed my bug-spray and I sprayed him, which made my entire room smell. I opened the window and he vanished. I think I was high on adrenaline (which is impossible with my illness, lol) 😀 but it worked. When I returned to my new desk, I wrote about 2K words in 40 minutes (for me it’s very fast).

I want to push a bit harder and write 5-7K each day and I will not be editing the other book alongside my writing. I learned that it is just too hard for me and my writing suffers because of it. So no editing!

March is getting close and I am not near to the end as I wished to be, so I must push harder and not get distracted.

That is all for now, sorry for the long post. I hope It wasn’t too much.

Thank you so much for reading ❤

Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Tumblr