A Happy Mother’s Day Summary

First off, I wish all you mothers — whether your babies have two legs, or more — a very, very happy Mother’s Day surrounded by the ones you love.

Writing/Editing:

• Morning Pages for a minimum of 250 words or half hour, whichever comes first, every day. Sadly, not a word.
• Fiction, either 250 new words (new or existing WIP) or 1 hour of editing each week. Not yet.
• Post three times a week here on the blog. Yep. We had some progress on Sunday with Plugging Along, a Readers Open Thread on Tuesday, and a wee research ramble with Holding Court in Tarot on Thursday. I actually need to get on the ball here because the queue is empty! Yikes.
  

Reading:

• A minimum of 8 books to stay on track for 100 books this year. I’ve been reading a bit during my lunch hour but didn’t wrap up anything this week.
• Update Goodreads at least every other week. Not this week.

Support/Social Media:

• Visit and comment on 5 blogs, at least three times per week, for a total of 15 blogs each week. I made it to 10 this week.
• One non-blog related post per week on Facebook and Twitter. Nope.
• One share, re-tweet, whatnot per week on Facebook and Twitter. I did retweet a post yesterday. Facebook, nope.

Non-Writery Stuff:

• Exercise three times per week. I got out with Beastie Girl FOUR times, wow, and got in one mini-yoga session.
• Complete The 30-day Diabetes Cure in April. COMPLETE.
• Family day, no working and time with family, one day per week. Yep.

How was your week?

You can find and support other ROWers HERE.

Holding Court in Tarot

Last week, in the Meet the Cards series, we concluded the numbered portion of Minor Arcana (pips) of the Gaian deck. Next week, we will begin to explore the Court cards.

The court cards represent family with the father (king), mother (queen), son (knight), and daughter (page). The Gaian deck focuses on this sense of family (or ‘it takes a village’) even more by changing the court cards to Elders, Guardians, Explorers, and Children.

Thus far in the series, I’ve pointed out the nine-point personality enneagram for each card/number to help with character building. Yet, the Court cards don’t neatly fall in to the enneagram chart.

However, each MBTI type seems to be represented within the Court cards. 16 MBTI = 16 Court cards. You’d think it would be easy to apply the MBTI types. Yet everyone appears to have a different way of assigning those MBTI types to the Court cards.

Tarot Personalities

Archetypes of Tarot

Enneagram in the Court

I realize this is somewhat confusing, and most writers won’t want or need to go into this detail, but I want to give you as complete a tool as I can.

Jungian is my fall back, right or wrong, breaking down as:

Wands — King — Fire — Intuition
Cups — Queen — Water — Feeling
Swords — Knight — Air — Thinking
Pentacles — Page — Earth — Judging

King and Knight — Extroversion — Male — Yang
Queen and Page — Introversion — Female — Yin

Using the above as a springboard, we end up with:

King of Wands — ENTJ
Queen of Wands — INTJ
Knight of Wands — ENTP
Page of Wands — INTP
King of Cups — ENFJ
Queen of Cups — INFJ
Knight of Cups — ENFP
Page of Cups — INFP
King of Swords — ESTJ
Queen of Swords — ISTJ
Knight of Swords — ESTP
Page of Swords — ISTP
King of Pentacles — ESFJ
Queen of Pentacles — ISFJ
Knight of Pentacles — ESFP
Page of Pentacles — ISFP

Fabulous, right?

If this helps with your character development, great, stop here.

But I’d started on a quest to match the enneagram to the Court cards.

A rule of thumb seems to be:

Wands (Fire) are E7 and E8
Cups (Water) are E2 and E4
Swords (Air) are E1 and E5
Pentacles (Earth) are E6 and E9

Again, if that’s enough for you. Great. Stop here.

That seemed too general for me. So then, how do we apply the MBTI we’ve assigned to the Court cards to the enneagram?

Again, an entire science.

I became somewhat obsessed with researching this, LOL. As the Court cards represent people, I really wanted to find out which enneagram fit each card. Heck, even my fall-back site Tarot, Enneagram and MBTI Correlations has conflicting assignments of MBTI types to the nine enneagram types.

