I am so excited about May. It marks the first month post-college and I have so much to look forward to! Between my graduation, cruise, and hopeful big news to come, it’s going to be a fun month! I’m excited about life without the constant pressure of school (although the constant pressure of finding a job is no better). I expect a lot from May and I can’t wait to see what’s next for me!

Last month, I had some simple goals:

Complete the IronGirl 5K. This was an easily completed goal, and I even beat my previous PR! I hadn’t been running much beforehand so I wasn’t expecting a PR but I have one and I’m very happy with the way this race went for me.

Keep school the priority. Another big fat plus! I let blogging fall to the back burner in April as I worked on assignments and studied. I put in a lot of hours of homework and I’m just so happy with the way I focused myself. But I’m even happier that school is OVER FOR GOOD!

Clean up my resume and begin applying to jobs. Check! In April, I applied for four different jobs in four different fields. And most everyone knows I had an interview with a company I was really excited to work for last week, and my second interview was yesterday. Well, the job was not what I was expecting. From 10:30 – 5:30 (with a one-hour break for lunch), we visited 39 companies to sell them a product. I do not do sales. At all. Not even a little bit. And especially not door-to-door sales. Needless to say, I was very honest about how this wasn’t the job I was expecting. I wasn’t hired for the job and I’m happy about it. Sort of. I am a little disappointed I didn’t get to turn down the job! 😉

Start meal planning and limit trips to the grocery store. Negative. Wow, I didn’t even attempt this goal. I did tell my mom that I will be taking over grocery shopping once I have a job because I just want to get this under control!

Take Dutch on longer walks. So-so. I did well at the beginning of April but fell off the wagon towards the end of the month. (Can I blame school for this?) Still, this kid used to be able to speed-walk 2 miles with no problems and he starts lagging after a mile. I need to get his endurance up again!

My goals for May are simple: graduate from college, enjoy my cruise, apply to 3 jobs a day, restart Project 365 (I totally fell off the wagon in April and I’m determined to be successful at this!), and take Dutch on two long walks a week.

I have high hopes for April. By the end of this month, I will have one more assignment due (a one-question essay final) until graduation. It feels surreal. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For my professors to tell me I didn’t learn enough to graduate with this degree. It happened before, so I’m on pins and needles, hoping it won’t happen a second time.

April marks a month of preparing for life after college, taking my health seriously (I mean it, this time!), and organizing my life from the inside out. It’s sure to be a busy month, but I can’t wait to dig into all it has in store for me!

For once, I managed to accomplish all the goals I set last month. I didn’t make them too hard, as I was dealing with shingles and trying to figure out why I ended up with them so my goals were to heal and cope with stress, as well as prepare to read my short story aloud. I did heal, even though there were days it felt like my blisters were never going to go away. And I have taken some steps to help with my stress levels: to-do lists, making school a priority, knowing when I need to relax, and taking long walks when I feel overwhelmed. So far, so good. As for my short story? Well, you all know how that went!

For April, though, I have some very specific goals to accomplish:

• Complete the IronGirl 5K. I’m still not sure how I’m going to feel on race day, knowing I should be running the half-marathon. But every time I think of the race, it feels so good to know I just need to accomplish 3.1 miles, not 13.1. Ideally, I’d like to PR but my running hasn’t been up to par these last few weeks so I’m just hoping to run a good majority of it.
• Keep school the priority. I have two exams, a slew of blogs and quizzes, a portfolio website, and a short story standing between me and graduation. I want to give my full focus and attention to school and finish strong and luckily, the workload isn’t too insane. As long as I keep on top of everything, it should be a smooth month, school-wise.
• Clean up my resume and begin applying to jobs. I had to submit a resume for my capstone course and it was pretty rough, to say the least. Luckily, some awesome resume rock stars looked it over and gave me lots of pointers. Since then, I haven’t done much with it but I do want to spruce it up to make it more presentable. Also, happening this month: applying to jobs. I’m excited to see what’s out there, but not fooling myself that I’m going to find something quickly. I’m prepared to search for 3 months before I’ll let discouragement set in.
• Start meal planning and limit trips to the grocery store. My mom and I are terrible at meal planning. We usually end up at the store 4-5 times a week because we only buy for a few days. In the past, we have tried to become better at planning our meals throughout the week but we always fall off the horse. We end up spending 3x as much in groceries because we’re poor planners. Plus, this gives us an opportunity to try out new recipes as we usually just resort to the same stuff every week. (Any good websites for meal planning?)
• Take Dutch on longer walks. Since we live in an apartment, Dutch gets a short little walk a few times a day. But even at age 9, he’s an active little guy and I know how much he enjoys our longer walks – even if they do make him incredibly tired for the rest of the day. I want to get better at taking him on longer walks throughout the week, at least 1-2 miles, because I want him to stay active and it makes him so happy.

What are you most excited about in April?

February’s goals didn’t quite pan out as I expected. My running goals changed dramatically. Although I was running 3 times a week, it came to the point where I was just trying to finish the miles, not running for any time goal. And now I’ve come to a dead stop. Since I’m not exercising until my shingles are completely gone, it’s all up in the air. I could be back in the game next weekend, or it could take a matter of weeks. It changes a lot.

Growing up, February was my least favorite month of the year. The thrill of a new year was over and I was faced with a long month of no school breaks at all. Spring Break seemed incredibly far away and Valentine’s Day is probably my least favorite holiday. (Halloween is a very close second.)

February really doesn’t have much to offer itself to me. I have a long month of homework, half-marathon training, and regular ole work ahead of me.

But I’m also happier than I’ve ever been. I’m not sure why, but I’m going with it! There’s such joy in unexplained happiness!

Onto my goals for February…

Establish a bedtime routine. I don’t have much of a bedtime routine. I’m usually watching TV while reading blogs until 10:30pm, realizing how late it is and how tired I am and hurriedly rush through my bedtime routine before collapsing into bed after 11pm. Since I wake up at 5am, I really need to get to bed by 9pm. I want to establish a better routine of shutting down my laptop, taking Dutch out, washing my face and brushing my teeth, as well as preparing my school bags and breakfast for the next day. I’m aiming to hit the sack at 9:30pm this month and hopefully inching my way up to the 9pm time slot by March.

Run 3 times a week, hitting my goal half-marathon pace at least once. Lately, I’ve been having some really, really good runs. I’m actually enjoying it, even if my time is slower than I like. I’m trying to take the focus off the numbers and onto just running and having fun. So far, it’s working. I’m shooting to run the marathon in 2:55, which puts me at a 13:21 pace. For me, that’s incredibly fast. (For others, incredibly slow. Ha!) Just once, I want to hit that pace to give me the confidence I need to be able to run this way on race day.

Begin to create recipe cards. Stefanie is the one who got my gears spinning on this one. My mom and I have the hardest time coming up with meal ideas and the problem stems from a) we are members of the National Society for Indecisiveness (well, maybe. We haven’t made up our minds yet.) and b) we don’t meal plan correctly. I’m hoping to be able to start a little collection of meal ideas so we can refer to them while meal planning, making the process so much easier.

That’s it. Just three goals, because I think it’s the perfect amount. They all seemingly have to do with health and fitness (sleep, running, and eating) because that’s all that seems to consume my thoughts nowadays. If I can complete all these goals, I am treating myself to an Otterbox cell phone cover. I’ve been coveting this for a while but it’s pricey so I want to work for it!

Do you have any goals for February? What are you hoping to accomplish this month?