Category Archives: Bible study

Bible study, letters, reading, stock market, Writing

On Again, Off Again Journal

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For several years I’ve been keeping a journal. I’m not very regular with it. My typical time to write is in the evenings, after everything else is done and we are watching TV.

  • Up at 5:50 a.m. Weight 202.0; blood sugar 117.
  • Walked 2 miles, my fourth straight day to walk that distance, and my tenth day of morning walking in an effort to improve strength and stamina ahead of my surgery.
  • To The Dungeon, without coffee. Devotional reading (currently in a book on prayer) and prayer.
  • Begin work on the Bible study I’m writing. My goal was to write one section, about 600 words. I was able to do that. Had time left, so began work on the next section. It was a good time of writing.
  • No book sales when I checked early.
  • Reviewed the stock market and made one trade.
  • Upstairs for breakfast of sausage-onions-peppers-eggs-cheese on pita bread, then outside to do some light yardwork.
  • Checked on two home improvement items. Our propane company did change out the hardware on the propane takes as I asked. Someone called me about it a couple of weeks ago but the reception was so bad that I couldn’t understand him. And, I called the plumbing supply store about the replacement toilet seats I wanted to buy. They had never called me. I learned they couldn’t find one of the right size, material, and color that I need. So I researched and found one on Amazon and ordered it. Let’s hope the color matches.
  • Worked on scanning documents to save electronically and then discard the papers. I got rid of three stray genealogy papers and a number of writing site papers. I only need two more days at that pace to get rid of one more notebook.
  • Read in the sunroom. Cloud cover made it easy to do today. May have napped a little out there.
  • Lunch of leftover pizza, crackers, and blackberries.
  • Made a blackberry cobbler to give away.
  • Back to The Dungeon for a few more computer tasks, including managing correspondence.
  • Looked through some books to choose a couple to take to the hospital with me.
  • Rested upstairs in my reading/TV watching chair. Worked on crossword puzzles but fell asleep.
  • Read three letters in the Carlyle Letters Online.
  • Had supper of leftover taco salad, still quite good on the fourth day. Dessert for me was, you guessed it, blackberries with a little sugar sprinkled on them.
  • Wrote a letter to my second grandson, which I’ll mail tomorrow.
  • Remembered I needed to write a blog post for tomorrow, and so started writing this.

Well, that seems to describe a full day. Maybe I’ll actually find time to write this in my journal.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals

June Progress, July Goals

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The changing of the month, once again. Time to see how I did on last months goals and to set some new goals for July, First, the progress.

  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. That’s starting to sound monotonous. Done, with a little help of scheduling posts ahead of time.
  • Make good progress on A Walk Through Holy Weeks, Vol 2: Temple Teaching. I’ll have to see if time will materialize for writing. If I had to set a goal, I’d like to be at least 70 percent done. No, did not make this goal. I was unable to write much on our trip to Texas—too much turmoil and too many responsibilities. I did get some done, and the books stands at around 60 percent complete. I had a problem with the structure of the book and took a couple of days working through the outline and changing the order of the chapters.
  • Continue with my scanning/formatting/e-filing of old poetry critiques project. This task is bigger than I thought, and will take a lot of perseverance to get it done. I think it will take three more months to finish. I got some of this done before we left for Texas, but none after we got back, so I would have to say I didn’t meet this goal. Not sure I’m even at the point where I can say I’m X% done with it
  • Begin to put together my book of our letters from Saudi Arabia.  The letters are transcribed and saved, the travel diary is only a day or two away from full transcription. I’d like to have the book mostly done by mid-July (for reasons that will be revealed in a future post). That means I need to be 2/3 done by the end of June. All transcribing is done, including a little proofreading. The letters and travel diary is assembled in a book file. I’m ready to write the introduction and commentary. I would have to say I slightly ahead of where I’d hoped to be at month’s end.
  • As with last month, I want to spend some time reading for the next Documenting America book, but it will have to be different material than I read in May. I have a book picked out to take with me and read on our next trip. May also get some in before that. No, I didn’t do any of this. My reading took me in different directions. Plus, I don’t really know which volume I’m going to do next.

