Category Archives: Documenting America

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.

American Colonial History, Documenting America, History

The Slavery Blind Spot

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I love studying history and learning things they never taught in history class.

In my U.S. history studies, I discovered James Otis Jr. and his writings early in the growing dispute between Great Britain and her American colonies. In his The Rights of British of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved in 1764, he wrote this.

That the colonists, black and white, born here, are free born British subjects, and entitled to all the essential civil rights of such, is a truth not only manifest from the provincial charters, from the principles of the common law, and acts of parliament; but from the British constitution, which was reestablished at the revolution [of 1688], with a professed design to lecture the liberties of all the subjects to all generations.

Well, so far so good. Rights are for both blacks and whites. Otis was far, far ahead of most leaders in the colonies in being against slavery,  in believing whites and blacks had the same rights. I’m not 100 percent sure he meant this for all blacks as opposed to free blacks, but he definitely was against slavery.

But Otis also exhibited what I call a colonial blind spot concerning slavery, for he also wrote this:

We all think ourselves happy under Great Britain. We love, esteem and reverence our mother country, and adore our King. And could the choice of independency be offered the colonies, or subjection to Great Britain upon any terms above absolute slavery, I am convinced they would accept the latter.

Per Otis, Great Britain could do almost anything to the colonies in the way of short of “absolute slavery” and the colonies would stay with Britain. But he falls into the trap of equating lack of representation in Parliament with slavery. Here’s how I explained it in Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution:

But I think Otis, to some extent, falls into a trap so many of the Founders did when he wrote that the colonists would be willing to accept more British control “upon any terms above absolute slavery.” I find this echoed in the writings of many of the Founders. Taxation without representation equals slavery is a common theme. They go on to say, We won’t be slaves, and a revolution resulted. They are essentially saying, Slavery is a bad thing. Yet many saying that owned slaves and treated them like a commodity, to be used up until they died then buy some more.

If you carry the logic out, were they not saying, Slavery is acceptable for Africans but not for Europeans. Or, Slavery is acceptable for people with black skin but not for those with white? Why was it not acceptable for whites? Because it was evil. So they were really admitting, We will treat black-skinned people in an evil manner, but we will not let others treat us white people that way. Yes, it was racism.

Fortunately, we have come a long way since then. We don’t think that government oppression, however we might define that, is slavery. No, slavery—especially the race-based slavery of the 1700s—was something much, much worse. Those that hated what Parliament was doing and said it made them slaves, didn’t understand what slavery really was.

So the way the leaders in America brought forth the arguments that led to the American Revolution were blind as far as slavery went. Surprise, surprise.

American Colonial History, Documenting America

Shall Be Deemed An Enemy

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I love studying history and learning things they never taught in history class.

My study for writing Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution resulted in me learning an awful lot about that time. We tend to look back at the American Revolution as a glorious event in our history, and the Founding Fathers as great men, who broke with an over-bearing Great Britain and forged a new nation. But was that the truth?

One document I looked at was the Resolves of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1765. Written by Patrick Henry, it gave the Virginia response to the Stamp Act. The resolves covered the typical colonial complaints about taxes without representation. Then the last resolve reads:

Resolved, that any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert or maintain that any person or persons other than the General Assembly of this Colony have any right or power to impose or lay any taxation on the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to His Majesty’s Colony.

Then, after other things Great Britain did didn’t sit well, the New York Sons of Liberty made several resolutions in 1773, the last of which was:

Resolved, That whoever shall sell, or buy, or in any manner contribute to the sale, or purchase of tea…shall be deemed an enemy of the liberties of America.

Really? You disagree with someone’s opinion as to how government shall work and they designate you an enemy? That seems rather extreme, to dismiss someone simply because they hold a different opinion than you. Who knew that, in the 1760 and 1770s in Colonial America they cast you out as an enemy if you analyzed an issue and came to a different conclusion. Kind of like cancel culture, no?

That kind of thought process, coming from two different colonies about two different issues nine years apart shows that this wasn’t a rare thing. It may, in fact, have been a dominant opinion at the time.

It was documents such as these that hit me hard as I researched and wrote the book. Not everything the colonists did was nice. Not everything was right. They have some things to answer for in history. Not that I think the outcome was all that bad, but I’ve come to question some of their methods.

