Stephany Writes

Categories: Goals

Monthly Goals | January 2022

I love the freshness of a new month. A brand-new year? I’m allllll about it. I’ve got some big goals for this year, and I’m excited to get started and see how much progress I can make. Here’s what I’m hoping to accomplish in January:

1) Find a place to donate old prescription glasses. I believe I can drop old glasses off at Visionworks or other eyeglass stores, so I just need to call and make sure my local Visionworks accepts gently used glasses. I have two older pairs of glasses and a pair of prescription sunglasses to donate.

2) Have a no-spend month. The last two months have been very spendy, as the holiday season tends to be. Throw in buying a new car and it’s gotten a little out of hand. I’m going to challenge myself to a no-spend January (which means no shopping, no books, and no random Amazon orders) to get rein things in a bit.

3) Find a dermatologist. I used to be someone who went for annual skin checks like clockwork, but then the pandemic happened and now I haven’t gone to the dermatologist in over 3 years! The problem is that my old dermatologist was near my office in Tampa, and I haven’t wanted to drive 30+ minutes for a quick, 10-minute appointment so I’ve just put off finding a dermatologist near me.

4) Switch to having just one 10-ounce can of Dr. Pepper for lunch. In my ongoing effort to reduce my sugar intake, I’m going to start with my #1 culprit: soda. Lately, I’ve been having 2-3 12-ounce bottles of Dr. Pepper daily so going down to just one 10-ounce can will be a big shift for me. (Plus, I know I sleep soooo much better when I don’t have caffeine in the evenings, so this will definitely improve my sleep, too!)

5) Set up tracking spreadsheets for some of my yearly goals. I love a good spreadsheet and I want to make some for a few of the yearly goals I set that I need to keep track of, like workouts and savings. Setting these up will help me stay motivated throughout the year, hopefully.

6) Work through years 2009-2011 of blog posts and make a spreadsheet to list out the posts, categories, and tags. Recategorizing 1,800 blog posts is going to be quite the adventure! The only way I’ll be able to do it is to break up the task into little chunks like this. I’m planning on working on this during my weekly writing dates.

7) Set up two recurring savings deposits: for my new mattress and for my house down payment. I want to put $335 a month into my house down payment fund as well as $100 a month into a savings fund for a new mattress.

8) Get bloodwork done. I want to get a good look at my health and the areas I need to improve. The last time I had bloodwork done, my cholesterol was a smidge on the high side while my blood sugar was right on the cusp of being high. I’d like to establish a baseline and retest these numbers after implementing healthier habits.

9) Clean my interior doors and baseboards. I’ve recently noticed an accumulation of dust around my interior doors and bathroom baseboards. Oops. Time to give them a good cleaning!

10) Make one recipe in the air fryer each week. I got an air fryer for Christmas! So far, I have made pizza rolls, baked potatoes, and an easy chicken recipe in it. I want to attempt one new thing a week, so send me your favorite recipes/ideas!

Do you have any January goals?

Categories: Goals

2022 Goals

Hi, friends! Welcome to a brand-new year. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this year and what I hope to accomplish. I have a feeling it’s going to be a big year of growth for me, as I transition to a new role at work and all that will entail. This year, I also want to get serious about saving to buy a house and work towards eating less sugar to stave off any potential type 2 diabetes diagnosis.

This year, I’ve broken my yearly goals list into two sections: my three big goals for the year and 20 “fun” goals to check off in 2022. Let’s dive in!

Three Big Goals

1) Reduce my sugar intake. This is probably the most important goal on this list, as the last time I got blood work done, some of my numbers placed me on the cusp of pre-diabetes. That was two years ago and I haven’t had follow-up bloodwork or put any effort into reducing my sugar intake to improve my numbers. Here’s what I want to do to meet this goal:

  • Get bloodwork done at the beginning of the year to give myself a starting point.
  • Stop drinking soda (I drink regular soda) at home. If I want to have a soda at a restaurant, that’s ok.
  • Drink more water (I’d like to be regularly drinking around 50 ounces a day by the end of the year).
  • Eat dessert in moderation (once per day, at most).
  • Slowly cut down on the amount of creamer I put in my coffee.