So as you can see, it was not a great month for making progress.

Now, some July goals.

  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. That may not be possible due to some surgery scheduled in July, but I’ll make it a goal and hope to write and schedule some posts ahead of time.
  • Make as much progress as possible on Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. It would be nice to have the first draft done before July 22.
  • Attend one writing group meeting. The two other meetings are cancelled due to venue problems during the summer.
  • Complete the Introduction and occasional commentary of the Saudi letters book.
  • Possibly complete and publish a short story I’ve been working on, the next in the Danny Tompkins series.

That’s all. Maybe this is achievable, maybe not. I’ll see if circumstances allow me to post progress and goals when July rolls into August.

 

Bible study, family

Trip 2 Is In The Bag

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A tender moment, as Elijah cuddled with one of the cats, I think in his sleep.

Saturday evening, we arrived at home around 9:00 p.m., ending our second trip for the summer. This one was to Lake Jackson, Texas, about an hour south of Houston. Our daughter and her family live there. She and her husband and their two middle children went on a ten-day mission trip to Belize. Staying behind were their oldest son, Ephraim, and youngest son Elijah.

Well, also the four cats (not so affectionately nicknamed Useless, Nitwit, Diva, and Blimpie), the 70 pound lab (nicknamed Nuisance), and the bearded dragon. Useless has an infection of some kind and needed watching and medicating. The two kids staying behind were mostly up on the care of the pets. Little Elijah did very well scooping three of the five litter boxes. The twice-a-week sifting was a little beyond his abilities but he tried hard.

One morning, I heard a ruckus, and found the gate that keeps the dog out of the upstairs down. It was almost a two-person job to get it back in place again.,

I got to read a lot with Elijah. He can read okay, but he wanted me to read to him. We didn’t quite finish the second book he asked me to read. He’s a good kid, though, just like his older siblings, he spends a lot of time on screens. Some of that time is actually educational. In between the silliness of certain things, he hears educational videos. And he seems to understand and retain much of the good information they try to convey.

On the other hand, Ephraim is…a teenager. What is that old saw? “When I was sixteen I was amazed at my father’s ignorance.” I have to hope that the second part of that is also true for him: “When I was twenty-one I was amazed at how much he had learned in five years.” I’ll just leave it at that. On Wednesday June 19, I drove him to Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, and saw him off on his big adventure, a European trip, courtesy of his uncle Charles.

I had been hoping to get some writing done, what with fewer kids around than normal, but, alas, that wasn’t to be. I think I was able to writing only on three days, and not a normal daily output on those days. Maybe I’ll get some done this week with Ezra here. If not, I’ll hope for a good output in the several weeks ahead.

We stayed two nights after the family returned. Took the two middles to the planetarium, our third time to go there. It’s a nice educational facility about three miles from their house. I bought a season pass for them, and hope they go a few more times to justify the expense.

Saturday, we drove back with thirteen-year-old grandson Ezra. He’ll spend a week with us. I have a number of projects lined out for him to help me with. I hope to work him about four hours a day, then he’ll have free time. We are also hoping to read in the Bible every night, and, we shall play games. He’s looking forward to not having his younger sister around, whose antics liven up the game but also makes normal play difficult.

Next Saturday, we’ll drive half-way to Lake Jackson, meeting one of his parents—or possibly both plus two other grandkids—halfway. That will end the summer trips. That is, unless we go to Branson for a week during my convalescence after surgery. But more on that later. For now, we are looking forward to a few weeks of normalcy.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals

May Progress, June Goals

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  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Some of those I may have to write early due to schedule conflicts. Did this, including writing a few pieces ahead of time and scheduling them to post on day we were traveling.
  • Start writing Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. I don’t have a specific goal as to word count. Just making a start will be sufficient. I began this! And it’s good to be writing again. As of this morning, I’m approximately 30 percent done with it. I had hoped for a little more progress, but am pleased with what I got done.
  • Continue to scan, format, and file old documents, specifically poem critique I did from 2001 to approximately 2012. I have done well so far, but have another ±400 pages to go. I have no specific page goal—just getting some done will be sufficient. I thought I finished this, but found another two notebooks, with maybe another 300 pages that need to be scanned. I’ll write a post about it later in the month—or possibly next month.
  • Do a little reading for the next Documenting America book. The problem is, as reported in a previous post, I don’t know if the subject will be the Articles of Confederation or Abolition. I hope by the end of this month to be far down the road in deciding between the two. I did a fair amount of research reading for this project in May. That’s the good news. The bad news is I found it very laborious, and am not sure I’ll be able to use it. I’ll have to think about this going forward.
  • One other major thing accomplished, thought not an official goal for the month, was transcribe the writing diary for our trips in 1983. Most of it had to do with the big Asian trip, but I also documented some other snippets. That’s now done. Will next have to format it and work it in to the book of letters for the Saudi years.

I still have one more day in this month, so perhaps I’ll get a little more done on the book and scanning.

As far as June goes, it’s difficult to set goals since we have a trip in the works and then a grandchild with us for a week. But I’ll take a stab at it. I can always edit the goals at some point in the month.

  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. That’s starting to sound monotonous.
  • Make good progress on A Walk Through Holy Weeks, Vol 2: Temple Teaching. I’ll have to see if time will materialize for writing. If I had to set a goal, I’d like to be at least 70 percent done.
  • Continue with my scanning/formatting/e-filing of old poetry critiques project. This task is bigger than I thought, and will take a lot of perseverance to get it done. I think it will take three more months to finish.
  • Begin to put together my book of our letters from Saudi Arabia.  The letters are transcribed and saved, the travel diary is only a day or two away from full transcription. I’d like to have the book mostly done by mid-July (for reasons that will be revealed in a future post). That means I need to be 2/3 done by the end of June.
  • As with last month, I want to spend some time reading for the next Documenting America book, but it will have to be different material than I read in May. I have a book picked out to take with me and read on our next trip. May also get some in before that.

That’s it for goals, subject, as always, to amendment.

Bible study, critique group, Health, home improvements, letters

Busy, Busy, Busy

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I’m late with my Friday morning post. Chalk it up to busyness.

I won’t say all that’s going on that made the days busy, but here’s a little of it.

  • Monday I went to the hospital for a test, only to find out the test was no longer needed because a test they did back on April 15 covered the same area. $20 miles of expense just getting there, and about two hours I would never get back.
  • Wednesday I went back to the same hospital for a different test, an MRI to take a closer look at a small mass of “neoplasm” found in the April 15 test. While the final report isn’t complete, it appears to be just a cyst on my kidney. Nothing to worry about.
  • We had painters at the house Monday-Wednesday, finishing the work needed after repairs from water damage to the house. I think I’ve blogged about that before.
  • Yardwork continues, though I’m pretty much on top of it and need to do only a little every day. I hope to get in an hour today.
  • We are slowly putting everything back in place from the house repairs. Got some done last night.
  • We continue to sell a few things in our dis-accumulation efforts. Sold two items this week, and brought a bookshelf to the garage for work to strengthen and repurpose it.
  • I’ve been writing this week. Today I wrote the last two sections of Chapter 2 of Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. I feel good about the progress.
  • I’ve had several items of correspondence this week with other writers—some for our critique group and some just for pleasure.
  • Yesterday I finished transcribing letters from or years in Saudi Arabia. I still have a travel journal to transcribe, then I’ll start putting them in a book for family. No hurry on this project.
  • I have made great progress with scanning/formatting/e-filing the poetry critiques I did from 2001-2010, which I had printed and saved. I’m down to less than thirty still to do. No hurry on this project either.
  • I’m working on plans for three special events over the next two weeks. Not going to say much about them now, but will likely blog about it later.

So with all this to do, I sort of forgot about my regular Friday post. Still, I’m not terribly late with it. And I won’t be late with my Monday post, for it’s already written and scheduled.

Bible study, letters, miscellaneous

Writing Again

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Vol 1 is published, Vols. 4, 5, 6, and 7 are written and edited. Vol. 8 is written and edited one time. Vol. 2 is now underway.