But I need to file this in the “More Research Needed” category.

American Colonial History, Documenting America, self-publishing

Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution

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Book 4 in the “Documenting America series—or Book 5 if you include the homeschool edition of the first one.

Saturday morning I awoke around 3:45 a.m. with a need which, unfortunately, happens about every night. When I went back to bed, I could not fall asleep. I laid there until about 4:30 a.m., then decided to just get up and start my day. I went down to The Dungeon to work on the computer.

I decided the best thing to do was the publishing tasks of Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. The e-book I had published March 1st, but there are more steps to the print book than the e-book, so I didn’t jump right into print book tasks.

But a very quiet Saturday morning, long before daylight, seemed a good time to concentrate on that. I first took 20 minutes or so to wrap up my stock trading accounting for the week, then plunged into my Word print book file. It all went pretty easy. It helped that I had just done this for another book and thus it was fresh on my mind. I made one or two minor errors in entering headers but they were easily fixed. By 8:45 I had the book interior finished.

After breakfast, I went back to tackle the cover. Any regular reader of this blog knows I had making covers, though I haven’t posted about that for a while. This cover was easy, however. Calculate the book size based on the number of pages. Upload the e-book cover, resize it to the print book size. Add a text box to the back cover with the already-written text. Add a text box for the spine, rotate it 90°, center it two ways on the background. Export as a PDF file. Upload to Amazon.

It really as that simple. I had a little trouble aligning layers relative to the background, and accidentally moved the background a little. I thought no big deal. I clicked “publish” on the print book, and went on to another task, writing a letter to my granddaughter. Amazon needs a little time to review the files before they are published.

Yesterday, during Sunday school, an e-mail from Amazon came in. The book was not acceptable. The only problem was with the cover, something about the back of the book not being acceptable. I knew right what is was: that accidentally moved background. In the afternoon, after a good Sunday school class, worship service, Subway lunch, and pleasurable reading time in the sunroom, I went back to The Dungeon to make adjustments.

Except I found the adjustments too difficult and decided to start over. It was much easier the second time. All layers were properly created again and aligned. It took less than 30 minutes to create, check, export the PDF, and upload to Amazon.

Using the online book viewer, I checked the cover. Something appeared that I hadn’t noticed. Some of the back cover text overlapped onto the spine. That took two minutes to fix, and soon I had to book re-uploaded. This time all items on the cover were in the right place and within the guidelines. I clicked “approve” then “publish”. And now I wait.

Here’s the link. Hopefully both the print book and e-book will be available by the time you read this. Hopefully too, this is something some of you will want to read.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals, letters

February Progress, March Goals

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It didn’t work as a Kindle Vella book. Maybe it will as an e-book and paperback.

End of one month, beginning of a new one. Time to record my progress and goals. First, February progress.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I managed to do this, despite the stroke. It helped that I had written one post early. Alas, I did a poor job responding to comments made. I hope to rectify that today.
  • Attend two writers meetings. I only made one of the two. One was the Thursday after the stroke, and though I could have gone, our leader strongly suggested (i.e. forbade me) to attend so close to the stroke.
  • Make major progress on Volume 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Based on January progress, I might be able to complete the first draft in February. UPDATE: Probably only 60 percent. I did make progress, but not near as much as I wanted. I would say I’m a little over 50 percent done. I lost two full weeks of writing while waiting for my touch-typing ability to return closer to normal.
  • Finish all publishing tasks for Vol. 1 of AWTHW, both e-book and print version. Just missed getting this done. I finished editing on Wednesday. Publishing tasks remain. Also waiting on a beta reader, but I was late getting it to him. That won’t hold up the publishing.
  • Make a couple of new ads on Amazon. Maybe one for There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel and one for A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1.  Did not get this done. Just seemed too hard to do and do well with other things going on.
  • Continue transcribing our letters from Saudi Arabia. I did this, albeit significantly slower than I’d hoped.
  • Continue reading in some source for the next Documenting America book. I did this, but not as much as I thought I would. More on that in another post.
I’m looking to tweak the covers for this series some.

