So, tomorrow is the Virgo New Moon…which means that I should review the goals that I set last month for the Leo New Moon. I’m slowly getting back into a routine of setting goals based on the cycle of the moon, aiming to have them complement the larger and long term goals that I’m refocusing and fine-tuning.

So what were the goals that I had set for the Leo New Moon? Well, they included: 

1. Continue developing my self-care/self-love routine. This will include meditation time; time outdoors, journaling, stretching, and getting back into weight training.
2. Create an editorial calendar for the blogs and possibly even LinkedIn to help streamline projects and have an idea of what I’m talking about on different platforms. Also should think of creating an editorial calendar for Instagram as well. In addition to finish editing some pages on the science/health blog.
3. Create my September BINGO card for goals.

So how did I do with each of them?

(1) I’m getting better with the self-care/self-love routine. I spend a few minutes at night meditating, prior to (or at times while doing) an oracle card reading, and then I journal on the day. Hopefully will be spending more time outdoors as the temperatures cool down—while I like the sunny days of summer, I’m not a fan of the triple digits and high heat index. I usually try to stretch multiple times a day, and am slowly organizing a space in the front of the house for my weights—so that when I want to take a break and do a quick weightlifting session, I don’t have to go back to the bedroom.

(2) Well, in terms of editorial calendars and such—I finished editing several of the pages for the science/health/medical blog/website, and actually now consider the site ‘live’. I also have shared the link to the blog on LinkedIn and Facebook. Since I’m still in the early stages for the new blog, an calendar hasn’t been extremely necessary—but I’ve been able to keep up with about seventy percent of what I want to post on this blog.

(3) I did make my September BINGO card, and have managed to check a couple of boxes. Since the month is only half over, it’s a little too early to tell how many BINGOs I may get during September—but it should be at least one.

So all goals were at least semi-completed (BINGO card was a total completion) for the Leo new moon. Moving forward into a new normal is going to take time, as I know there will be times that I backslide into bad habits and will have to crawl my way out again. Now, though I can look forward to the Virgo new moon, set some goals and patiently count down until 2023 is over.

How did you do with your Leo new moon goals?

So, we’re going to be heading into the Libra ‘new moon’ phase this weekend, which means I need to look back at the goals that I tried to set for the Virgo new moon and see how I did with each of them.

The past two months have been a little crazy—so I probably didn’t get all of the goals accomplished, and I’ll be pleasantly surprised if I managed to get half of them accomplished.

So what were the goals for the Virgo new moon? They included:

1. Take inventory of various aspects of life (research/writing/editing, crafts/hobbies, fitness, and mental health/spirituality) and try to develop a working schedule that will allow me be both productive, but at the same time enjoying time outside as well.
2. Continue with daily workouts (alternate between weight lifting and shadow-boxing).
3. In combination with #1—organize the schedule, and block out periods of time (or set certain days to certain tasks) and see if that helps improve my productivity
4. Work on the outlines/drafts for the following items:
   •  My LinkedIn oncology post series
   • The follow-up(s) to my LinkedIn molecular cloning series: Introduction to biofuels, Introduction to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and Introduction to vaccine development
   • Digestion, absorption of nutrients, and the nucleic acid biosynthesis pathways
   • Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Cells: Similarities and Differences
   • Antibiotics and the rise of Antibiotic Resistant Microbes
5. Continue with the evening meditations

So how did I do with each of them?

In terms of goals one to three:

In terms of creating a schedule to be more productive—well, lets just say it is still in the planning stages.

I know where I could improve in terms of both time and project management—so while the ‘schedule’ hasn’t been drafted on paper—I do have a couple of ideas of where I could focus on improving.

I know that I could spend part of my morning ‘waking-up’ routine journaling, or planning out the day…just as I know that I could spend part of the evening reflecting on the day and setting things up for the next day.

In the same light—I need to become better at intentional movement…I lifted some weights over the past few weeks—but not consistently.

In terms of evening meditations:

I’ve been good at doing evening meditations. I’ve really been enjoying the soothing pod app, and have been using it consistently for over two months now.

In terms of the outlines/drafts of different writing projects:

I’m slowly working on the outlines/drafts for different projects. I just started the Friday medical series on LinkedIn yesterday—and starting next week will hopefully be posting weekly on different oncology topics for probably a good three to four months, before moving on to another medical topic.

The first follow-up to the molecular cloning series is going to be talking about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), since they tend to be given a bad reputation.

The other three projects are all still in the planning stage—only because it has been a rough seven-to-eight weeks and things really aren’t settling down too quickly…

So I would say I managed probably two out of the five goals (even if I didn’t totally get the outlines/drafts written).

Maintaining the meditation routine at night has been essential—both for getting a moderately good night sleep and to help me wind down at the end of a stressful day.

Two goals going forward into the Libra season (and the rest of 2022)—getting a little better every day at both time and project management.

Progress over perfection—that is the motto for the rest of 2022 and possibly 2023 and 2024 as well.

Curious to know:

How do you handle things when everything seems to be going to hell?

Welcome back to the Redwood and Talon packs and the Christmas season.

What do you get when you mix rogue wolves, party planning, and two stubborn wolves?

Conner Jamenson is an enforcer within the Redwood pack, trying to track down a rogue pack member—while harboring the fear that one day his family will be tracking him.

Romy Temple keeps to the shadows of Talon pack, even as she offers to help track rogue wolves.

