With two days left of October, I’m here to recap the goals I set this month. I was mostly successful (3/5) and the goals I didn’t complete, didn’t get done for good reason. Let’s review!

1) Go on a spending freeze. Complete! (Mostly.) While I wasn’t 100% successful, I did spend a whole lot less this month and consciously chose not to buy things, even if I wanted them. And I consider that a win!

2) Order Warby Parker sunglasses try-ons. Complete! And I ordered myself a new pair of prescription sunglasses yesterday. I can’t wait for them to get here! I have a little over $400 left in my FSA for this year that I need to “use or lose” and these sunglasses took out a large chunk of that money. Which is good! (I don’t really want to buy ibuprofen and contact solution in bulk just to spend the money, lol.)

3) Limit my sugar intake. Complete-ish. I did two great things this month to help with my sugar intake: I started having a smoothie every day and switched out my normally sugary cereal breakfast for eggs and sausage. (I do want to switch from sausage to a big serving of fruit, but baby steps!) I definitely notice that I’m eating a lot less chocolate and sugar as a whole. I could still work on my soda intake, though.

4) Schedule a slew of doctor’s appointments. Not complete. I was hemming and hawing about this goal, and then everything changed with my company in mid-October, giving me a whole new health insurance plan starting in November. So I decided to wait until November to take care of these visits.

5) Prepare myself for NaNoWriMo 2020. Not complete. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about novel writing and whether or not this is even a dream I want to attempt anymore. The thought of not forcing myself to sit at a computer and bang out a novel feels… freeing. But it also makes me sad. So maybe there’s still some desire there? I don’t know. I’ve been talking this over with my writing partner who has given me a lot of great advice (mainly: you don’t have to do NaNoWriMo, you know. You could write, like, 100 words a week if that’s all you want to do.) and spending a lot of time thinking about what I really want from my creative life. Is it to write a novel? Or is there something else brewing inside that I can’t give space to grow because I’m so focused on this goal of writing a novel? I will probably write a more coherent blog post about this once I’ve done more thinking and journaling about this, but that’s where I’m at right now. I will not be doing NaNoWriMo 2020, and that feels like a weight off my shoulders.

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November should be an interesting month. For one, it’s my birthday month! While I’m less than jazzed about my birthday this year, I’m going to take the time to enjoy the day as much as I can. My birthday falls on the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year, so at least I don’t have to share it with a holiday! I’m also working my first election and that will be a very interesting experience (if only I didn’t have to deal with all this anticipatory anxiety beforehand—I am not sleeping well because of it, argh). And November, god willing, will involve a Biden/Harris election win and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Please, please, please, please, please. Here are the goals I’m setting this month!

1) Schedule a dentist appointment and my annual well woman’s visit. Both of these visits will be free with my new insurance plan that kicks in on Sunday, so it makes sense to get them done this year since it’s been almost 10 months since my last dental cleaning (!) and over a year since my last well-women’s exam.

2) Work the polls! I’m excited/nervous about the opportunity to be a poll worker in this election. It’s going to be a long day, but I’m looking forward to being able to help out my community and experience this most important part of the voting process. Poll workers are so important, even more so in this election!

3) Make a new dessert for Thanksgiving. I thought this might be a fun goal to pursue this month! I tend to stick to my tried-and-true favorites when it comes to cooking and baking, but it’s fun to experiment from time to time. Hopefully, I’ll discover a new favorite recipe!

4) Go for a walk outside every day. I feel so much better when I get outside for a midday walk, even if it’s 100 degrees outside. I need the vitamin D! There have been days where I don’t go outside at all, and that’s just not good for my physical or mental health. I hope that by challenging myself for a daily walk (even if it’s just 10-15 minutes!), I can develop a new habit for myself.

5) Start my Christmas shopping. Ideally, I’d love to start and finish my Christmas shopping in November, but we’ll see if I have the willpower to not continue to buy things off my family’s wish lists in December. But I definitely need to get things started, and I think I could have at least the bulk of it completed this month.

Do you have any November goals?