2) Save $4,000 for a down payment. I’ve been perusing apartment listings lately, in the hopes that maybe I could afford a two-bedroom apartment sometime soon. I really want an extra bedroom to use as an office! But rent prices are insane right now. I pay a little less than $1,200 for my one-bedroom apartment, and that’s an absurdly cheap price for an apartment in St. Petersburg. If I were to move, I’d be paying $500 more for a one-bedroom easily. A two-bedroom? I’m looking at $2,000/month. So, I’ve decided it’s time to seriously consider buying a townhome/condo. It’s something I’ve wanted to do, but never thought I’d have the financial means to even put into effect. I don’t plan on buying anytime soon (maybe in another 2-3 years), but I need to get serious about saving for my down payment. I have an aggressive goal of saving $4,000 this year, equating to $333 a month. It will be challenging, but doable.

3) Reorganize my blogging categories/tags. I’ve long been annoyed by my category/tag system with my blog, as I don’t think they’re set up in a functional way to be useful. This is going to be quite the undertaking as I’m closing in on 1,800 blog posts, eeeeeks. Here’s my plan:

  • Q1 (January-March): Go through all blog posts from 2009-2015 and list them out in a spreadsheet, assigning each a category and tags.
  • Q2 (April-June): Go through all blog posts from 2016-2022 and list them out in a spreadsheet, assigning each a category and tags.
  • Q3 (July-September): Assess the categories and narrow the list to 10 categories. Also assess the tags to find any patterns. Begin recategorizing/retagging my posts, starting with 2009-2012.
  • Q4 (October-December): Finish recategorizing/retagging posts.

20 Fun Goals

1) Buy a new mattress. My current mattress is 10+ years old so it’s definitely time for an upgrade. A new mattress is such an expense, but considering how much time I spend in my bed, it is definitely worth shelling out the money for a quality mattress.

2) Complete the 2022 Unread Shelf Project. I wasn’t sure if Whitney was going to run the 2022 Unread Shelf Project because, before last week, she hadn’t posted to her blog or Instagram since May. I was so excited when she posted the 2022 project (and relieved that all was well with her and her family!) I am definitely attempting this reading challenge for the third year in a row. Yay!

3) Read all of the books added to my Goodreads TBR in 2017. Since I wasn’t sure if Whitney was going to run her reading challenge this year, I came up with my own. Then, after I found out that there was going to be a 2022 Unread Shelf Project, I had a conundrum on my hands: Which reading challenge to tackle? In the end, I decided to do both! Why not?! I have 21 books on my Goodreads TBR that have been languishing there since 2017 and I’m determined to read them all this year. The list includes:

  • Columbine by Dave Cullen
  • I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
  • All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
  • Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
  • Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber
  • Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  • The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Killing Young Women by Jessica Valenti
  • Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
  • Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
  • The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  • Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
  • A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold
  • Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
  • Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
  • How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly’s Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life by Heather Havrilesky
  • Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America by Jeff Chu
  • Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon
  • Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
  • The Nix by Nathan Hill
  • The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord

4) Do 100 Peloton workouts. Spin classes, strength training, yoga… it all counts! This amounts to about 8 classes a month, which will allow me to add in a few long walks to my workout routine. A very doable goal!

5) Restart my novel. I have had a dream to write my own novel since I was a little girl, and I was working toward that goal on and off for many years. But then I just got burned out and annoyed with myself for not having a clear idea of the novel I wanted to write, even though I’d been working on it for so long. It’s been over a year since I set down my manuscript and now… I’m feeling the urge to get back to it. I’m feeling the spark of a new idea, the excitement of diving back into the world I created. I’m going to keep my 2022 writing goal easy for myself: all I have to do is restart my novel. Maybe that’s spending one hour a month on it, maybe that’s using my weekly writing dates to get back to it, whatever feels good to me.

6) Go back to therapy. I’ve been wanting to go back to therapy for a while now, but the cost was holding me back. I’m on a high-deductible insurance plan, so each session was going to be around $150 and that just wasn’t doable for me. When my company announced that one of the perks they added to our health insurance plan was 36 FREE therapy sessions, I was astounded and relieved and excited. Back to therapy I go!

