Well, we made it to Friday, although I don’t think days really matter that much anymore. Plans for this weekend include napping, cleaning, reading, and probably a trip to Publix at some point.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to set goals for April because… what is even the point? But I made a few simple goals that are mostly centered on maintaining my sanity during this unprecedented time. That’s all we can really hope for, right?

First, let’s take a look back at the goals I set in March. (Remember that innocent time before we were all locked down due to a global pandemic?)

1) Don’t eat fast food. Complete! I’m actually very proud of myself for abstaining from fast food this month, especially when things got crazy and stopping at McDonald’s might have been an easy choice. I’d like to keep this up!

2) Work on my novel for 30 minutes every day. Not complete. Ugh, my novel has completely fallen by the wayside. I’d like to get back to it in April.

3) Work out 17 times. Not complete. I worked out 11 times in March, eeks! I am falling behind on my goal of working out 150 times this year, so fingers crossed I can get caught up in April.

4) Read Every Wild Heart by Meg Donohue. Complete! It was an enjoyable book, but I did put it in the stack of books that I’m going to give away at some point. A good book, but not one I necessarily feel like keeping on my shelves.

5) Go kayaking. Surprisingly, I made this happen in March! My friend who organized the trip said it wasn’t “true” kayaking since we were basically pushed downstream and rarely had to paddle, but I’m still counting it. 🙂

6) Order new glasses. Not complete. Another goal that completely fell by the wayside due to the pandemic.

7) Buy a desk. Complete! This purchase has become more and more necessary now that I’m working from home full-time for the foreseeable future. I’m glad I finally have a desk!

8) Sell my cat carriers. Not complete. For obvious reasons.

9) Cancel checking plus. Lololol, again no.

10) Wash and vacuum my car. Not complete. I didn’t get it done before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, and I am surely not doing it now. My car currently has a tint of green thanks to all the pollen and it’s driving me crazy, but not enough to use a public car washing station.

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April Goals

Here are the five simple goals I’m setting this month:

1) Go for a daily walk. Even if it’s just for 10 minutes, I need to get outside and move my body.

2) Make a daily schedule. My days feel incredibly unstructured when I don’t make a schedule every day. I don’t have to follow it precisely, but it can help to add a little bit of structure to my days.

3) Exercise 17 times. If I can make this happen, I will be back on track for my working out goal for 2020. My workouts aren’t all that exciting since my gym is closed and I’m not keen on going to public parks right now. (I’ve been too lazy to look up streaming workouts.) But getting exercise has become even more important since I’m working from home in a tiny 515-square-foot apartment. (I’m pretty sure I walk about 100 steps a day now.)

4) Adhere to my 30-minute Instagram limit. I set up a reminder notification on Instagram to alert me when I’ve been on the app for 30 minutes. This is my cue to get off the app and put down my phone. I’m not always the best at doing that, though, and I think for my mental health’s sake, I really need to in April.

5) Order new glasses. This goal is not so much about self-care, but it will make me happy to have new glasses delivered!

Do you have any goals for April? 

It’s the beginning of the month, which means it’s time for a goals update. I’ll admit that February wasn’t a great month for goals, as I only achieved half of what I set out to do. Womp! But February always seems to be a rather lackluster month, at least for me, so this isn’t entirely surprising. It just means I can come back with a bang in March, right? Right. Let’s review:

1) Eat one serving of fruit every day. Nope. I was remarkably bad at this goal! I really need to get my act together about eating fruits and veggies on a daily basis.

2) Write 12,000 words in my novel. Nope. I wrote maybe 2,000 words and then I hit a major roadblock in my story. I’m nearing the end of the novel so I really need to figure out how I want things to end. I started to write a scene that causes my characters to break up (called the “dark moment”) but it felt so inauthentic and I didn’t want to write myself into a hole. So I decided to spend February brainstorming about my novel rather than writing so I can come back to it in March with fresh eyes. (Time will tell if this strategy worked.)

3) Work out 14 times. Nope. I worked out just 10 times in February so now I’m behind on my goal of working out 150 times this year by four workouts.

4) Read The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. Yes! Finally, something I can mark as complete! I read this book to fulfill the February category for the Unread Shelf Challenge, gifted to you. I loved this book immensely and am so glad I read it!

5) Participate in a mud run. Complete! It was a highlight of my year so far. So much fun!

6) Order Warby Parker try-ons. Complete! I ordered them towards the end of the month and had such a fun time trying them on and modeling them for people.

7) Schedule vet check-ups for the girls. Complete! Scheduled and done. Ellie only needed a wellness check and Lila had to get two shots, poor thing. But I’m glad that’s over and done with for the year!

8) Develop a nighttime routine. Not complete. As I sit here typing up this post at 10pm, yeah, the whole “developing a nighttime routine” isn’t going so well for me.

9) Cancel checking plus. Not complete. This is such an easy task! Why can’t I get it done?!

10) Switch over my files. Complete! Yay! 2019 files have been moved over to my big filing bin and I also organized that bin, getting rid of a lot of stuff I had been keeping (like school transcripts and some online courses I had done in my early-to-mid twenties).

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March Goals

1) Don’t eat fast food. I eat fast food a couple of times a month, which is a bad habit I really need to break. It’s just so easy to whip through the drive-thru on a Friday afternoon—it’s become a little “treat.” So my healthy challenge for March is going to be to stop eating fast food (and hopefully, it’s a habit I can keep up well after the month is over!)

2) Work on my novel for 30 minutes every day. Rather than a word count goal this month, I’m setting an easy time goal. And this can be anything from brainstorming or outlining to writing. A very doable goal!

3) Work out 17 times. I’m behind on my goal of logging 150 workouts this year. To get back on track, I need to log 17 workouts this month. Fingers crossed I can make it happen!

4) Read Every Wild Heart by Meg Donohue. March’s challenge for the Unread Shelf Challenge is to read the book that’s been on your unread shelf the longest, which is this book. I won it in an Instagram giveaway years ago and haven’t ever felt compelled to pick it up. It has a 3.37 rating on Goodreads so I don’t have high hopes for this one, unfortunately.

5) Go kayaking. This is my “try something new” goal for March, and one I know for sure will get checked off as I’m planning an outdoorsy weekend with a group of friends this month. We’re going to go to a natural spring to go kayaking and paddleboarding, and since it’s a 3.5-hour drive from where we live, we’re going to make a weekend out of it. I’m both looking forward to it and having lots of anxiety about it because, ya know, that’s how social anxiety works!

6) Order new glasses. I am still debating between three separate pairs, but since Warby Parker glasses are so inexpensive (compared to Visionworks and the like—my last pair of glasses was around $400), I may go crazy and buy two pairs.

7) Buy a desk. A few weeks ago, I decided that I really want a desk and I haven’t been able to get the idea out of my head. I’m imagining having a space to work that’s not my kitchen island and a place to organize mail and important documents. I’m thinking something really simple.

8) Sell my cat carriers. Now that I have a new and improved cat carrier, I want to sell the bulky kennels I bought before I got the girls. They should be pretty easy to sell, I’m thinking, and it will be nice to have more room in my outside storage closet!

9) Cancel checking plus. Back on the list it goes. Maybe the third time is the charm?

10) Wash and vacuum my car. Is anyone else ridiculously bad about vacuuming their car until it absolutely needs it? Oof. This month, my car needs a little extra love at the car wash.

What’s something you want to accomplish this month?

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!

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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.