A Round of Words

(I'm just going to move past the fact that it's been a year and a half since we last used this blog...as we say in my family, "we're looking over it." It's a new year, okay?) 

Last night while looking for 'how to sear bay scallops' I came across a recipe on a blog called Pots and Plots.  I liked the recipe so clicked around the site a bit and found out the blogger is also a novelist.  So I jumped over to her author page and found another link to ROW80, or A Round of Words in 80 Days. 

And it was like lightning.  I want to revive Making Room and I want to motivate myself to dig in to dissertation writing...could ROW80 marry my two goals?  

"ROW80 is the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life." (from here)

Perfect!!  The first Round of 2013 begins on January 7 and goes through March 28, that's 80 days and about 12 weeks. My goal can my anything that I want, as long as it is measurable and that once I've settled on my goals, I write them up on my blog and link it to the ROW80 Blog.  There are check-ins twice a week on Wednesday and Sundays, where I write up a post of my progress and link it back to ROW80. And since my italicized thought above doesn't actually contain goals (as I found out here), I've revised them below:

1. I am going to post once a week about house projects, house decorating, or something else home and family related.  By the end of the first Round, I will have written 12 of these posts.  These posts will occur on Sundays, as my Sunday ROW80 check-in.
2. I am going to post once a week about dissertation progress, what I've accomplished that week, or something else dissertation related.  By the end of the first Round, I will have written 12 of these posts.  These posts will occur on Wednesdays, as my Wednesday ROW80 check-in. 

Now, I realize that participating in ROW80 means I already have to check-in (and since these are my goals, it could seem like a wishy-washy goal), but it's actually perfect for me.  Posting about the house on this blog has been something I've wanted to get back to for a while so using the check-ins will keep me accountable.  And all the other work that goes in to a house post, like picking the project to feature, taking and organizing photos, and writing it up, will all happen throughout the preceding week.  In terms of dissertation progress, right now some of my most important work is just thinking and organizing my literature and tweaking my research design--goals about actually writing would be doing myself a disservice.  Those are for Round 2!  So right now, just needing to write a post about what I accomplished that week, will keep me accountable and moving forward.   

So here I go.  My first dissertation post will be Wednesday January 9th, one week from today.  Then my first house post will be Sunday January 13th.  And since posts are more interesting with photos, here's an in-progress picture of our new desk in our newly painted office!  More details to come on Sunday :)

Thank you Google gods for leading me to ROW80 :)