Stephany Writes

Categories: Goals

Monthly Goals | June 2025

It’s June, which means it’s time to evaluate my monthly goals. In May, I set three categories of goals: Intentional Action (goals related to my yearly goals), Healthy Routines, and Nagging Tasks. I didn’t do terribly well, but I made some progress at least. Let’s review May goals and set some new ones for June, shall we?

May Goals

Intentional Action

  • Itemize everything in my bedroom – No progress. I think this may be a yearly goal I don’t accomplish. This is such a crazy task to take on, and I don’t know if I really need to do it. (I always video my home if I ever need to evacuate for a hurricane, so at least I have that.)
  • Change 5 email addresses – No progress made. LOL. This is not a hard task… and yet!
  • Read Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi – Half-complete. I am working my way through this book very slowly. I’m about halfway done!
  • Watch Dirty Dancing – Complete! I watched it with my mom and adored it.

Healthy Routines

  • Eat fruit with breakfast and a veggie snack, Monday – Friday – (18%) Oh, this is not good at all.
  • Five workouts at the gym per week – (70%) Getting that fifth workout in has been hard! And in May, I often slacked on getting that fourth workout.
  • Eat a salad twice per week – (63%) I am happy with this (sometimes I ate more than two salads)! I try to make a big salad for lunch twice a week, and things are going pretty well with that.

Nagging Tasks

  • Reorganize the kitchen cabinet with my pots/pans/lids – Complete! Decluttering this cabinet was much needed and now everything has its own space and I don’t feel like I’m fighting for my life every time I need to pull out a specific pot or pan.
  • Reorganize my linen closet – Complete! I was able to get rid of a lot of things that have been taking up space in there, and now everything is so nice and tidy. I love it!
  • Do a Goodwill drop – Not complete. I was lazy.

June Goals

Intentional Action

  • Buy new throw pillows – I bought two new throw pillows at Home Goods a few weekends ago, and I need to go back and get two more. Hopefully, Home Goods has them! If not, I kept the tag so I know the supplier and hopefully can find the pillows online.
  • Change 5 email addresses – I suck at doing this, but I still want to move over to a more professional-sounding email address so I need to get over myself.
  • Finish Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi – I have about 200 pages to go so I will definitely finish this book in June. My pace is so slow because the writing is so dense and there is so much information on every page!
  • Watch Working Girl – One of my yearly goals is to watch a movie released during the first four years of my life. I got my 1987 movie done (Dirty Dancing), and now I’ve moved on to 1988. Working Girl seems to be the winner for me, so I’m going to try to watch it in June.

Healthy Routines

  • Eat fruit with breakfast and a veggie snack, Monday – Friday – The goal for June is to get my average to 50% or better. Baby steps!
  • Five workouts at the gym per week – I’m hoping to do HIIT Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; spin class on Tuesdays; and a strength day on the weekend.
  • Eat a salad twice per week – I’m doing much better at this goal than I imagined! I could bump this up to three times a week, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Nagging Tasks

  • Schedule a follow-up visit with my gynecologist – When I talked about my intense periods on Friday’s blog post, many of you recommended speaking to my doctor to check for fibroids or polyps, which could be the culprit behind my pain. What’s crazy is that I had my well woman’s visit last month and didn’t even bring it up as an issue because I thought it was just normal. I’m going to see if I can get an ultrasound to make sure nothing funky is going on!
  • Send the rest of my postcards – I bought a set of cute cat-themed postcards and sent out a few to blog friends, but the rest of the stack is just sitting there! I think if I make this a goal, I’ll be more apt to complete it.
  • Do a Goodwill drop – Rollover goal.

Do you have any goals for this month?

Categories: Goals

Monthly Goals | May 2025

I miss setting monthly goals on my blog. While I’ve still been setting them privately—usually pulling a few from my quarterly goals (which I did share on the blog) and writing them in my planner—it’s just not the same. There’s something about sharing monthly goals that feeds my soul. I know why: I’m an Obliger, which means I thrive on outer accountability. Sharing my goals publicly gives me that extra motivation to follow through. So, monthly goals are back and I couldn’t be happier about it!

