It’s Q2 of 2023, friends! How did we get here already? I have been pretty satisfied with the way the first quarter turned out, especially as it relates to my goals. I got a lot accomplished! However, as I’ve been thinking about my goals, I’ve been craving simplicity. Setting 10 goals every month is a lot, and some of them were really just placeholders (do I need to tell you I’m going to recategorize another year of my blog, or can I just fill you guys in when I do my yearly goals update at the end of every quarter?). So, I’m shaking things up a bit and have settled on five goals for April. Much simpler, much more doable.

But before we get into April, we need to look back on how I did in March!

MARCH GOALS

1) Put my bedframe on Facebook Marketplace. Not complete. Well, technically, I did put my bedframe on Facebook Marketplace, and within 30 minutes, I had multiple offers. So, I realized that a) maybe I priced it too low originally ($50) and b) I need to wait to put it up for sale until I’m ready for it to be gone. It will probably sell much more quickly than I anticipated!

2) Recategorize all 2013 blogs. Complete!

3) Do the 30-day fitness challenge (found on Elisabeth’s blog, who found it on Kyria’s blog). LOL, no. I made it to day 12 or 13 and then gave up. I started to notice that I was putting off my Peloton workouts because I was so focused on this goal, and had to ask myself which was more important. In the end, I decided my Peloton workouts meant more to me so I willingly gave up on this challenge.

4) Do a few plantar fasciitis stretches every morning. Not complete. Maybe I’ll move this to the evening and combine it with my nighttime routine. I am wearing my PF slippers more often, though! I don’t wear them all the time, only when my heels start hurting, but they definitely lessen the pain.

5) Do a Goodwill drop and get rid of the old cat tower. Complete! I felt a little bad about getting rid of the cat tower since the cats liked to use it from time to time, but it was time to give it up. And now I feel like I have so much more room in my living room! I also did a nice little Goodwill drop last month – felt great to do that.

6) Work through the Anxiety Toolkit that my psychiatrist sent to me. Didn’t even open this once in March.

7) Order new bedding. Complete! It’s all ready and waiting to be made up on my new bed.

8) Watch a 90s classic rom-com. Not complete. I chose to watch silly reality TV shows rather than watching a movie.

9) Stand up for one hour each workday. Not complete.

10) Limit myself to two Ubereats orders and two takeout orders per week. Complete! I’m really proud of myself for making this happen.

APRIL GOALS

1) Keep a food journal. I need to start eating better, but I want to do it in a way that feels good. To start, I want to keep a food journal where I can list out what I ate in a day and how it made me feel. I don’t care about how many calories or carbs or macros I’m eating… I’m just curious if I can find any patterns in the way some foods make me feel.

2) Replace my bed. I’d really like to finally get this done in April! There is some coordination that has to happen, like having my brother order the bed through his work and then having him deliver it and put the bed I ordered together. But I should be able to make it happen this month!

3) Schedule a LASIK consultation. This is one of my 2023 goals. I don’t have to make a decision about LASIK this year, but I do want to know what my options are and how much I can expect it to cost me.

4) Work through the Anxiety Toolkit that my psychiatrist sent to me. Rollover goal.

5) Set a biweekly budget. I did not meet my savings goals in Q1, and that’s because I don’t have a concrete plan for my money right now. It means I’m more apt to spend money when I should be funneling it to my savings. I think setting a budget every two weeks (since I get paid every two weeks) should help rein in my spending a bit.

FEBRUARY GOALS

1) Decide on the mattress I want to buy. Complete! I finally decided on the mattress that I want and sent it to my brother so he can order it for me. Wahoo!

2) Recategorize all 2012 blogs. Complete! And I finished this with a few days to spare. (I took a whole month off blogging in 2012, which helped, ha.)

3) Schedule a knife skills class with Amber. Complete! Our knife skills class is next Sunday. Yay!

4) Start my nighttime routine by 8pm, Sunday-Thursday. Oh god no. I am still struggling with this. 8pm feels so early!

5) Try a new dessert recipe for the Super Bowl. Complete! I made these peanut butter brownies, which were very, very good!

6) Find the hosting platform for our podcast. Complete-ish. Podcastpage is a great option to make a pretty easy podcast website, but in order to get our own URL, it’s $144 a year. I need to decide if it’s worth the cost. Do we need a website for our podcast? I’m just not sure yet.

7) Make a spreadsheet for apartment hunting. Complete! I added a handful of apartments to look at sometime over the summer, and want to add a few more. I’d love to stay in the general area I live currently, but I’m also not opposed to going further north if the prices are better.

8) Schedule a dermatology appointment to get a retinoid prescription. Not complete. I started dealing with this weird scalp issue (diagnosed as scalp psoriasis by my dermatologist on Wednesday, fun times). Now I’m on a steroid ointment to try to get rid of it, and I’ve decided to wait until this clears up to look into getting a retinoid prescription. (My skin is super-duper sensitive and I just don’t want to introduce something new to my routine while I’m having a skin flare-up.)

9) Stand up for one hour each workday. Not complete. I was so bad at doing this in February! I think I only stood up a few times the whole month.

10) Limit myself to two Ubereats orders per week. Complete! I’m really proud of myself, especially because two of the weeks, I only ordered Ubereats once. As long as I grocery shop correctly and have easy meals to make for myself when I’m feeling lazy, I don’t feel the urge to order takeout as often.

MARCH GOALS

1) Put my bedframe on Facebook Marketplace. I’m going to try to sell my current bedframe. I don’t expect to get more than $50 for it, but something is better than nothing! I need to take some pictures and get it up there.

2) Recategorize all 2013 blogs. Nobody is surprised by this goal. 🙂

3) Do the 30-day fitness challenge (found on Elisabeth’s blog, who found it on Kyria’s blog). My mom and I will be doing this fitness challenge together! It looks challenging but doable.