I finished writing my latest book, A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol 8, on April 1. I set the book aside for a time of seasoning—not of the book, but of my brain. For two weeks, almost three, I concentrated on my two special projects: transcribing letters from our years in Saudi Arabia, and scanning/saving of the hundreds of pages of poetry critiques I posted at on-line poetry boards years ago.

On Friday April 19, with the two special projects making good progress, I decided to pick Volume 8 again and do a round of edits. I did one chapter that day. That felt good. I did this using Microsoft Word’s text-to-speech feature, which I am liking more and more. So on Monday April 22, I edited two chapters, then did two each day and finished up one chapter on Saturday April 27. The main problem I found with the book is what seems to be too much repetition.

I then made the decision to put the book on the shelf and let it rest until I’m ready to publish Volumes 2 through 7. That will allow me to publish them in order.

But that got me to the point where I figured it was time to get to work on Volume 2 (Volumes 4, 5, 6, and 7 are already written and simmering, waiting their turn to find the book pages of Amazon). On Saturday, April 27, I took about an hour to begin the outline of the book. I finished that on Monday April 29. That brought me to Tuesday, April 30. Time to begin writing.

And that’s what I did on Tuesday April 30. I sat down at my computer, outline in hand, and got started on Chapter 1. Each chapter has seven sections, and I decided to write just one this day.  I was able to do that in less than an hour, a little over 750 words. I also did some formatting of the Bible verses already loaded into each chapter.

One section a day is less than my normal production, which is two sections a day. But for the first day writing after a layoff of almost a month, that wasn’t bad. Then, on Wednesday and Thursday, I was able to write two sections a day. The target for today is two sections, which will complete Chapter 1.

If I could equal the production I had when writing Vol. 8, I would finish he book sometime in June, possibly even early June. But I have lots of interruptions ahead: medical appointments, home maintenance need, and traveling. I will be happy if I can finish the book around the end of June or even into early July.

If I put my special projects aside, I think I could finish this well before July 1, but I don’t want to totally abandon the projects for the sake of writing. The trick will be to write the book while still working on the letters and critiques. Tuesday was a trial run of that. After writing, I transcribed two letters and scanned and saved several critiques. What I’ve found about the critiques is that each file created needs careful proofreading to check for scanner errors, as well as formatting to make sure everything is in a printable format. The goal is to someday put these in a nice concise volume, or probably two, as a record of a large part of my writing life.

I thought I was done with transcribing the Saudi years letters. I searched for letters that might have been missing to match a dozen or so empty envelopes. In the process I found a batch of letters written to us in Saudi Arabia. These were mainly from our last two grandmothers, with a handful from others. I found 43 of these letters, then another eight. So far I’ve transcribed sixteen of these. Only 27 to go. And I don’t have many more places to look for what should have been in those envelopes.

But that won’t be the end of the transcribing project. That year I kept a detailed travel journal for our trip through Asia, especially China. That will take a fair amount of transcribing. After that will be proofreading the transcriptions, then putting them in book form for the family. I don’t think I’ll finish this project in 2024. The transcription—yes; the proofreading—maybe; but assembling them into a book? Not a chance—not unless I drop everything else.

So, busy times.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals

April Progress; May Goals

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The end of April is upon us. Time to give an accounting of my writing time, and set some goals for May. My goals were modest because i expected to have several medical appointments. Those happened as expected, and cut into my writing quite a bit.

So, here’s my April progress.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I managed to do this, though I was quite late one day due to not having planned ahead.
  • Attend two writers meetings. I’ll miss one due to the heart cath. I am the presenter at one. Did this. Actually, I sort of attended a third, when I met with one writer in our critique group to help her with her writing.
  • Make two rounds of edits on A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 8. I did only one round of edits. I’ve decided that’s all I’ll do right now. It’s going on the shelf until early next year—an approximate timing.
  • Begin outlining the next volume to write in the Bible study. Maybe, if other things go faster than I expect, I’ll be able to actually start writing this. I did most of the programming of this volume.
  • Do some website upgrades. I saved this for the end of the month. As of this writing (Apr 29), I’ve made some but not all of the upgrades.
  • Continue with scanning old documents and saving them as e-files. I did a lot of this. In fact, I exceeded my goal as to how much I got done, completing one notebook. I have a lot to do, but I feel very good about how far I’ve gone.
  • One unofficial goal was to make major progress in transcribing letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. I actually exceeded this goal, transcribing the last one on April 25th. Though, I’ll have to restate the progress on this goal based on new information. Stay tuned.