I made things incredibly easy on myself for September, setting a simple goal of having a successful move. And I think I definitely accomplished that! I didn’t feel too stressed out—most likely because I had eight days to be fully moved out of my old place and I was moving apartments in the same complex, so it was easy to grab a few things and bring them over. I’m fully moved in and unpacked now, and that feels great! Of course, I still have things to hang on the walls, but I’m slowly working my way through my box of wall hangings. It should be done sometime this month. Hooray!

And now it’s October (well, almost). I’m ready to think about goals again! Here’s what I have planned:

1) Go on a spending freeze. I am not looking forward to doing my budget update for September because it has been spendy, spendy, spendy! I knew it would happen and I planned for things to be a little crazy around my move. But my wallet needs a break from the constant spending. And I think my brain does, too. I need some delayed gratification! So, I am putting a freeze on all unnecessary spending in October and focusing on building my savings back up.

2) Order Warby Parker sunglasses try-ons. I’ve been meaning to do this for months! It’s beyond time for me to upgrade my prescription sunglasses and since I loved the experience of ordering eyeglasses with Warby Parker, it makes sense to use them for sunglasses.

3) Limit my sugar intake. The last few times I’ve had blood work done, I’ve had concerning numbers that point to diabetes being in my future if I don’t clean up my eating. I’m not yet pre-diabetic, but I’m close and the hypoglycemia episodes I experience frequently are a good indicator that things could go downhill fast. So it’s time to work on this! I’m going to start by limiting my sugar intake, as the amount of sugar I eat on a daily basis is… ridiculous. Here are the three ways I am going to do this:

• Eat a protein-rich breakfast—no more sugary cereal!
• Drink less soda—ideally, only one small (8 oz) can per day.
• Watch my snacks—stop buying candy and break-and-bake cookies, opt for just a small cup of ice cream in the evening

I’m not looking to lose weight (although I’m sure I will since I’ve been eating like absolute shit lately), but rather improve my blood work numbers and hopefully get rid of these annoying hypoglycemia episodes!

(I hate that I have to say this, but please be kind in your comments about this goal. There’s no reason to leave a nasty comment here. It’s not going to “inspire” me to suddenly eat better and will only force me to block your comment.)

4) Schedule a slew of doctor’s appointments. I have put off so many doctor’s appointments this year, due to COVID-19. Not only because I didn’t want to go into a doctor’s office in the early days of the pandemic, but also because so many of my doctors were near my office! But now that I’m working from home, that means a 40-minute drive. Um, no thanks? This month, I’d like to schedule a dentist appointment, a dermatology appointment for my annual skin check, and my annual well woman’s visit.

5) Prepare myself for NaNoWriMo 2020. We’re only 31 days out from NaNoWriMo 2020 (where I will challenge myself to write 50,000 words in 30 days). While I had hoped 2020 was the year I finally finished my novel (and maybe even started the editing process!), it was not to be. Major changes needed to happen in my novel, which necessitated going back to the drawing board to rework my plot. The plot is just about where it needs to be, and I want to use all of October making sure I’m ready to tackle NaNoWriMo in November.

What do you want to accomplish in October?

Happy Monday! Since I *only* finished one book last week, I decided to replace this week’s “What I’m Reading” post with September goals. Woo! First, let’s take a look back at August’s goals (spoiler alert: things did not go well, eeks).

1) Finish plotting out my novel. Not complete. Wahhh. I have the book plotted all the way to the “dark moment,” which is the moment in a romance novel where everything feels hopeless and the characters break up. I always get stuck on that section, so I’m glad I’ve figured it out. Now I just have to figure out how to get my characters back together. 🙂

2) Sell my TV stand. Not complete. It’s on Facebook Marketplace and I’ve had a lot of people interested in it, but nobody has come to pick it up. I put the ad up a week ago, though, so I’m not surprised it hasn’t sold yet! (I didn’t want to put it up too early and then have to spend weeks with my TV on the floor or balanced on a bunch of boxes, ha.)

3) Order Warby Parker sunglasses try-ons. Not complete, again. 🙁 I just kept forgetting to do this!