Now, time for March  goals. I’m a little hesitant to make them, given that I have home repairs to superintend and medical appointments to keep, but here’s a stab at them.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend three writing group 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.
  • Publish Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. Very doable by early in the month.
  • Make website changes as a result to the new publication.
  • More source reading for the Documenting America series.
  • Consider changes to the covers for the AWTHW series, though still encompassing my granddaughter’s artwork.

I feel like there’s a couple of things missing, but will conclude this post for now. I can always add to it if all goes well through the month.

American Colonial History, Bible study, Documenting America, expatriate life, goals, letters

January Progress, February Goals

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UPDATE: Everything below I wrote last Friday, in anticipation of where I would be at the end of the month. I didn’t know I was going to have a stroke on Saturday. More on that in a future post.

I didn’t really set goals for January. It took me so long to think through what my goals for all of 2024 would be that it was well into the month before I could even think about monthly goals. So I’ll state some goals as if I had made them, or pull them from my annual goals.

  • Attend two writers group meetings. One meeting was cancelled due to weather. I attended the other.
  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I accomplished this, with a meaningful blog on all days.
  • Get to work on A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 8. I started this on Jan. 22, a little earlier than expected. As of the end of the month, I’m more than 50 percent done with it. So far the writing has flowed easily. UPDATE: I’m not 50 % donel
  • Finish editing and publish A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1. I finished the editing around Jan. 10th and got to work on formatting for publication. Bogged down a little on the cover, as I had to first create a template for the whole series. The e-book template was done on Jan. 26. 
  • Begin reading in a source for the next Documenting America book. I did only a little of this. I enjoyed what I was reading—about debates in the Boston newspapers in 1774-75. But I wasn’t sure, from the little I read, that this was the right subject for the next volume.
  • Finalize and publish the latest short story in the Danny Tompkins series. Nothing done on this.
  • Begin transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. I’m hoping to start this in February. I started this in January, around the 15th. I’m not sure why; it just seemed right. As of now, I have completed all the letters for 1981 (a partial year), and made a small start on 1982. Lots more to go. UPDATE: I still have 6 or 7 letters to go.

So, all in all a good month. What about February? Here’s what it looks like to me.

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
  • Attend two writers meetings.
  • Make major progress on Volume 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Based on January progress, I might be able to complete the first draft in February. UPDATE: Probably only 60 percent.
  • Finish all publishing tasks for Vol. 1 of AWTHW, both e-book and print version.
  • Make a couple of new ads on Amazon. Maybe one for There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel and one for A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 1.
  • Continue transcribing our letters from Saudi Arabia.
  • Continue reading in some source for the next Documenting America book.

And that will do it. My typing is impaired by the stroke. Still not ready to pound the keys at a rapid pace.

Bible study, Documenting America, expatriate life, family, goals, holidays, Writing

A Roaring Start to 2024

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Dateline: Monday, January 15, 2024, Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I was about ready to leave The Dungeon and go upstairs, grab my sledgehammer, and fix the modem that way. Fortunately, our internet came up before such drastic repairs were needed.

It’s my regular blogging day. But I woke up this morning to find we have no internet. Thus, I can’t get to the blog to type in a post. I’m writing this on my computer, and will post it whenever the internet comes back to us.

Actually, it has been a horrible weekend for technology. Friday evening our cable kept going haywire. Picture breaking up, sound breaking up, occasional total loss of signal. We suffered through and saw a few things. Wound up streaming something via Amazon Prime, which worked. Or was that Saturday? The days are running together.

Anyhow, called Cox. They said they would have a technician out between 3 and 5 yesterday, and said it might involve a $75 charge. We had internet all day yesterday, but no cable.

The Cox tech was a no-show. But it snowed yesterday, a little over 2 inches, and the temperature never got above 1°, so I kind of understand why the tech didn’t make it. A call telling us that would have been nice. Alas, service providers of every type have ceased being proactive in communicating with their customers in this age of easy communication. Will it do any good to call the office today, on the holiday?

My post today was to be about January being off to a good start. I am one or two days away from the last editing pass through A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. Granddaughter Elise got the cover art done. So either tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll begin publishing tasks.

The first week of the year, while in Lake Jackson, I had a conversation with Elise about the next book in The Forest Throne series, and she read the prologue I wrote based on our prior conversations. She loved it, reading it aloud while our daughter was in the room and putting much drama into the reading. So a good start there on a project just a little down the road. Also, youngest grandson Elijah wanted to have a conversation about the fourth book in the series, which will be about the youngest child in the Wagner family. That book is planned for about four years from now. But we had the conversation and I got some ideas on paper. I may type them up and see what that future book will look like.