7) Watch 12 movies. I watched a grand total of three movies in 2021. I’m just not someone who naturally gravitates to movies, but there are so many I want to see that I haven’t gotten around to. I’m giving myself an easy goal of watch 12 movies (one per month!) this year. What’s a movie you loved recently?

8) Watch 6 TV series. Another thing I’m really bad at is watching new TV. Last year, the only new shows I watched were The Crown, Bridgerton, and Superstore (still not finished with that one). So I’m challenging myself to finish six new-to-me shows this year. I’m thinking I’ll cross off Younger, Jane the Virgin, Ted Lasso, How I Met Your Mother, Only Murders in the Building, and The Queen’s Gambit. Tell me your recommendations!

9) Visit NYC at Christmastime. I’ve always wanted to visit NYC and I’ve especially wanted to visit it during the holiday season, even though I know it will be coooold for this Florida girl. I think I’m going to make it happen this year! (Depending on Covid, of course.)

10) Get my third tattoo. I really want to make this happen in 2022! I have a special idea for a tattoo to commemorate my grandma.

11) Walk one 5k a month, in a different place each time. There are so many great parks and walking trails around me, and I rarely take advantage of them. This goal will be a fun way to get outside and do some exploring.

12) Redo my bathroom. I love doing a simple redesign of my bathroom. This mainly entails getting a new shower curtain and replacing the rugs and towels to match the curtain. I may try to get something up on the walls, too, and perhaps add a shelf. We’ll see!

13) Get microdermabrasion or laser treatment—whatever is the better option for dealing with my acne scars. I’ve been doing a multi-step skincare routine for over a year now and getting quarterly facials and my skin has greatly improved. But I still have these light (probably noticeable only to me) acne scars around my chin and cheeks and I’d like to look into microdermabrasian or laser treatment to take care of them, whichever my dermatologist believes is the best option.

14) Read Moby-Dick. Every year, I pick a classic to read using the Serial Reader app (which sends you a short, 10-15 minute “issue” of the novel every day). In 2020, I read Anna Karenina and last year, I read The Count of Monte Cristo. This year, I’m going to tackle Moby-Dick! Anna Karenina was 159 issues and Monte Cristo was 208, so Moby-Dick’s 79 issues will feel so easy in comparison, ha.

15) Go on one date a month. Just a fun goal to make sure I’m putting myself out there and going on dates!

16) Put an extra $1,000 toward my car loan. I’d love to pay my car loan off way earlier than expected, and that entails putting a few extra payments toward the loan this year.

17) Make 12 new recipes. One recipe a month! Seems doable enough.

18) Make a recipe book. I have a bad habit of making a recipe, loving it, and then forgetting about it completely. I also have a bad habit of falling into food ruts, eating the same food every week. A recipe book (probably something digital) would be super helpful for me, giving me an easy place to draw inspiration from when I’m coming up with my meal plan every week!

19) Cut gluten out of my diet for one month. I’m very curious about my gluten sensitivity and how my body would react to me fully cutting out gluten for one month. I would miss bread (so much!) but it’s a food experiment I need to do.

20) Buy a coffee table and a floor lamp. Two more things my apartment needs! I have my eye on this coffee table from Wayfair and this floor lamp from Target.

Do you have any goals for 2022?

Categories: Goals

Yearly Goals | Q3 Update

It’s time for my third quarterly check-in on my yearly goals. I should have posted this in October but, you know, life happened. I haven’t been as successful with my yearly goals as I had hoped, but even getting a few accomplished is better than nothing, right? Here’s the progress I made (or didn’t make) in Q3:

1) Buy a new sectional, coffee table, and area rug. 2/3 completed. I bought a new sectional in January and an area rug in September. The coffee table will probably be my birthday gift from my mom.

2) Work out three times a week. I would say that I’ve been about 50% successful with this goal. I struggled in Q1, did much better in Q2, and was successful for most of Q3 aside from a period of 2-3 weeks in August. I’m happy with that progress!

3) Start the process of becoming vegetarian by cutting out red meat and pork and having one meatless day once a week. No progress made. (Will likely not be completed.)

4) Become a regular water drinker. No progress made.

5) Experiment with an elimination diet. No progress made. (Will likely not be completed.)