In the end, I went purely by percentage.

Here’s the break down I came up with:

King of Wands — ENTJ — E1
Queen of Wands — INTJ — E4 & E5 (50/50 split)
Knight of Wands — ENTP — E7 & E8 (50/50 split)
Page of Wands — INTP — E5
King of Cups — ENFJ — E2
Queen of Cups — INFJ — E4
Knight of Cups — ENFP — E7
Page of Cups — INFP — E9
King of Swords — ESTJ — E1 & E8 (50/50 split)
Queen of Swords — ISTJ — E1
Knight of Swords — ESTP — E7
Page of Swords — ISTP — E5
King of Pentacles — ESFJ — E2
Queen of Pentacles — ISFJ — E6
Knight of Pentacles — ESFP — E7
Page of Pentacles — ISFP — E6 & E9 (50/50 split)

As you can see, my percentage breakdown does NOT fall under the rule of thumb I noted above. (I’ll supply this info on each of the Court card posts but this was my thought process. Thanks for sticking with me!)

Have you ever figured out your MBTI type?

I’d love it if you’d share! As for me, I am very much in my Fire sign with an INTP/INTJ range.

If you’d like to investigate this further, you might enjoy:

MBTI and Enneagram (Their Relationship and Complementary Use)

Personality Types: Enneagram and Myers-Briggs Type Correlations

Correlations for the Myers-Briggs/MBTI & Enneagram Types

MBTI Truths: Relations to Enneagram

Images: Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert from Llewellyn Worldwide

Plugging Along

Writing/Editing:

• Morning Pages for a minimum of 250 words or half hour, whichever comes first, every day. Ha! I got in 910 words over two days. Yay, writing.
  
• Fiction, either 250 new words (new or existing WIP) or 1 hour of editing each week. Not yet.
• Post three times a week here on the blog. Yep. We had a pretty basic ROW80 Update on Sunday, a Bucket List Party on Tuesday, and the final numbered Minor Arcana card Ten of Air (Swords) on Thursday.

Reading:

• A minimum of 8 books to stay on track for 100 books this year. I wrapped up Two Days of a Dream by Kathryn Gilmore. I’m still plugging away at Susan Kay’s Phantom. I have a paperback edition and am finding it easier to read on eReaders at work thus little progress here yet.
• Update Goodreads at least every other week. Yep.

Support/Social Media:

• Visit and comment on 5 blogs, at least three times per week, for a total of 15 blogs each week. Sadly, only got around to 4 this week.
• One non-blog related post per week on Facebook and Twitter. Ha! I actually did tweet last night. I commented on a couple Facebook posts but didn’t actually post anything myself.
• One share, re-tweet, whatnot per week on Facebook and Twitter. Facebook, yes. Twitter, no.

Non-Writery Stuff:

• Exercise three times per week. The knee is much better…wheee. I got out with Beastie Girl twice and got in two mini-yoga sessions.
• Complete The 30-day Diabetes Cure in April. COMPLETE. Some points:
  • Cutting the sugar out was easier than I expected it to be. Perhaps due to already cutting it back substantially.
  • Adding in the specific yoga moves/positions was quite easy on the days I actually DID yoga. (And I realized I haven’t reported my yoga days very accurately here thus far. I will aim to do better with reporting. I think it’s because I don’t look at yoga as exercise, LOL)
  • Eliminating the ‘fast carbs’ (breads, pasta, etc.) was impossible for me. I was able to reduce but not eliminate.
  • Eliminating HFCS (high fructose corn syrup). It is in EVERYTHING. I’d say I managed to cut out 80-85% from our diet though.
  • Hardest thing — not getting to have birthday cake on my birthday!

  Overall, I highly recommend doing this!

• Family day, no working and time with family, one day per week. Yep.

How was your week?

You can find and support other ROWers HERE.

Sunday Summary & #ROW80

Not a lot to report this week. It’s been one of adjusting to me leaving before, and getting home after, the wee beasties. It’s been one of coordinating progress meetings for 2 of the 4 boys as we near the end of school. It’s been one where Beastie Girl is rather put out with me for taking her to that nasty place for her Bordetella boaster. She’s weighing in at 71 pounds! The little pig. Yet she’s far from being overweight. And it’s been one of me catching up on my DVR recordings

On to the ROW80 part of this program.