I’ve separated these goals into three sections: Intentional Action (these are goal that relate to my bigger annual goals; small progress to make toward those bigger goals), Healthy Routines (small actions I can take on a daily or weekly basis that will help to further improve my bloodwork numbers), and Nagging Tasks (small, one-and-done tasks to accomplish during the month).

Let’s get into it!

Intentional Action

  • Itemize everything in my bedroom – I have made progress on itemizing the things in my bedroom, but I still have a ways to go. I need to figure out how detailed I need to be here. Do I need to list every single piece of jewelry, or just have a ballpark figure? I’m also realizing this is a list I’ll have to audit on a regular basis as new items come into my home and older items leave. Hrmph.
  • Change 5 email addresses – This shouldn’t be a hard thing to do and yet, I keep putting it off. In May, I’d like to change the email addresses for some household accounts: electric, car loan, bank, phone, and gym.
  • Read Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi – This will be my 500-page book for Q2! I bought a copy of the book a few years ago and the length has intimidated me too much to start it.
  • Watch Dirty Dancing – One of my goals is to watch four movies that were released during the first four years of my life, and I am already behind on this goal. In May, I want to watch Dirty Dancing so I can catch up.

Healthy Routines

  • Eat fruit with breakfast and a veggie snack, Monday – Friday – Some of you guys are great at eating lots of fruits and vegetables, but even trying to get my five servings is a struggle. I made a goal to get five servings every day in my Q2 goal post, but I was failing miserably so I need to make this goal easier. While I’m pretty good at having a serving of veggies with dinner and typically at least one serving of fruit as a snack, there is a lot of room for growth. So, my new goal is this: I must have a serving of fruit with breakfast and I must make sure I have one veggie snack during the day (I am fruits > veggies, but I need to get better about eating my veggies!)
  • Five workouts at the gym per week – I have a solid four day per week routine at the gym (Tuesday morning spin, Wednesday evening HIIT, Friday morning HIIT, and then a cardio/weights day on the weekend), but I’d like to add one more day of spin or HIIT to ramp things up.
  • Eat a salad twice per week – More veggies! Salads are a diet trigger for me, as I ate a ton of them when I was younger and dieting unhealthily. So every time I make one, I immediately go back to that era of my life. But I want to reframe salads as something good and nourishing for my body.

Nagging Tasks

  • Reorganize the kitchen cabinet with my pots/pans/lids – I bought a lid organizer to hopefully help me reorganize this cabinet so it’s not such a chaotic mess. Just need to get in there and do the damn thing.
  • Reorganize my linen closet – I’ve been lax on keeping this closet neat and tidy. It’s time to pull everything out and reorganize the space, so I don’t feel like everything is going to collapse on me every time I open the closet door.
  • Do a Goodwill drop – There are things in the linen closet that need to be donated and I also have a pretty full bag of items ready to go to Goodwill. So putting this goal on my list assures me that I’ll put in the effort to get it done.

Do you have any goals for May?

Categories: Goals

2025 Goals | Q1 Review

It’s time to check in on my 2025 goals. How are things going? Let’s review!

HOME

1) Itemize everything in my home. No progress made. (I did make a video of my bedroom, but that is all.)

2) Buy a new area rug, coffee table, bookshelf, and throw pillows. I bought a new area rug in Q1 so I’m on track!

3) Move to a two-bedroom apartment. No progress made. My lease is up November 1st so this will be a Q4 goal.

4) Stick to a weekly cleaning routine. Somewhat complete. I’m working on it! I usually tick through the most pressing things on my cleaning list, but I’ve only had a few weeks where I get everything done.

5) TBD – still not sure on this goal; will probably be related to my move

ADULTING

1) Change my primary email address. I figured out what my primary email address will be, but I have not changed over any of my accounts yet.

2) Spend 50% less in online takeout from 2024. My goal is to spend less than $100 a month in online takeout. So far, it’s been a struggle:

  • January: $78.38 ✅
  • February: $205.51 ❌
  • March: $173.07 ❌

3) Pay off my LASIK bill. Complete! This was only possible because I got a bonus this year.