Sven months of letters from the Saudi years. The ones on the left are transcribed. The ones on the right to be done. It’s a big project.

I began transcribing the letters from our Saudi Arabia years. This was one of my realistic goals. On Fri-Sat-Sun, I typed five letters each day. I’m going to limit myself to five a day so as to keep the project from overwhelming me as the letters from the Kuwait years did. I have no idea how many total letters there are. As I look at the piles, it appears to be about 300, which is close to double the number in the previous project. But as we had no typewriter (or computer in 1981-83), the letters will likely average a little shorter.

I did a little reading for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Not much, but a little. What I read, however, makes me wonder if I’m on the right track with this volume. I’ll discuss that more in a future blog post.

I also have made a good start on an author interview for a future blog post. Possibly today I’ll be able to pull my interview questions together and send them to him.

Well, our internet just came up, so I will wrap this up and post this. I’ll have to leave The Dungeon to go upstairs to see if the cable TV is up. I’m not optimistic. But I’m still optimistic in general about 2024. I still expect to see those realistic goals met. But we will see.

Bible study, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, letters

Writing Goals for 2024

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If you’ve been reading my last few posts, you know I’ve been hesitant to set goals for 2024. My problem is having too many projects in different stages to work on all of them. So I laid out all the projects I’d like to work on if I had infinite time. This is just projects that have taken up some of my brain power in the last two years, not things that are in my writing ideas folder, actually folders, both paper and computer folders.

I’m still not sure of this, but I need to set goals. So here they are. I’m dividing them into two sections: Realistic Goals, and Wouldn’t-It-Be-Wonderful Goals.

Realistic Goals

  • Finish editing A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1 and publish it. I’m targeting the end of January for completing this.
  • Pull Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution from Kindle Vella, and publish it as a print book and e-book. This will not be a large project. I’m targeting February for completing this.
  • Write A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 8, simultaneously with teaching it. That should be February through April. Publishing will be delayed until the rest of the series is published.
  • Write A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 2 and publish it. This, I hope, is a four-month project, or maybe a little more. This should be a fairly easy project to complete, because I’ve thought much about it and done a fair amount of planning.
  • Get to work on A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 3. I’d like to say “and finish and publish it,” but I’m not yet sure if my other projects will be completed on schedule.
  • Make final edits to my short story, “To Laugh Again”, and publish it. I suspect this will happen in odd moments during other projects. This should be in the first half of the year.
  • Write and publish the next book in the Documenting America series. I hope to decide what the subject of the book will be by the end of March, and to write the book the second half of the year.
  • Begin transcribing the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. I’m hoping to start this in February, though more realistic is in the second half of the year. Part of the problem is I don’t really know how many letters there are, so I don’t know how big the project is. That’s why I can’t plan on when I will finish it.

So those are the Realistic Goals. Now for the Wouldn’t-It-Be-Wonderful Goals.

  • Update The Candy Store Generation for the last several election cycles, and re-publish. I’d like to do this by July.
  • Work on the John Cheney book. By the end of2024, I’d like to have the full structure of the book known, and several chapters written. If I do work on this, it will be in odd moments, multi-tasking while watching TV. I have no goal for when to publish it.
  • Work on the Thomas Carlyle bibliography. As with the John Cheney book, this is for off hours, multi-tasking. Again, I have no goal regarding publishing.
  • Work on One Of My Wishes, a new poetry book. Since at present I have no inspiration for writing new poetry, I’m not sure if this will ever happen.
  • Outline the next book in my Church History Novels series. I won’t say any more about that right now.

So that’s it. Lots of plans, lots of hopes, lots of effort and efficiency needed to come close to all of this.

Bible study, Carlyle, Church History Novels, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, poetry, The Candy Store Generation

2024: Possible Writing Projects

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In my last post, recapping my 2023 writing work, I said that my next post would be goals for 2024. But before I set those goals, I want to take a moment to think through all the writing projects I have going. Some are actually in progress, some are close to the surface, others were started and buried in the past. Still others are nascent, just starting to come together in my mind. They may never get beyond the idea stage, but they are there. I need to talk through this, think about what I can accomplish given life constraints. Bear with me though this thinking-out-loud post.