Writing/Editing:

• Morning Pages for a minimum of 250 words or half hour, whichever comes first, every day. Yeah, not a word.
• Fiction, either 250 new words (new or existing WIP) or 1 hour of editing each week. Not yet.
• Post three times a week here on the blog. Yep. We had Whew…What a Week on Sunday, our mouths drooled a bit on Tuesday with Staging For the Day Job, and we meet the Ten of Earth (Pentacles) on Thursday.
• Finish Margie Lawson’s Deep EDITS lesson packets. Not yet. In fact, I’m going to remove this for the balance of the Round. I just don’t see it happening with all my brain power focused elsewhere.

Reading:

• A minimum of 8 books to stay on track for 100 books this year. I actually got Bloodfire (Blood Destiny 1) by Helen Harper and Irish Eyes by Annie Jones in this week. Hey, I’ve got a lunch hour…
• Update Goodreads at least every other week. Yep.

Support/Social Media:

• Visit and comment on 5 blogs, at least three times per week, for a total of 15 blogs each week. 12 this week.
• One non-blog related post per week on Facebook and Twitter. Nope.
• One share, re-tweet, whatnot per week on Facebook and Twitter. Nope.

Non-Writery Stuff:

• Exercise three times per week. Nope. I over extended or irritated an old knee injury last weekend and spent most of the week hoping my knee wouldn’t give out from under me.
• Complete The 30-day Diabetes Cure in April. I’m feeling really good about my progress with this. I’m calling it a win for the month even though I’ll be wrapping it up next week.
• Family day, no working and time with family, one day per week. Yep.

How was your week?

You can find and support other ROWers HERE.

Staging For the Day Job

As I mentioned last week, I’ve got a new job. A full-time job. An I-need-to-plan-the-week job.

Squeee!

The wee beasties are notorious for eating That Man and me out of house and home. So I knew I’d have to organize breakfasts, snacks, dinners, and lunches on the weekends in detail. I’m also trying to encourage everyone to eat healthier in general.

I made a dinner plan. I made a snack plan. I made a breakfast plan. And I was a baking fool.

First up:

Banana Bread

This is a great breakfast and snack item. I substitute half the oil/butter in my recipe (from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, nothing unique) with unsweetened applesauce.

Next:

Blueberry Pancake Muffins

I discovered this time-saver on Facebook. Whip up your favorite pancake recipe or mix. Pour into muffin tins. Add some of your favorite berries. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. Pancakes on the go!

And what baking day would be complete without cookies?

Sugar Cookies

No special recipe here, I use whichever cookbook is closest And, yes, I was rather unimaginative in not decorating them or cutting them into fun shapes.

Then, our snack staple:

Fruit and Veggie Muffins

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip this time, you can find the recipe here.

What do you do to help the work week flow smoothly?

Whew…What a Week

A tired Bugs Bunny after his first hop using his new harness and leash.

I promise NOT to bore you to tears with my whole job situation but I have to share this…

I arrived Monday for my first day

to

FLOWERS and a welcome aboard card.

Coolness, or what?!

I can relate to Bugs this week.

For obvious reasons, the ROW80 part of this post is rather red. I’ve been learning new programs, new terminology, new processes. The mind is fairly spinning with information.

On to the ROW80 part of this program.

Writing/Editing:

• Morning Pages for a minimum of 250 words or half hour, whichever comes first, every day. Yeah, not a word.
  
• Fiction, either 250 new words (new or existing WIP) or 1 hour of editing each week. Not yet.
• Post three times a week here on the blog. Yep. There was What a Difference a Week Can Make on Sunday, Hiking with Beastie Girl — the ham — on Tuesday, and Ten of Water (Cups) on Thursday.
• Finish Margie Lawson’s Deep EDITS lesson packets. Not yet.

Reading:

• A minimum of 8 books to stay on track for 100 books this year. Not this week.
• Update Goodreads at least every other week. Not this week, but I did say every other week.
  