4) Save $3,000 in my emergency savings. No progress made. What I need to do is set up an autodraft to my emergency savings account instead of acting like I can make this happen on my own.

5) TBD Complete the “I’m Dead. Now What?” book. I bought this book last year, filled in two sections, and then stopped. It’s not a fun thing to complete, but it is a necessary thing so I’m re-commiting to filling out this book.

HEALTH

1) Improve my posture. No progress made.

2) Lose 20 lbs. I’m down 4 lbs from the beginning of the year so I’m feeling good about where I’m at right now.

3) Move my body every day. Ooh, no. I’m meeting my gym goal (4-5 workouts a week), but I am not going for walks on my non-gym days, which I need to work into my schedule.

4) Work on my daily routines. I feel like I am doing a lot better with my routines, specifically my morning routine. Setting up the Downtime feature on my phone helps with this a lot because I know there’s nothing exciting to do on my phone! I still need to work on my evening routine. It takes me so long and that’s because I take breaks.

5) TBD Be able to do a sit-up without help. We do sit-ups all the time in HIIT class and I just cannot do one on my own (i.e., without someone holding my feet). Everyone else does them just fine, but I have zero core strength to do one myself. It’s something I’m working on in HIIT class and might as well put it on my 2025 goals list.

HOBBIES

1) Read one 500+ page book every quarter. (1/4) In quarter one, I read The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher (★★★☆☆).

2) Go to at least 6 Silent Book Club meetings. (0/6) My social anxiety is really wreaking havoc with this goal.

3) Read 125 books. (27/125) I am a few books behind on this goal, but hopefully my reading retreat in Q2 will allow me to catch up!

4) Remove all the spammy links that have been added to my blog. Gosh, there are so many spammy links. I have no idea how they got there, and it’s really creepy, honestly. I’ve gone through my blog posts through 2020 so I’m swiftly moving through this goal.

5) Complete the Taylor Swift reading challenge. (11/25) I’m zooming through this reading challenge. Right now, I can work in what I’m reading (without seeking out specific books) to fit some of the categories, but I know there will come a time when I will need to actually put some effort into finding books to fulfill the prompts.

FUN

1) Watch four movies – one from 1987, one from 1988, one from 1989, and one from 1990. No progress made.

2) Take a Virgin Voyages cruise Take a trip to London. I’m switching out this goal since my mom and I are planning a fab trip to London in the fall! (And yes, I took copious notes from Kae’s recent trip!)

3) Watch the entirety of these series: Suits, New Girl, and a TBD series. No progress made.

4) Repierce my nose. Complete! I got this done early, in February!

5) Do one new thing every month. Making progress!

  • January: Tried mushrooms, decided I didn’t like them
  • February: Visited a romance bookstore
  • March: Went to a new-to-me grocery store, Aldi (successful trip, although there are definitely certain items I’ll still need to use Publix/Target for)

What’s something new you’ve done this year (big or small!)?

Categories: Goals

Quarterly Goals | Q2 of 2025

After today, we’re officially through the first quarter of 2025. (And almost through the first quarter of the new administration, sigh. It feels much, much longer.) So that means it’s time to take a look at my quarterly goals and set some new ones for Q2! Let’s get into it:

Q1 Goals

HOME

1) Buy a new area rug for my living room. Complete! I bought a new rug last week and it should arrive today!

2) Declutter my dresser and buy drawer organizers to keep everything tidy. Complete! I love my drawer organizers so much. It’s so nice to have everything nicely put away in their own spots.

3) Itemize everything in my bedroom. Not complete. I took a video of my bedroom. But I did not itemize a single thing.

ADULTING

1) Set up my new primary email address and link it to my current Gmail account. Change the primary email address of all household accounts. Half-complete. The new primary email address has been set up and I was able to add it to my other Gmail account. But I did not change any email addresses for household accounts, oops.

2) Set up my budget and update it every two days. LOL, no. I was lucky if I did this once a week.

