Hi, friends! I know a lot of people felt like January was the slowest month ever, but it went by at warp speed for me. Maybe because I was so busy at work and every weekend was crazy? February looks to be the same, so I’m sure it’s going to speed by just like January did. Whew.

I’ve got some new goals for February to talk about but first, let’s discuss my January goals!

January Goals

1) Drink water every day. Mostly complete. I marked off 25/31 days on the calendar I’m using to keep track of the healthy goals I’m setting each month, and I consider that a huge win. I’ve found that as long as I have my Yeti tumbler filled with ice water, I have no problem drinking water. But it’s just that simple act of going into the kitchen, getting my tumbler, filling it with ice, and then adding water… I find myself resistant to doing it. (Or maybe I’m just being lazy?) It’s the oddest thing. But I’m getting better at just doing it even when I don’t want to, and soon, it will become an autopilot thing. Just have to make it a daily habit.

2) Write 10,000 words in my novel. I wrote 8,300 words so I didn’t meet my goal but I’m still proud of myself for writing this month! It’s been tremendously difficult to get back into a normal pace of writing after NaNoWriMo.

3) Work out 13 times. I worked out 11 times so I didn’t meet my goal for this one, either. Womp! I need to get back into the habit of early morning workouts because I’ve been going after work (around 6pm) and it’s so crowded and I feel intimidated by all the super-fit people. Early mornings are so much better for me.

4) Read Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America. I started this book but abandoned it after 30 pages because I just didn’t feel like going through all the emotions of the 2016 election anymore. I wish I had read it when it was first published (early in 2017) because I think it would have brought me great comfort then.

5) Start meditating. I didn’t do this every day but most days! I found this really great 30-day meditation challenge on YouTube that was super helpful and made me really fall in love with meditating. I meditate at night, right before bed, and it is such a peaceful way to end the day.

6) Switch over my files. I didn’t do this, oops.

7) Schedule an eye appointment. I had an eye appointment in early January, where it was confirmed that my eyesight got slightly worse as did my astigmatism.

8) Cancel my “checking plus” account. I forgot about this!

9) Play with the cats for at least 15 minutes every day. Not every day, but I did get into a better routine of playing with them at night. They love it, I love it, a win-win all-around!

10) Check my bank account every night. Yes! I’m in a much better habit of checking my bank account nightly and keeping tabs on it. Yay!

Goals for February

1) Eat one serving of fruit every day. This is my February’s health challenge. Real talk: I can’t remember the last time I ate fruit. Eeks. I’m so picky when it comes to food, especially so when it comes to fruit, and there are so many varieties that I won’t eat. However, there are a good number of fruits that I love: strawberries, pineapple, grapes, oranges, kiwi, peaches, watermelon, etc. That’s plenty to choose from and I need to eat at least a serving every day.

2) Write 12,000 words in my novel. I have to “make up” for the 2,000 words I didn’t write in January, so in February, it’s up to 12,000 words. Eeks. Let’s hope I can buckle down and do it!

3) Work out 14 times. By the end of February, I need to hit 25 workouts to stay on track for my 150 workout goal. That means I need to log 14 workouts. (I’ve already crossed two off the list!)

4) Read The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. February’s challenge for the Unread Shelf reading challenge is to read a book that’s been gifted to you. A little more than six months ago, a dear friend gave me this book. She was leaving to spend a year traveling the world with her partner and decided to gift her friends some of her most-loved books (she had to give up the majority of her belongings since she wouldn’t have a home base for a while). I’m excited to dive into a book that was so lovingly selected for me!

5) Participate in a mud run. My “do something new every month” goal for February, and I have to thank my mom for this one. She found this mud run a few months ago and begged me to do it with her. After I saw that it wasn’t going to be super difficult and hardcore, I agreed. It will be an interesting time, that’s for sure!

6) Order Warby Parker try-ons. I have a brand-new prescription for glasses and I think it’s time to upgrade my current frames into something else. I’m thinking of trying out the Warby Parker try-on program (you pick out five glasses from their site, they send them to you to “try on” for five days, and then you send them back in a prepaid package).

7) Schedule vet checkups for the girls. It’s been about a year (a little longer for Eloise) since the girls have been to the vet, and I just got an email that Lila is due for shots (which means Eloise is, too). Wish me luck in this endeavor. I have no idea how Lila is going to handle being at the vet—she barely even lets me hold her!