Here are my may goals. Once again, they are modest, as some things are going on this month that will severely cut into writing time.

  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Some of those I may have to write early due to schedule conflicts.
  • Start writing Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. I don’t have a specific goal as to word count. Just making a start will be sufficient.
  • Continue to scan, format, and file old documents, specifically poem critique I did from 2001 to approximately 2012. I have done well so far, but have another ±400 pages to go. I have no specific page goal—just getting some done will be sufficient.
  • Do a little reading for the next Documenting America book. The problem is, as reported in a previous post, I don’t know if the subject will be the Articles of Confederation or Abolition. I hope by the end of this month to be far down the road in deciding between the two.

That’s enough. I will be very surprised if I manage to get all these done.

Bible study, Documenting America, History, letters, poetry

A Quiet Week?

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Initial sales of Run Up To Revolution are not bad. That’s not bad for me. Which means next to nothing as opposed to nothing.

Last week was busy. Two medical tests. Three doctor appointments. Two writer meetings. Plus a private meeting with a writer in one group. All of these appointments save one were in Rogers, a twenty mile drive each way. A couple of appointments I was able to have somewhat close together, but with some “layover” time between them. I had time to spend in Barnes and Noble and the Rogers Library.

I did almost no writing last week. Instead, I worked on the two special projects I have going on. That took up much of my time, but I made major progress on both the letters transcription and the critiques scanning and saving. I can see light at the end of both of those tunnels.

But on Friday I did some editing of A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 8. Just the first chapter, through Word’s text-to-speech function. After having left this alone for a while, it felt good to be back at it. I’d like to edit a chapter a day using this word processor feature. That would have me finishing the editing pass during the first few days of May.

Then, what? I’ll either have finished of just be finishing my two special projects at that time. It will be the start of another busy time, something I’ll explain later. My plan has been to start on Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week, hoping to finish it (first draft) in about ten weeks. That would be followed by editing and publishing Vol 2 and moving on to Vol. 3. Completing Vol 3 will let me move ahead with publishing all eight volumes.

But I’ve started to brainstorm what to do with the Documenting America series. This is my highest selling series (can’t say best-selling, because it’s not even close to that level). Perhaps it makes sense to write the next book in that series.

But what will it be? I had intended to write next about the abolition movement in America—something I’ve read some on, but which I’d like to know much more about. I have plenty of documents available to read, but I believe I’ll have to find more than I have to make a full book.

Lately, however, I’ve been reading in Thomas Paine’s writing. I already read Common Sense, which is about the American Revolution. A couple if shorter writings dealt with America under the Articles of Confederation. I’ve now moved into his Rights Of Man. To my surprise, the first twenty pages are all about Paine’s thoughts on the French Revolution and his countering the arguments of Edmund Burke. It’s not, so far, a treatise on the rights of man.

But this got me to thinking. Maybe the next volume I write in this series should be on the government of the colonies before the adopting of the Constitution. This was the time of the chaos of the Articles of Confederation, which defined our government during the Revolution and the six years after it. I have some sources for this period, though I think that, just as with abolition, I would have to find others.

Which would be better? Abolition captures my interest, but the Articles of Confederation, what I’m tempted to call the First American Government, seems to be something that has been written about much written about it. If I can find enough source material, it might be something that will stand out and will be more interesting than writing about the Revolution.

If I stick with my writing plans, I won’t wrote the next DA book until sometime in 2025. But that means I should start now to identify and start reading sources. I know that for Abolition I will have plenty of sources to choose from, but I’m not sure that will be he case for the Articles.  So I think some of my work this week, if the time materializes, if to start listing sources for both of these.

Why both?  Because whichever of these is next, the other will be after that, Therefore none of my research and reading will be lost. It might just be delayed for writing a book.