3) Do a Goodwill dropoff. Complete! My car was filled with Goodwill donations and it felt so good to drop everything off.

HEALTH

1) Start using time blocking for my daily routines. Complete! I really like this productivity method. It allows me to schedule my days in a way that makes sense depending on what I need to do, whether that’s working in a therapy appointment in the middle of my day or setting aside time to get my chores done. This method works for me because I have a flexible job where I can work in 90-minute or 2-hour blocks and then take a 30-minute break to handle some personal tasks if I need to.

2) Use a posture app to improve my posture. Not complete. I have looked at posture apps on the App Store and even asked ChatGPT to provide me a list (which was a bust), but didn’t download a single one in Q1.

3) Log my food for a month. Complete! I did this with my dietician and it was a very helpful exercise. It’s not something I want to do long-term, though.

HOBBIES

1) Read The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. Complete! This was one of the first books I read in 2025 and I liked it, but didn’t love it. If it had been 100 pages shorter, I would have enjoyed it more.

2) Go to at least two Silent Book Club Meetings. Not complete. I tried going to a meeting in January but wound up at the wrong brewery! And then I just got lazy about checking on meeting times and making a plan to go.

3) Hang up my floating bookshelves in my reading nook. Complete. I started to hang up the floating shelves… and then I realized I didn’t really like them. The reason I wanted to hang up these floating bookshelves was to hold my Anne of Green Gables collection (I collect all different editions!), so instead, I created a spot on my favorites bookshelf for this collection. I’d love to add some specific AoGG trinkets to this shelf at some point.

FUN

1) Watch one of these movies from 1987: Good Morning Vietnam; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; Can’t Buy Me Love; Three Men and a Baby; or Dirty Dancing. Not complete. I planned to watch Dirty Dancing but kept putting it off until suddenly, it was the end of Q1. Oops.

2) Watch one season of Suits and two seasons of New Girl. Not complete. I’m halfway through season 2 of New Girl, but I definitely barely attempted this goal.

3) Get my nose repierced. Complete!

Q2 Goals

HOME

1) Buy a new coffee table. I’d like to buy one secondhand if I can find one I like on Facebook Marketplace or Goodwill.

2) Declutter my kitchen. My kitchen is mostly well-organized, but some cabinets need to be decluttered and reorganized, so that’s a project for Q2.

3) Itemize everything in my bedroom and office area. It’s a big goal but I can do it!

ADULTING

1) Go through my file box and shred old documents. Boring adult task that I haven’t done in a few years, whoops.

2) Complete “Admin Days” every Sunday. I’m cultivating a Sunday routine that will allow me to get set up for the week and have all of my ducks in a row. More to come!

3) Change the primary email address of at least one account every week. This feels very doable, even if I’m sure it won’t happen every week. But if I can have a 75% success rate, I’ll be happy with that.

HEALTH

1) Get into bed at 10 p.m. Sundays – Thursdays. This doesn’t mean I need to be asleep at 10 p.m., but I just need to have completed all of my evening tasks so I can be all tucked in bed at a decent hour.

2) Use a posture app to improve my posture. Rollover goal.

3) Eat five servings of fruits and veggies every day. This is ambitious for me, as I typically eat maybe 2-3 servings a day (and way less on the weekends), but it’s good to have ambitious goals!

HOBBIES

1) Read Five Days at Memorial by Sherry Fink. I’m going to read this during my reading retreat next month!

2) Go to a Silent Book Club meeting. Let’s make this easier for me and just try to get to one event this quarter. Bonus points if I attend more!

3) Send snail mail to at least five people. I gathered addresses in November so I can deliver more snail mail to people, and I haven’t really done that, so one the goals list it goes! (And you can still send me your address if you’d like snail mail from me!)

FUN

1) Watch Dirty Dancing and one of these movies from 1988: Rain Man, The Thin Blue Line, Bull Durham, Heathers, or Working Girl. Okay, friends: It’s once again time to weigh in on the movie I should watch. Which one?! I’m leaning towards Heathers, but willing to be convinced to see one of the other options.