8) Develop a nighttime routine. This is my biggest goal for February. I really need to develop a nighttime routine that works, one that relaxes me and where I can go to bed at a decent time (ideally, 9:30pm). I’ve already started planning it out, but implementing it is going to be an interesting task.

9) Cancel checking plus. Well, I didn’t do this in January like I was supposed to, so back on the list it goes for February.

10) Switch over my files. Another task that I didn’t complete in January. This really shouldn’t take me longer than 15 minutes, but I keep procrastinating about it!

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

I’m structuring my goals a bit differently this year. I’m setting 10 goals every month: the first five will relate to my yearly goals and the rest will be more of a “to-do list” of sorts. Those will typically be one-off goals I want to accomplish in the month, simple things I can check off easily. We’ll see how this new goal-setting structure works for me. It may be too much! But it’s an experiment of sorts.

1) Drink water every day. This is my healthy challenge for January, something I want to carry with me throughout the year. I’ve recently learned that I’m chronically dehydrated because I just don’t drink enough water. There are some days when I don’t drink any water. (I KNOW. Believe me, I know.) It’s easy to recover from chronic dehydration: just drink water! That’s all I need to do. It will help me have more energy, feel better, sleep better, and, well, without getting too TMI here, have better digestion. I have my trusty YETI tumbler and am aiming to finish one full tumbler of water every day.

2) Write 10,000 words in my novel. It’s time to get back to that novel of mine. 🙂 My goal is to finish the first draft during Q1 and I believe I have about 30,000 words left to write. So, you do the math for how I came up with this magic 10k number. I wrote 50k words in November so 10,000 should be a breeze, right? Riiiiiight.

3) Work out 13 times. This is the magic number I need to hit every month in order to mark off my “150 workouts” goal. I’d love to stay on track every month so I’m not scrambling to finish at the end of the year.

4) Read Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America. The Unread Shelf Project challenge for January is to read any random unread book on our shelves, so I picked this one. I bought this book years ago, right around the time it was published, and have let it sit on my shelves month after month. The beginning of this election year seems like a good time to finally crack it open.

5) Start meditating. This is my “do something new” goal for January. It took me quite a while to figure out exactly what new thing I wanted to try this month, as January is going to be a busy one for me and I wanted to set myself up for success. Enter: meditation. Meditation is something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time because I know how good it is for those who struggle with anxiety. I’m using a 30-day “how to meditate” challenge via the Calm app and I hope by the end of it, meditation will be a normal part of my life!

6) Switch over my files. It’s that time of year! I want to move my 2019 files into my bigger filing box and set up new files for 2020. I also want to reorganize my filing box and shred any bills/paperwork that are seven years old. This process is starting to feel outdated now that just about all my bills/paperwork are digital (or can be easily accessed online) but there are still some hard copies I need to file away and definitely lots of papers from 2013 to shred.

7) Schedule an eye appointment. I haven’t had an eye appointment in about two years. I was waiting to run out of contacts, which happened in early December but that’s also when I maxed out my FSA. Ha. So I will schedule my eye appointment this month now that I have a freshly replenished FSA. I’m debating if I want to get new glasses this year… depends on how much my prescription has changed, I think!

8) Cancel my “checking plus” account. I was “bullied”* into adding this “checking plus” feature to my checking account a few years ago, and as far as I know, it doesn’t have any real benefit for my checking account. It’s time to cancel it – that’s $7 down the drain every month!

*Okay, by bullied, I mean they mentioned it to me one time when I had to call about a checking issue and I pretended to be really interested in it because I’m SUCH a goddamn people pleaser and then had it added to my account. 

9) Play with the cats for at least 15 minutes every day. I really need to get better at playing with my cats. They are lovable and playful little ladies but I can get very lazy sometimes. I have some fun toys that I keep hidden (like teasers and a laser and a robotic toy) that I need to bring out every night. I love playing with them and they always make me laugh – I just get lazy about it!

10) Check my bank account every night. 2020 is the year I get strict with my budget. I’m calling it here! I have gotten very lazy because I’m finally at a place where I don’t really need to worry about money. I don’t live paycheck-to-paycheck and I can always count on money being there. Buuut… I’m also in credit card debt, should have a helluva lot more money saved, and get a little too “spendy” at times. So, I’ve given myself a shiny new budget to follow and am going to get very strict about checking my bank account nightly and making sure to keep up with my budget day-to-day.