365/30 List: Goals for This Month

promanex

This post is coming to you from my phone.  Don't you just love technology?

During the month of April, I am participating in 365/30 Lists.  It's basically a challenge for those who love to make lists to make those lists something meaningful, like a journal of sorts.  There's a list topic for each day of the week, and a different list for each month.

Today's list prompt is "goals for this month."  This is quite appropriate for me, since we are now in the fourth month of the year and I still haven't written out my goals.  Ugh.  Maybe monthly goals is the better way for me to go for now.

So, without further ado, here are my goals for this month.  I'll expand on each one in another post, as typing on my phone is more difficult than I thought it would be!

1.  Write a blog post every day.

2.  Ride the recumbant bike three times a week.

3.  Read five pages of fiction a night.

4.  Meditate for ten minutes every day.

5.  Drink three bottles of water every day.

So, there you have it.  I think these goals are quite doable, and hope to make each one of them a habit.

Do you like to make lists?  If so, you might enjoy the 365/30 List challenge.  I can't link to it here because I'm on my phone, but if you do a search for "365/30 Lists," you'll find links to the full list for April.

Must go for now.  My thumbs are getting tired!  

Until next time, be well.

On the Meaning of Lent and Giving Up Facebook

Tonight at midnight marks the first day of Lent.  For those who do not know about Lent, it is the spiritual time for Christians that spans the 40 days before Easter.  It is a time of reflection and repentance, moderation and sacrifice.  It is a time to reflect on the life of Jesus Christ and the mark he left on the world.

I was born and raised a Catholic, but fell away from the church in my adult life.  Some would say I am a "non-practicing Catholic."  Mind you, I in no way fell away from God, and in fact I feel a stronger spiritual connection now more than ever.  I just fell away from the Church.  But that's another story for another day, and is not really important in this context.

What is important is that the Easter season is my favorite "spiritual" season.  Next to Christmas, of course.  :) 

During Christmas, I am always excited and rejuvenated.  I enjoy thinking about and celebrating the birth of Jesus.  I feel like a kid again during the Christmas season, because I am reminded of all of the traditions my Mother started for us while we were young, and the new traditions that were started as we grew older.  It's a time filled with family and friends and traditions, and is generally a very happy time for me.

Easter, on the other hand, is more of a reflective time.  I tend to go inward, and think more about my spiritual life and my relationship with God.  It is a somber time as I remember the horrible punishment Jesus endured, and how poorly he was treated, and how he was ridiculed and discriminated against.  I get very sad when I think about how alone he must have felt.  Yes, he was the Son of God, but he was also a human being.  And the pain he endured, both mentally and physically, must have been unbearable.  And then I am reminded that there are many in our own neighborhoods who are experiencing the same kind of emotional and physical pain today.  It is all very sad, really, and makes me extremely grateful for the life I have.

So, getting back to Lent, it is a tradition for me, as for many Christians, to "give something up" during Lent.  It is supposed to be something that is very hard to do, and will be very uncomfortable.  Usually I try giving up chocolate, or swearing, or some other superfluous thing.  And usually I can't make it to Easter.  Forty days is like an eternity for me to try to do something consistently.  Heck, I can't even succeed with seven-day whitening strips!

This year, though, I want things to be different.  I need things to be different.  I'm not a young chick anymore.  I'm getting older, and each year goes by faster and faster and faster.  I'm spending too much time on unimportant things, and not enough time on the things that mean the most to me.  I am busy with work and family, and I'm not spending the extra time I have on the things that are most important to me.  I'm so, so afraid that I am going to reach the end of my life and be filled with regret.

So this year I am going to do something different.  I am going to give something up for Lent, but at the same time I am going to honor myself by doing something for me.  For forty whole days.  Some may say that this is not the "proper way to honor God," but I would disagree.  How best to honor God then by honoring myself, who was made in His own image?

So here's my plan for Lent:  I'm giving up Facebook.  For forty whole days.  I'm not going to visit Facebook to see what my friends and family are up to, I'm not going to visit Facebook to play the time suck that is Candy Crush, and I'm not going to post status updates.

