Welcome to my blog titled ‘Five Things’ where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. I’ll also share a quote I find meaningful as a point of focus for the week. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things, starting with the quote of the week…

1. “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, to all the people you can, in all the places you can, as long as ever you can.” - John Wesley

2. In keeping with my intentions for the New Year, I started an art class last week, and it was fabulous! I’ve mentioned before that when my art became my career, it lost a little of its shine. That's not to say I don’t love writing, and I am extremely grateful it’s now my profession, but I wanted to make some kind of art just for the sake of creating something, with no expectations attached to it. This class provides me that experience. It’s held in a beautiful artist co-op in Old Town with lovely art and lovely people all around. I’m so excited to see how my first project turned out!

3. Ray and I had what I now call an ‘adventure day’ last week at the Salton Sea. While not a National Park, it’s a really interesting place. There’s been a ‘sea’ in the Imperial Valley on and off for millions of years. This latest incarnation happened when flood waters broke through a canal gate, spilling water from the Colorado River into the basin for almost two years before a repair could be engineered. For scale, the Salton Sea is larger than Lake Tahoe.

4. This is my last week of school vacation, and I’m really excited to start classes again. The format will be the same, but instead of focusing on romance, mystery, and thriller, we’ll be studying science fiction, fantasy, horror, and westerns. The reading list is amazing! I’ve already ordered my pile of books, and I can’t wait to dig in.

5. It’s January here in the desert, and I must say, with the sun shining every day and the temperatures hovering at a perfect 75 degrees, I’ve made a pretty productive start to the New Year. While I don’t make resolutions, per se, I do create a list intentions, both personal and professional, on which I try to focus. Personally, I’ve committed to what I’m calling radical self-care, which includes more yoga, more art, more laughter, and more adventure! Professionally, I’m committed to completing all my lingering half-finished novels, submitting every piece of short fiction I write for school to publishers, participating fully in my classes, and figuring out my thesis project for next year. We’ll see how that all goes!