2) Watch one episode of Suits during lunch Monday-Thursday and watch three seasons of New Girl. Another ambitious goal for me, ha. I think I can get through three seasons of New Girl in Q2 since those 20-minute episodes go quickly. And we’ll see how I do if I make Suits my lunchtime show this quarter (previously, it was Brooklyn 99.) Fingers crossed!

3) Buy a new swimsuit. I need a new swimsuit because the ones I’ve been using for a few years are getting threadbare. I just need to find a supplier I like since my swimsuits were previously from Amazon. Time to do some research!

Do you eat five servings of fruits and veggies daily (or more?!)? Weigh in on which 1988 movie I should watch this quarter!

Categories: Goals

Quarterly Goals | Q1 of 2025

Three posts about goals in three days. I promise this is the last of the for a long while! Today, I wanted to post my quarterly goals for Q1 of 2024. I’ve kept the main categories that I used for my yearly goals, and have three goals for each one. Some of them relate to my yearly goals and some do not. It’ll keep things fun and interesting, I think!

HOME

1) Buy a new area rug for my living room. I have a few area rugs saved on Wayfair, so I just need to measure my living room to make sure I’m getting the correct size and push that purchase button. I will be so happy to replace my current rug. It’s faded so much and is a bit threadbare.

2) Declutter my dresser and buy drawer organizers to keep everything tidy. I’m ready to have a more organized dresser. Right now, I tend to just shove things in a drawer and close it quickly. But then that becomes a nightmare if I’m searching for a specific item. I want to take everything out and declutter the dresser, and then organize everything nicely using drawer organizers.

3) Itemize everything in my bedroom. One of my yearly goals is to itemize everything in my home, and I’m going to start with my bedroom.

ADULTING

1) Set up my new primary email address and link it to my current Gmail account. Change the primary email address of all household accounts. Ughhhh this is such a boring goal. But it must be done.

2) Set up my budget and update it every two days. Again, adulting sucks.

3) Do a Goodwill dropoff. I have two bags of stuff and a handful of items that need to be out of my apartment, so to Goodwill they will go!

HEALTH

1) Start using time blocking for my daily routines. I’m going to experiment with some time management techniques to figure out which one works best for me. In Q1, I’m going to attempt time blocking (scheduling each hour of the day for specific tasks). If it works, great! If not, I’ll try something else in Q2.

2) Use a posture app to improve my posture. There are a few apps that will send you gentle reminders throughout the day to sit up straight, and I’m hoping that will help me gradually improve my posture. I probably also need to look into how to ensure my desk/office chair are set up properly so I can maintain good posture, so that’s another goal for Q1.

3) Log my food for a month. I don’t want to do this, but I know I need to do it. My dietician has an app I can use where I don’t have to see the calorie count of foods (a trigger for me), but we’ll be able to review it and see what areas can be improved. I’m not sure I’ll continue a food journal after one month; it all depends if I feel it’s useful to my weight loss journey.

HOBBIES

1) Read The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. This is the first 500+ page book I’ll be reading for my goal. The paperback I have is 632 pages so it’ll be a journey for me.

2) Go to at least two Silent Book Club Meetings. It’s a lot harder to make it to SBC meetings during football season since they meet on Sunday afternoons, but they also do Thursday evening meetings once a month that I can usually make it to. I’m hoping to get back to going at least monthly, so hopefully I can surpass this goal!

3) Hang up my floating bookshelves in my reading nook. I meant to do this in December and I did not get around to it. I need to get my beautiful Anne of Green Gables collection displayed!

FUN

1) Watch one of these movies from 1987: Good Morning Vietnam; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; Can’t Buy Me Love; Three Men and a Baby; or Dirty Dancing. Help me choose! I’m leaning towards Dirty Dancing, but I can be convinced to try another one of the movies on my list.

2) Watch one season of Suits and two seasons of New Girl. I might be setting myself up for failure, but maybe not? I can do this!

3) Get my nose repierced. I’m hoping I can wear a stud and my CPAP mask won’t bother it too much. That’s the goal.

What’s something you’d like to do in January?