So here are the projects worth putting in the mix for actual goals for 2024.

  • Finish editing A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. I’m almost there right now.
  • Write Parts 2, 3, and 8 of A Walk Through Holy Week. Publish Part 2.
  • Pull Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution into book form and publish it as a stand-alone book.
  • Reasearch (and possibly write) the next book in the Documenting America series. I have two possibilities for what the next one will be. Both need reading for research.
  • The next book in the Church History Novels series. I’ve identified what it will be and have brainstormed the plot. But nothing is yet on paper.
  • Transcribe the letters from our years in Saudi Arabia—maybe just half of them this year.
  • Next book in The Forest Throne series. I have made a minor start on it and discussed the plot with my granddaughter, who is my consultant on this volume. But this is unlikely to happen in 2024, unless it’s late in the year and after much other work is completed.
  • Begin the Alfred Cottage mysteries. I have made a minor start on the first volume and have planned out the series.
  • Update The Candy Store Generation for recent data and republish. I think this is about a two-week project.
  • Flesh out One Of My Wishes, a hoped-for poetry book. I made a start on this and have it half done. But the hard part remains.
  • A genealogy book. I’m torn between two books in the Cheney family. One has much research done and is mainly writing left. The other requires research from scratch.
  • One of the two books about Thomas Carlyle I’ve started. One I think I could have done with a month of intense work. The other I started and laid aside so many years ago, I’m not sure where I was on it, though possibly 60 percent done.
  • And last, take some time to decide what to do about a tentative project, Nature, The Artwork Of God. I’ve been thinking about this for a few months. It seems like it would be a good book. In some ways it’s a bit scary to think I could write a book that blends science and religion, so I’m going to take a long time to ponder this. I think that at most this year I’ll complete some reading research and flesh out a table of contents.

I’m not saying all of these are things I’ll work on in 2024. I’m just trying to figure out what are real prospects for this year. For sure I’ll be pondering these projects over the next few days, as I have been for nearly two weeks, and will have some firm goals for the year set in my next post.

Bible study, Documenting America, Genealogy, goals, self-publishing

December Progress, January Goals

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Time to post about my progress in December and set some goals for January. I know, I know, December isn’t over yet. Maybe I should wait until January 1st to post this. But I’m doing it now, and will either edit it or provide updates in a comment.

  • Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday. I did this, though at least once I was a day late, and another time I didn’t write it until late in the day.
  • Attend three writers meetings. I’m not sure the third one will be held, as it will be getting close to Christmas. We cancelled the third one, a combination of sickness, travel, and Christmas. I attended the other two.
  • Finish the first draft and much of the editing of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. …If I can maintain my writing schedule, I should finish the writing by December 10. That gives me two weeks to edit, enough time to go through the whole thing once. I finished the writing Dec 13 and the edits to the Introduction on Dec 14. Editing commenced Dec 15 and…I completed it around Dec 21.
  • Type up some of the ideas for book 3 in The Forest Throne series. I don’t intend to begin actually writing this for perhaps a year, but I want to lock in the ideas generated so far. I did this, after having contacted my granddaughter for some clarifications of ideas we considered during Thanksgiving week.
  • Work some on Nature: The Artwork of God. This may be the next book I write (still trying to decide), so I need to expand the notes I’ve already taken. As of today, I did nothing on this in December.
  • Finish the new Danny Tompkins short story and decide what to do with it. I finished it and sent it to two beta readers. Still waiting to hear back from them.
  • Read for research for the next book in the Documenting America series. Actually, until I do my research, I don’t know what the next one will be.  I did a little reading on this beginning Dec 26. I’m not very far along, however.
  • Oh, one more: Finish and submit my article on a genealogical brick wall to the NWA Genealogical Society. The contest deadline is Dec 31. The article has been done for almost two months. Time to dust it off and do a final edit. I did this and submitted it on Dec 8, though I had to submit an extra couple of reference documents later. Now, I wait.

What about goals for January? I’m going to hold off on them until I post goals for the year 2024, which I’ll do on January 1. I’ll probably post specific goals for January on January 5.