6) Set a budget and be diligent about it. I’m doing pretty well with this goal, but the goal itself is rather vague so it’s hard to really measure how well I’m doing.

7) At the end of the year, have $3,500 saved in my emergency fund and $3,000 saved in my car down payment fund. This will be a pretty hard goal to accomplish by the end of the year. I need to save $1,100 in my emergency fund and $1,000 in my car fund to get it done. I’m going to try to hit the car goal since saving for a car down payment is my most pressing need.

8) Complete the 2021 Unread Shelf Project. I am trucking along with this challenge:

9) Read The Count of Monte Cristo. Complete! I finished it in August and it was a 5-star read for me.

10) Finish the year with 35% of my books being by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community. I am currently at 39%, which is slightly up from where I was after Q2.

11) Build an earring collection (15+ earrings). I have 8 pairs of earrings (up from 5 in Q2). I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to complete this goal, especially if I “cheat” and buy one of those $20 packs of 10+ earrings at Target. Heh.

12) Start dating again. Complete.

13) Work through one Bible study this year. Not complete. (Will likely not be completed.)

14) Get my third tattoo. Not complete! Hopefully, I will get this done. (I’m always so nervous about going to a tattoo shop, lol.)

15) Stop drinking alcohol. Eh, mostly complete.

Categories: Goals

Monthly Goals | October 2021

It’s hard to believe that the last quarter of 2021 starts on Friday. Where did this year go? However, I’m not complaining because we’re entering my favorite time of the year and I can’t wait for all of the fun holiday festivities to kick into high gear. Bring on the pumpkins and Thanksgiving and the Christmas decorations. I’m ready for all of it!

Here are a few of the goals I’ll be working on this month:

1) Get my third tattoo. Next Friday (the 8th) will mark 6 years since my grandma passed away, and I would like to honor that day by getting my third tattoo since it’s one I’m getting in her memory. It feels funny to say that because it’s not like my grandma would be all too thrilled for me to get a tattoo, but it’s something I’ve wanted for a while and I just need to book the dang appointment finally!

2) Keep ice water at my desk all day long. One of my yearly goals is to become a regular water drinker and I have not accomplished that goal yet. There are still three months left in 2021, though, so I can try to get closer to the goal than I am right now. The original goal I set for myself back in January to help me form a more regular water-drinking habit was to always keep water nearby while I’m working. I think that’s really how to form a habit like this: finding natural opportunities to add water to my life. So let’s see if I can make this oh-so-simple goal happen. I’m not even asking myself to, like, drink an entire bottle of water during my workday; I just want to have it nearby to sip on when I get thirsty.

3) Log my food every day on My Fitness Pal. I’ve been having a lot of complicated feelings these days about my body, mostly in the stuff I’m realizing it can’t do. It’s something I want to talk about in a blog post, but every time I try to get my thoughts out, it turns into gibberish. It’s hard when I love the body I have and I have made so much progress with my self-esteem to get to this place and I’m all about fat positivity… but I also know that to do the sorts of things I want to do, I need to lose weight because my body physically cannot do it at the size it’s at. Anyway, hopefully, I’ll get my thoughts in order to write about it. But one of the things I want to start doing is being more mindful of what I’m eating and that starts with logging my food, even though it’s tedious and annoying.

4) Clean my goddamn oven. Will this goal ever get done? Sure it will! I’m going to do it in October. I WILL. I PROMISE.

5) Dress up for Halloween. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in quite some time, and since I’m going to be handing out candy to kiddos at my mom’s house like I did last year, I want to dress up in something fun. Usually, I opt for something “punny” but that’s usually because I’m trying to find a costume at the last minute and those are easy to throw together. We’ll see what I come up with!

Do you have any goals for October? Are you dressing up for Halloween? 

Categories: Goals

2021 Goals | Q2 Update

Hi, friends and a very happy Friday to you! Today, I thought it was more than time to check in on my 2021 goals, as we’re past the halfway mark of the year. What?! It’s so crazy to think that it’s almost time for fall and football season. And before we know it: Halloween and Thanksgiving and the holiday season! Wahoo!