Bible study, expatriate life, letters, poetry

Will Be Writing Again Soon

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Vol 1 is published, Vols. 4, 5, 6, and 7 are written and edited. Vol. 8 is written and asking to be edited. When it will happen if somewhat of a mystery to me.

I finished writing A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 8 on April 1st. That’s the first draft. I need to do at least two editing passes before “putting it on the shelf” to await my writing Vols. 2 and 3. In the past I’ve found getting a little distance from the first draft to help the editing to go better. Normally I would start on the next writing project, but given that it’s another Bible study in the same series I decided not to rush into it. I did, however, take an hour or two one morning to do a little planning and programming on Vol. 2.

Meanwhile, during the last two weeks of Life Group lessons, which my co-teacher taught, I got some ideas that I need to work into the last two chapters. I think I may incorporate those either tonight or tomorrow.

My time has been taken up with my two special projects. I think I wrote about these before. One is transcription of letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. I try to complete two or three letters a day. After a slow start, I’m in a groove this. Letters from 1981-1982 are done, and I’m four months into 1983, the last year. It looks as if I have another 40 letters to go. That means I will likely finish this around early May, so long as interruptions are minimal.

The other special project is scanning and e-filing the many poetry critiques I did at various poetry boards around 2001-2009. I printed a lot of these and saved them in 3-ring binders. Most of these were at the now-defunct Poem Kingdom, but I also hung out at several other sites and critiqued. My estimate has been that I critiqued somewhere between 500 and 1,000 poems. No, that’s not an exaggeration. I saved many, but not all, of the critiques I made.

So far, I’ve scanned, formatted, checked for accuracy of the scan, and saved 106 poetry critiques. These came out of a 1-inch binder. My estimate is that I have 75 sheets left to process in this notebook, which will probably be 70 critiques—meaning 175 critiques. When I finish that, next to tackle is a 2.5-inch binder stuffed with critiques. That means I’ll be well over 500 critiques. What I can’t remember is if there is a third notebook or if this is it.

If I don’t have another notebook, I will likely finish this project some time in the fall. If in fact there’s a third notebook hiding somewhere on my shelves, then the project will likely continue into 2025.

So the question I’m dealing with whether I can get some book editing done while also maintaining my pace on the special projects. I won’t be able to test that until later this week. I have medical appointments today and Tuesday and two writer meetings on Thursday. I’m sure I’ll make a report on this in a future blog.

Bible study, Documenting America

March Progress, April Goals

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This was my publication in March.

Easter Sunday. Christ is risen! I write this on Sunday for posting on Monday, April 1, describing the progress I made in March and establishing some goals for April.

First, progress in March relative to goals set.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Did this, all with meaningful posts.
  • Attend three writing group meetings. Did this. Good meetings.
  • Make major progress on A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 8. I hope to be about 90 percent done with it by month’s end. I exceeded this goal, being only one section of one chapter away from finishing the first draft. I may take a little time on Sunday to complete the last 600 words.
  • Publish Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. Very doable by early in the month. I did this, publishing the e-book on March 2 and the paperback on March 5. Had seven sales of it this month on Amazon.
  • Make website changes as a result to the new publication. I did this, making fewer changes than I thought I would. I’ll probably look at this again in April.
  • More source reading for the Documenting America series. No, I blew this off in favor of spending the time on the Bible study.
  • Consider changes to the covers for the AWTHW series, though still encompassing my granddaughter’s artwork. I brainstormed this a little, but did not actual work on it.

Well, what about for April? I will likely lose a little time due to a heart catheterization on April 2. But here are the goals I start the month with, as always subject to change as the month proceeds.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend two writers meetings. I’ll miss one due to the heart cath. I am the presenter at another.
  • Make two rounds of edits on A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 8.
  • Begin outlining the next volume to write in the Bible study. Maybe, if other things go faster than I expect, I’ll be able to actually start writing this.
  • Do some website upgrades.
  • Continue with scanning old documents and saving them as e-files.

That will be it. Yardwork ramps up in April and I need to keep on top of it, so I’ll lose a little time each day to that. But it’s good to have ambitious goals.