4) Complete a set of pre-move decluttering tasks, including my wardrobe, my filing system, my bathroom, the girls’ basket o’ stuff, and my “junk” baskets. Complete! It feels so good to declutter. I made a list of all the different rooms in my apartment (kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and walk-in closet), and every day, I select one room and complete a decluttering task. So, one day, I would pull out a basket in my closet and declutter it. The next day, I would organize the medicine cabinet in my bathroom. Etc. I made a huge donation to Goodwill last weekend and I’ll probably have another big donation ready to go soon. Yay!

5) Work out 25 times in August. Nope. I think I worked out, like, 10 times. Oof. I need to get back to my working out game, but it’s just so easy to make excuses.

For September, I only have one goal: Have a successful move!

Moving is an exhausting process, and I’ll be doing the majority of it by myself (my brother will be moving my furniture). I want to get through this move without too much stress or anxiety. This will be my first time moving with cats so I’m a little nervous about that process—my plan is to close them in my bathroom (which opens into my walk-in closet) while we move out the furniture on Saturday and then bring them over to explore their new digs later that day. Hopefully, they will take to it well! (But, seriously, any advice about moving with cats is GREATLY appreciated! I am very nervous about how this will go, especially with Lila who is particularly skittish.) As long as I make it through September with my sanity intact, I will be one happy camper. 🙂

Hi, friends! I didn’t mean to go MIA after publishing Monday’s post, but woof, last week was a doozy. Work was intense and nonstop, and at the end of the day, all I wanted to do was lie on the couch and turn my brain off, not write a blog post. (And then there was the night when I got ONE hour of sleep. ONE! I just could not fall asleep for anything, and by 3:30AM, I decided to throw in the towel and start my workday. Oof.)

I’m hoping this week goes much better for me, and it’s shaping up to be a much slower-paced work week. Hooray for that! I’m using this week for all of my monthly wrap-up posts, which is why you’re not seeing a reading recap today. It’ll be back next week with a double-shot of reviews! For today, I wanted to discuss the goals I set in July. I completed 3/5, so it was a successful return to goal-setting!

July Goals

1) Work on my novel (and ONLY my novel) during my weekly writing dates. Complete! Aside from one week where I had to do work during my writing date, I spent all other writing dates focused solely on my novel. I found this really helpful guide to plotting out a romance novel and I am working through that right now before I go back to writing.

2) Sell my cat carriers. Complete! I was happy to get those beasts out of my apartment, for sure.

3) Order Warby Parker sunglasses try-ons. Not complete. Just one of those tasks I didn’t get around to in July.

4) Take Ellie on her first walk. Not complete. I’ve become very intimidated by the process, haha.

5) Launch a new blog theme. Complete! I love having a fresh new theme. It makes me so happy!

August Goals

I have lots of fun plans for August, mostly related to getting ready for my MOVE in September. Man, I am so ready to be in my new place! Hurry up, time. 🙂 Here are my goals for this month:

1) Finish plotting out my novel. I am about halfway through plotting out Act 2 of my novel, which means I should be able to get through the rest of it during my writing dates in August. And then I can get back to writing in September! Yay!

2) Sell my TV stand. Next on the list for my move: selling my TV stand. I’m planning on buying one of those cube shelves from Target to serve as my new TV stand because it can also function as a second bookshelf! 🙂

3) Order Warby Parker sunglasses try-ons. Let’s try this again!

4) Complete a set of pre-move decluttering tasks, including my wardrobe, my filing system, my bathroom, the girls’ basket o’ stuff, and my “junk” baskets. Gosh, is there anything better than decluttering? I haven’t done any sort of major decluttering project in a long, long time and I’m looking forward to getting rid of a lot of stuff before I move.

5) Work out 25 times in August. I am wayyy behind on my annual workout goal to log 150 workouts this year. By the end of August, I should be at 100 workouts, which means I need to log 25 workouts in August to catch up. I’ve been using the heat and busy work life as reasons why I’m not working out as much as I should, and I hope to get into a much better groove with exercise in August.

Did you set any goals for August?