They’re tasked with planning a large Yule party, and that’s when they stumble upon the biggest ‘secret’ of all…

What is the secret? Will they manage to pull off planning a ‘surprise’ party? Can they find and save their rogue pack mate?

The answers lie within the pages of ‘Fated in Winter’, a novella set within the Redwood and Talon packs world.

I loved this story, and catching up with the packs. While it is a stand-alone novella—it probably wouldn’t hurt for one to binge read the Talon pack series to get all the details on the hierarchy of the packs.

I give ‘Fated in Winter’ five out of five stars and highly recommend it to anyone who loves paranormal romance and wolves.

So, we’re going to be entering the first full moon of 2022 tomorrow (or possibly even today, depending on where you are in the world). This means that the month is halfway over, and my fingers are still crossed that 2022 is going to go a little more smoothly than 2021 did—but before looking ahead to Cancer full moon, I need to reflect on the Gemini full moon goals.

So what were some of the goals that I set for the Gemini full moon? They included:

1. Finish setting up my master 2022 habit tracking journal. I’d decided to buy a larger bullet/dot journal and place all (or almost all) habit trackers that I’d been trying to use during 2021 into a single journal. This way, it should save me time overall during 2022, when I don’t have to copy them back in for the next month.
2. Start a non-fiction book. I’d been lax on my reading (even fiction) for a couple of weeks, so I’m trying to get back into a reading habit (may have to ‘remove’ the games from the kindle).
3. Continue to work on improving my evening/afternoon meditations.
4. Figure out an schedule/calendar for the blog/website heading into 2022 and beyond. Since I’m really leaning in the direction of writing—I need to become a little more consistent in posting, as I realized the past few months I haven’t posted as much as I had earlier in the year).

So how did I do with each of them?

1. I have my master 2022 habit-tracking journal more-or-less done—the pages are labeled, I just need to finish drawing in the boxes from about April through December.
2. I’ve slowly gotten back into bouncing between fiction and non-fiction books. So far, I’ve managed to finish: Work Quilting by Vicki Walton (hopefully will have a mini-book review written in a week or so). I’m also currently reading ‘The Slight Edge’ by Jeff Olson, and ‘Girl Take Back Your Career’ by Solange Lope.
3. Slowly working on improving my evening meditation—I think that I need to get back into the habit of candlelight meditation and/or meditating in the dark. I’ve been doing my oracle card drawing and then trying to meditate on the message of at least one of the cards…the ‘quiet’ reflection period doesn’t last that long…
4. Still working on the figuring out the schedule/calendar for the blog. After allowing myself to quit setting up weekly to-do lists in September—my productivity fell, not totally but enough that my inner critic grabbed the ‘wheel’ again. I have plenty of ideas for topics to research and write on—I just have to constantly remind myself that this is a continuous journey of learning, exploring, creating, and sharing. Therefore, I will try to set a minimum goal in terms of blog posts and pages added—if I surpass the minimum number of posts, great; if I fall short, I’ll evaluate what possible went wrong and try to ‘adjust’ my course.

So I managed to get basically three-fourths of the goals I set out to accomplish for the end of December/beginning of January completed.

2021 continued the roller-coaster events of 2020 (namely in terms of the ongoing pandemic), but I slowly started to improve in different areas: namely in setting goals for each new and full moon period (sometimes a day or two late—but they were set), actually getting several mini-book reviews written and posted to the blog and other sites, but also saw me getting ‘stuck’ in other areas (namely trying to curb the impulsive purchases).

But—progress is what I’m aiming for, not perfection. ‘Perfection’ is what the inner critic wants, that way she can keep me ‘stuck’ in my comfort zone. 2022, is going to be the year that I keep trying stretch the comfort and bounce zones, and slowly shrink the ‘die’ zone (namely possibly move those tasks/items into the ‘risk’ zone, as the ‘risk’ zone becomes the new ‘stretch’ zone).

Each day is a blank slate—my goal is to make the most of each of those slates, to where by the end of 2022 I’ve managed to accomplish several large goals: transition to the remote writing position, rework/rebrand the blog to start landing small freelance jobs, and slowly but surely find my online tribe.

With tomorrow marking the first full moon of 2022—I’m sending out happy thoughts and vibes to everyone, with hopes that this year goes more smoothly than the past two years.

Namaste.

Well we got above freezing today, and we’ll be above freezing for awhile tomorrow before the next winter storm comes through. So while I was out in the yard filling up the bird feeders for the birds, squirrels, raccoons, and any other animal that wants to eat some sun flower seeds I’d noticed that there was still ice around parts of the pond.

What I find so cool about the ice, is that I’m pretty sure in the middle of those two ice cones are just little twigs, or possibly the stems of a some weeds that were growing at the edge of the pond last fall.

It’s been an yo-yo winter in terms of the temperature differences (we’ve had some nice days, followed by some really cold days), but luckily all the winter weather that has hit usually disappears within a couple of days. It will be interesting with next storm coming through to see how quickly it moves through, how much precipitation falls, and how long it stays around.

So it does seem that the universe is giving me the hint that it will soon be time to close the door on this chapter of my life (at least professionally for now). My current position is up in about three and a half months (give or take a few days)–it’s scary to realize that Thanksgiving is that close; and no one can give me a solid answer on whether or not it will be extended. One song that has been going through my mind almost on constant replay has been “Maybe” by Sick Puppies. I first heard this song (and of the group) when I was out in Boston; and right now it seems to almost be becoming my theme song. So here’s their video via youtube.