Support/Social Media:

• Visit and comment on 5 blogs, at least three times per week, for a total of 15 blogs each week. 14 this week.
• One non-blog related post per week on Facebook and Twitter. Nope.
• One share, re-tweet, whatnot per week on Facebook and Twitter. Nope.

Non-Writery Stuff:

• Exercise three times per week. Yep, I got out with Beastie Girl three times.
• Complete The 30-day Diabetes Cure in April. I’m up to day 15, still a little behind, but am feeling really good about it.
  
• Family day, no working and time with family, one day per week. Yep.

How was your week?

You can find and support other ROWers HERE.

Hiking with Beastie Girl

The other day, Mum and Dad packed the pups and me into the car. I still don’t trust car rides but Mum assured me we weren’t going to that nasty place for shots.

We went hiking!

Mum oohed and aawed about the view.

Me, I was more interested in the horse poop on the trail and herding the pups in the right direction.

See that little bit of white in the middle of the picture? That’s where we started.

I’m not a mountain goat!

But apparently, SOME dogs (not that I’m saying I am a dog, mind you) ARE mountain goats!

Do see her?

She’s half-way up a cliff face! Her human couldn’t even follow.

While watching that Austrian Shepard, it seemed like a good time for a break. Mum handed out water and snacks to the pups and poured me a nice bowl of water.

I don’t think Dad trusted me NOT to go after that Aussie :shakes head:

What would hiking be without someone getting hurt?

Poor Mum.

I didn’t do it. Honest. The pups didn’t either. I was watching them.

No, Mum slipped climbing out of a wash. She said, “Loose limestone plus the wrong foot gear equaled ouch.”

I’m really glad I have four feet!

I’d never been hiking before. Have you?

What’s your favorite dog friendly hiking spot?

What a Difference a Week Can Make

Not wanting to lose the interview momentum of last week, I sent out a new round of resumes Monday. It netted an application packet being sent to me for one position and an interview on Tuesday for another position.

I never got around to returning the application packet.

Because.

The company that called me in for a second interview last week, called me in for testing (writing :snicker: and personality). I was informed they’d would be calling my references.

Had a bit of drama when I found out my main reference was no longer with the company I’d worked for. Some scrambling ensued. But I found a second, then a third contact at the company.

No longer am I sans job.

Yes, much squealing and Snoopy dancing commenced.

On to the ROW80 part of this program.

Writing/Editing:

• Morning Pages for a minimum of 250 words or half hour, whichever comes first, every day. 1915 words and all but Saturday (at least at the time of scheduling this post.)
• Fiction, either 250 new words (new or existing WIP) or 1 hour of editing each week. Not yet.
• Post three times a week here on the blog. Yep. There was Holy Interviews Batman on Sunday, Tuesday Book Talk on Tuesday, and Ten of Fire (Wands) on Thursday.
• Finish Margie Lawson’s Deep EDITS lesson packets. Not yet.

Reading:

• A minimum of 8 books to stay on track for 100 books this year. Yep. Crazy for Cowboy by Roxy Boroughs, Her Immortal Love by Diana Castle, and Tangled Threads (Elemental Assassin, Book 4) by Jennifer Estep (I know, a bit of a contradiction to my Tuesday post but I had to read this baby as soon as it arrived in the mail) read this week.
• Update Goodreads at least every other week. Yep, did this yesterday, even fixed the widget here on the blog.

Support/Social Media:

• Visit and comment on 5 blogs, at least three times per week, for a total of 15 blogs each week. Only 10 this week but I’m giving it the green because it’s more than half.
• One non-blog related post per week on Facebook and Twitter. Yep, on both Facebook and Twitter this week.
• One share, re-tweet, whatnot per week on Facebook and Twitter. Yep, on Facebook. No, on Twitter.

Non-Writery Stuff:

• Exercise three times per week. Yep, I got out with Beastie Girl twice and did yoga once.
• Complete The 30-day Diabetes Cure in April. I’m up to day 10, a little behind, but am feeling really good about it, except for those darn fast carbs.
  
• Family day, no working and time with family, one day per week. Yep.

