July was a lot. There were a lot of doctor’s appointments, my first colonoscopy, a vacation with my mom, and a weekend away with friends. I pared down my goals list to just five things I wanted to accomplish, but even so, I only accomplished two of the five. I’m not feeling confident I’ll do any better in August (at least until my mental health improves), but I’m still going to make some goals and see what happens.

July Goals

1) Get through all of my medical appointments. Complete! I have one more medical appointment to get through (a follow-up with my GI doctor). The hard part is over for now, although I still need to do follow-up bloodwork with my primary doc and schedule carpal tunnel surgery. So the fun continues!

2) Start taking birth control. Complete! Although I believe my birth control is causing a severe depressive episode, so I stopped taking it. Ugh.

3) Watch Working Girl. Not complete. I was going to watch it this weekend, but I wasn’t in the right headspace for a movie.

4) Change my email address with my bank + all of my subscriptions. Not complete. I just didn’t get around to completing this goal in July.

5) Send the rest of my postcards. Not complete, again.

August Goals

Intentional Action

• Declutter four spaces in my home. My goal is one space per week and it can be as simple as one container or bin. I don’t need to overcomplicate this.
• Change my email address with my bank + all of my subscriptions. Rollover goal.
• Spend 10 minutes every week working on Facebook photo organization. One of my yearly goals is to download all of my photos on Facebook so I can officially delete my account, and it’s going to be quite the project. Not only do I want to download these photos, but I also want to put them in their rightful categories on Google Photos and make sure they’re dated correctly.
• Watch Working Girl. Rollover goal.

Healthy Routines

• Eat three servings of fruit/vegetables every day. This always feels like a stretch goal for me, even though it shouldn’t be. But maybe I can get myself together in August to eat like a proper adult.
• Do a gluten elimination diet. After all of the tests to figure out what’s causing my chronic diarrhea, I think the culprit is ultimately a gluten sensitivity. I am glad I did all of the additional tests to make sure there wasn’t something serious going on, but without any sort of diagnosis, I am left with potentially a gluten or dairy sensitivity. I strongly suspect it’s gluten. I have a follow-up appointment with my GI doctor on Friday, and I’m going to discuss a gluten elimination diet with her.
• Be compliant with my CPAP. Truth time: I have not been great about wearing my CPAP mask at night. In order to be compliant, I need to wear the mask for at least 4 hours a night, 21 days a month. In August, I am determined to be compliant.

Nagging Tasks

• Pay off London. Our London trip is so soon! (We leave September 30th.) I want to pay off the remainder of what I owe my mom so I don’t have that hanging over my head anymore.
• Go to afternoon tea with my mom. For Mother’s Day this year, I gifted my mom afternoon tea at a cute local place. She loves tea, but has never done one of these outings, so it’s beyond time for it to happen.
• Send the rest of my postcards. Rollover goal.

Do you have any goals for August?

June was a weird month because I had a lot of health issues and doctor’s appointments. July isn’t going to be any better with more doctor’s appointments and follow-up testing and my first colonoscopy. So I’m making July the month of kindness. I am going to be radically kind to myself and give myself the grace I need to get through these medical appointments, which will hopefully give me answers to all of my health concerns. I’ve pared down my July goals to just five things I want to try to accomplish, and most of those are small, easy goals.

But first! Let’s take a look back on my June goals.

June Goals

Intentional Action

• Buy new throw pillows – Complete! I was at Home Goods this weekend and found exactly what I was looking for. Woohoo!
• Change 5 email addresses – Mostly complete! I changed the email addresses for my electric company, gym, car loan, and phone. I wanted to change the email address I use at my bank, but I wasn’t able to do it online and didn’t feel like making a phone call.
• Finish Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi – Complete!
• Watch Working Girl – Not complete. Maybe this will be my “recovering from a colonoscopy” movie, hmm.

Healthy Routines

• Eat fruit with breakfast and a veggie snack, Monday – Friday – I did not track this in June, but I would say my completion percentage was under 10%.
• Five workouts at the gym per week – I am regularly doing four workouts per week: three HIIT classes and one spin class. I feel like that’s enough for me. If I can keep up this momentum, I’ll be a happy camper!
• Eat a salad twice per week – LOL, no. I started getting tired of my salads in June, so I stopped eating them.

Nagging Tasks

• Schedule a follow-up visit with my gynecologist – Complete! I do indeed have fibroids, which is why my periods suck. Blergh.
• Send the rest of my postcards – Not complete. I was very lazy in June.
• Do a Goodwill drop – Complete! It felt so good to get rid of so many things!

July Goals

1) Get through all of my medical appointments. It will be another busy month of medical appointments. Let’s review: abdominal ultrasound, routine dental cleaning, colonoscopy, nerve conduction study (for carpal tunnel), and a follow-up with my orthopedic regarding next steps with my carpal tunnel pain. The colonoscopy is going to be the big appointment to get through and I will be happy to have that behind (heh) me.

2) Start taking birth control. I have decided to start taking hormonal birth control to see if it helps regulate my periods. I have never had an issue with birth control (actually, I’ve been one of the lucky ones in that I usually don’t get a period when I’m on BC), so I hope it does the trick.

3) Watch Working Girl. Rollover goal.

4) Change my email address with my bank + all of my subscriptions. I will have to call my bank to get my email address changed, but it should be easy enough to change the email address attached to all of my subscription services.

5) Send the rest of my postcards. Rollover goal.

Do you have any goals for July?

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?

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?