I will, however, use that time to write and reflect.  And some of that writing will include daily updates here on this blog.  Trust me, I spend a LOT of time on Facebook, so there will be much time to spare.

In some eyes, this might seem inconsequential and not really a sacrifice at all.  But you have no idea.  As I said, I spend a lot of time on Facebook, and zero time writing.  Which is my passion, and what I feel my Soul wants most to do.  Giving up Facebook will be very hard.  Making myself sit down to write will be very hard.  I don't hold much self-discipline, so this will be a true test for me.  But I really want to do it, because I feel that it holds some real value for my life.

So, as of midnight tonight, I'll be away from Facebook.  (That's just a little over three hours!  Eek!)  And I'll plan to go back on Easter Sunday.  Maybe.  I may find out at the end of this exercise that my priorities have shifted, and that growth will have occurred.  That is my prayer.

I invite you to follow along on this journey of mine.  You can subscribe to this blog over there in the side bar -- you can subscribe for email updates, or RSS feed updates.  Or you can just add journalkeeper.com to your favorites and check in every day.  It's up to you!  But I hope you'll join me either way.  I have a feeling I will need LOTS of encouragement.

Thanks for reading.  Be well.

Day 2 BBBC - Write a List Post

Follow along as I take ProBlogger's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge!

The exercise for Day 2 of the Build a Better Blog challenge was to write a list post.  You can find my list post here.  This was a simple exercise for me, because I love making lists!  And the list I made was of famous journals -- one of my favorite topics!

I can definitely see the advantage to list posts.  Being a heavy blog reader myself, I find that lists posts are very easy to read.  They are neat, and they are very easy to scan to get the information that is most meaningful to me.

I am sure that there will be other list posts published at The Journal Keeper.

Day 1 BBBC - Write An Elevator Pitch

h.koppdelaney

Follow along as I take ProBlogger's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge!

The exercise for Day 1 of the Build a Better Blog challenge was to write an elevator pitch.  This was a good exercise for me, because it helped me to sit down and really decide what I wanted for this blog.

An elevator pitch is an overview or summary of a product or service or person that can be given in about 30 seconds -- the time it takes to ride an elevator.  The idea is that if someone asks you to tell them about yourself (or your blog,or what you do, or what you're selling, etc.), you'll be ready with a short pitch instead of "Uhhh, well, umm..."

To write my elevator pitch, I asked myself a few questions:  What is my blog about?  What information do I want to share?  Who will be reading my blog?

This is what I came up with:


"The Journal Keeper is a place for me to share my personal thoughts on things as I see them."

It's as simple as that.  Nothing fancy or flashy.   You can read the extended version on my About page.

Now, on to Day 2!

31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Mike Licht

I have started many blogs over the course of my internet life.  Some were diaries of my mundane days, some were places to rant about the political climate.  One was an attempt to teach others about journaling, and another was to market my Virtual Assistant business.  In all cases, I gave them up altogether, or have slowed my posting to a snail's pace.

The thing is, I really, really want a blog.  I want to be able to communicate with friends and family about what's happening in my life.  I want to promote the cool things I find and the things I'm interested in.  I want to practice my writing craft.  So I revived this blog, The Journal Keeper, but it has been slow going.

A few weekends ago I was doing some research about blogging, and came across an awesome site:  The Blog Frog.  It's a place where blog owners can connect, share and interact.  While poking around the site and visiting other blogs, I realized more and more that I wanted to be a part of the blogging community.  And that's when I stumbled upon the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge. 

I'll talk more about why I've been unsuccessful at blogging in the past, because I think it's important to learn from the why's.  But for now I want to focus on moving this blog forward, and I think the Build a Better Blog challenge will be a good way to do that.

I am starting a static page (you'll find it over there on the right) as a central place to keep up with my progress.  I'm looking forward to the exercises.  You will notice that I actually started the challenge a week ago, so this post is a little behind.  No worries.

I hope you will follow along as I embark on this challenge.  It will be difficult for me to actually do something for 31 days -- I'll cover that on another day.  So please bring on the encouragement.  I can use it!