Pets the GREEN.

How was your week?

You can find and support other ROWers HERE.

Holy Interviews Batman

One always hopes the sending out of resumes will generate interest which will, in turn, generate interviews and that dream job offer.

As always seems to happen, I spent months — months I tell you! — sending out resumes, tweaking cover letters, and sending out even more resumes with nary a response.

What was in the water last week? Not that I’m complaining…

Seriously, though. Got a call Thursday morning for an interview that afternoon which I had to turn down as I was walking out the door with the wee beasties for some Spring Break fun. And a dam broke.

Two interviews scheduled for Monday, one for Tuesday, and two (well, kinda three) for Wednesday. On top of that goodness, one email requesting further information, a phone interview, a SECOND interview, still another I need to call to schedule, and yet another scheduled for tomorrow.

Exhausted? I am.

Then there’s all that interview etiquette to follow up with. You know, the thank yous. A great chance to sale yourself but I’m so not the tipping of my own hat kinda person and these are hard for me to pen.

I had Thursday off, but did I do anything other than put my house back in order? Nope. Allow me to sit back and catch up on my DVR recordings, please. Thank you very much.

Have you ever had a whirlwind week of interviews?

Sadly, still sans job. I did have an offer but declined it. However, here’s hoping the momentum continues this coming week

On to the ROW80 part of this program.

Writing/Editing:

• Morning Pages for a minimum of 250 words or half hour, whichever comes first, every day. 1965 words and all days but Friday.
• Fiction, either 250 new words (new or existing WIP) or 1 hour of editing each week. Not at the time of scheduling this post.
• Post three times a week here on the blog. Yep. I had Stepping up to Another Round of ROW80 on Sunday, Dress for Success on Tuesday, and Happy Birthday Blog on Thursday.
• Finish Margie Lawson’s Deep EDITS lesson packets. Not yet.

Reading:

• A minimum of 8 books to stay on track for 100 books this year. Not yet.
• Update Goodreads at least every other week. Not yet

Support/Social Media:

• Visit and comment on 5 blogs, at least three times per week, for a total of 15 blogs each week. Only hit 8.
• One non-blog related post per week on Facebook and Twitter. Twitter, yes. Facebook, no.
• One share, re-tweet, whatnot per week on Facebook and Twitter. Twitter, yes. Facebook, no.

Non-Writery Stuff:

• Exercise three times per week. Only got out with the dog once this week and no other activities.
• Complete The 30-day Diabetes Cure in April. Doing well with the Day 1 assignment of cutting all sugars for 10 days. Finding the other daily assignments more of a challenge, perhaps I wasn’t prepared enough in the kitchen for the changes. However, I am sticking to the plan as best I can and next week will be better!
• Family day, no working and time with family, one day per week. Yep

You can find and support other ROWers HERE.

And how was your week?

Stepping Up to Another Round of #ROW80

And this one will be better!

After all, balance is my word for the year.

Writing/Editing:

• Morning Pages for a minimum of 250 words or half hour, whichever comes first, every day.
• Fiction, either 250 new words (new or existing WIP) or 1 hour of editing each week.
• Post three times a week here on the blog.
• Finish Margie Lawson’s Deep EDITS lesson packets.

Reading:

• A minimum of 8 books to stay on track for 100 books this year.
• Update Goodreads at least every other week.

Support/Social Media:

• Visit and comment on 5 blogs, at least three times per week, for a total of 15 blogs each week.
• One non-blog related post per week on Facebook and Twitter.
• One share, re-tweet, whatnot per week on Facebook and Twitter.

Non-Writery Stuff:

• Exercise three times per week.
• Complete The 30-day Diabetes Cure in April. (No, I’m not diabetic. My father is. He just completed this program and is off all meds! Between this and Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health my parents are healthier in their late 70′s than they’ve ever been and if that isn’t a testament, I don’t know what is.)
• Family day, no working and time with family, one day per week. (Thank you Julie Glover for this one!)

You can find and support other ROWers HERE.

What are you looking forward to this next quarter of 2013?

For those of you who celebrate it, I wish you and yours a wonderful Easter.