During the halfway point of any year, I like to take stock of my goals and make changes as I see fit. A lot has happened in these last 6 months and what I wanted at the beginning of 2021 isn’t necessarily true now. In the end, I changed just two of my goals and I’m excited to make some real progress on the other ones I left alone. Let’s review!

1) Buy a new sectional, coffee table, and area rug. I purchased my sectional in Q1 and was hoping to at least purchase a new area rug in Q2, but other purchases took precedence. Hopefully in Q3!

2) Work out three times a week. I struggled with this goal a lot in Q1 and most of Q2, but then, I got a great recommendation from San about setting aside three days per week as “workout days” (i.e., I must work out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays—no excuses). Since then, I have worked out three days per week consistently! Isn’t it funny how sometimes it just takes someone offering the simplest solution that ends up working the best?

3) Start the process of becoming vegetarian by cutting out red meat and pork and having one meatless day once a week. No progress made. Womp.

4) Become a regular water drinker. Semi-progress made? I feel like I am doing better at this point in the year than where I started, but it’s still not a regular part of my day.

5) Experiment with an elimination diet. No progress made. I am really curious to do an elimination diet for gluten especially, but I get really scared about it. I eat a lot of gluten! I’d like to do a Q3 elimination diet, possibly in September. (Right in time for football season, when I eat all of the subs and pizza!)

6) Set a budget and be diligent about it. Well, my budget is set and there are certain areas where I’m doing really well (my savings goals, especially) and other areas where I’m struggling (food budget, shopping). I hope to be a lot more diligent about my budget over the second half of the year.

7) Save 20% of my income. At the end of the year, have $3,500 saved in my emergency fund and $3,000 saved in my car down payment fund. I’m changing this goal because, well, saving 20% of my income is not wholly achievable for me. It is doable, but it means seriously cutting down in other areas and that’s just not fun for me. And I need my budget to work for me. So, instead, I’m going to challenge myself to hit these two numbers (which means saving $200 per month in each fund over the next 6 months).

8) Complete the 2021 Unread Shelf Project. I am trucking along with this challenge:

9) Read The Count of Monte Cristo. I’m nearly finished: 25 issues to go! I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with this novel and I’m going to be sad when it’s over.

10) Finish the year with 35% of my books being by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community. My percentage came down a bit in Q2, as I’m now at 36% (I was at 46% after Q1). In Q3, I want to seek out more diversity in my romances, especially queer romances.

11) Reach out to one friend a week. Build an earring collection (15+ earrings). I’m replacing this goal with a new one. I have a lot of thoughts about it, mainly how we all have different communication styles and, for me, reaching out to people isn’t something that comes naturally to me. (Hence, why I made this goal!) And while I am consistently trying to get better at my communication and not rely on my friends to make all of the effort (I know how frustrating that can be!), I also feel like I do a fairly good job of keeping in touch with my close circle of friends. I’m not as great at checking in with those outside that circle. For me, it’s simply that I have limited energy and I want to expend it on the people I am closest with. So, with all that said, this goal is changing to building an earring collection as I recently discovered that I can wear earrings. What a world! I’d like to have a small collection of earrings (around 15) by the end of the year. Right now, I’m at 5.

12) Start dating again. Success!

13) Work through one Bible study this year. I haven’t started anything yet, but I do have my eye on this Bible study that a trusted blogger recommended. We’ll see, though.

14) Get my third tattoo. Not yet, but this is most definitely getting completed in Q3!

15) Stop drinking alcohol. While I did break this goal to enjoy myself at my cousin’s wedding, it’s the only time I’ve done so this year and I am still considering this goal a success so far. The only reason I’ve decided to give up alcohol is because, oftentimes, my body doesn’t process it well (I can break out in hives, get overheated and flushed, and sometimes even feel like I’ve been drugged after just a few sips). But sometimes, I do just fine! When I set this goal, it was to practice living an alcohol-free lifestyle and not feel like I had to drink alcohol in situations that deemed it “appropriate.” Of course, by that logic, I should have gone alcohol-free at the wedding but I wanted to enjoy myself and alcohol gives me the social lubricant to do that. I’m still not exactly sure what I want this lifestyle to look like, but I do know that I don’t miss drinking alcohol.

How are your yearly goals going?