4) Do a few plantar fasciitis stretches every morning. The heel pain remains, so it’s time to start figuring out how to make sure my self-diagnosed PF doesn’t get worse. I’ve been wearing shoes more often when I’m in my apartment, both my sneakers and house slippers (which are specifically made for PF, ironically). I also want to start my day with a few stretches to see if that helps at all.

5) Do a Goodwill drop and get rid of the old cat tower. I have a whole trash bag filled with items to donate, as well as a few other items that don’t fit in the trash bag. I have also been holding on to the girls’ old cat tower but the scratching posts have completely fallen apart and it’s time to get it out of here. Plus, it’s just taking up space I don’t really have.

6) Work through the Anxiety Toolkit that my psychiatrist sent to me. Back in January, my psychiatrist sent me the link to this Anxiety Toolkit workbook and I keep forgetting to go through it. She seems to think it would help me a lot. I asked my mom to print off all 42 pages of the workbook (bless her) so I have it in hard copy form and want to spend time this month going through it.

7) Order new bedding. I already have my new sheets, pillowcases, and quilt picked out, and the money saved up to buy all of it! In March, I want to go ahead and buy my new bedding so it’s ready to go when my bedframe + mattress arrive.

8) Watch a 90s classic rom-com. I’m thinking either Sleepless in Seattle, Notting Hill, or While You Were Sleeping. Which one do you recommend?

9) Stand up for one hour each workday. Rollover goal.

10) Limit myself to two Ubereats orders and two takeout orders per week. Okay, so reality check: While I did an amazing job with limiting myself to 1-2 Ubereats orders every week in February, I also think I got fast food/takeout a lot more than usual. It was so easy to say, “It’s not cheatingggg” since the goal was to limit Ubereats orders, ugh. So I’d like to now challenge myself to this goal. (“Takeout” in this instance means food I pick up to take home. It’s cheaper than Ubereats since there aren’t delivery/processing fees to deal with, but it still adds up.)

Do you have any goals this month?

I did so well on my goals in January! Yay, me! Let’s hope I can bring this momentum into February. 🙂

January Goals

1) Figure out how much my bedroom set will cost. Complete! I’m still working with my brother to decide on which mattress/box spring set he’ll deliver for me, but I have picked out my new bedframe, new quilt, and sheets. I haven’t ordered anything yet.

2) Recategorize all 2011 blogs. Complete! I had to go through some of the posts and re-upload my photos since they weren’t showing up (I moved from Blogspot to self-hosted WordPress sometime in 2011 or 2012, and I think that messed up my photos), so the process was much more involved than expected. But it was fun to look through old photos of me from the first cruise I took in 2011. Baby Steph!

3) Schedule a knife skills class with Amber. Not complete. We talked about this and found a class that was open, but I forgot to follow up with Amber to get it scheduled.

4) Watch Glass Onion. Complete! 3.5/5 stars for me.

5) Make a “to-do” list for my morning and nighttime routines. Complete! I really like having a task list to run through every morning and evening.

6) Find the hosting platform for our podcast website. Not complete. I didn’t work on this at all in January. Oops.

7) Hang my wall clock. Complete! It was such an easy task, too.

8) Start each day by filling up my water bottle with ice water. Mostly complete. I’m not great about filling up my water bottle on weekends, but I do it pretty much every weekday at least.

9) Attend a silent reading event. Complete! It was so much fun! I’m excited to go again this month.

10) Pay off my credit card. Complete! Woohoo! Now I can finally focus on other financial goals.

February Goals

1) Decide on the mattress I want to buy. Like I said above, my brother and I have been talking about my new mattress/box spring. He’s been getting me prices for different mattresses, and now I just need to decide which mattress I want so I can get this process rolling.

2) Recategorize all 2012 blogs. New month, new year of blog categorizing to do!

3) Schedule a knife skills class with Amber. We need to get this scheduled soon, as classes fill up really fast!

4) Start my nighttime routine by 8pm, Sunday-Thursday. I’m still working on getting to bed at a decent hour. I’m a work in progress, all right?! My goal is to start my nighttime routine by 8pm Sunday through Thursday so I can be in bed around 9, giving me about an hour to read and wind down for the night.

5) Try a new dessert recipe for the Super Bowl. Our Super Bowl parties are always fun, even if they haven’t included the usual crowd lately. I typically make homemade cookies (Nestle Tollhouse recipe, nothin’ fancy) and I’ll still make them for the party, but I may try my hand at another dessert just because.

6) Find the hosting platform for our podcast. Rollover goal.

7) Make a spreadsheet for apartment hunting. I’m a little early for this, I know, but I am just so excited about moving! While I have semi-complete list in my phone of the apartments I have my eye on, I want to start a detailed spreadsheet for the research process.

8) Schedule a dermatology appointment to get a retinoid prescription. I’ve been taking retinol for about two years now, and while I guess it’s working, I know that taking a retinoid (which requires a prescription) is better than over-the-counter retinol. So it’s time to do that, so this face can age gracefully and beautifully!

9) Stand up for one hour each workday. I have a sit/stand desk, but I very rarely use the standing option because I just don’t think about doing so. My goal this month is to force myself to stand up for an hour (which can be broken up into 20-minute increments throughout the day) every workday.

10) Limit myself to two Ubereats orders per week. I can easily order Ubereats 5+ times a week. Each order is usually at least $20 so sometimes I’m spending $120 just on Ubereats orders. !!! Can you imagine how much money I could save if I wasn’t spending so much money on Ubereats orders? Limiting myself to two orders per week feels doable, but also slightly challenging. Let’s see how it goes!

Do you have any goals for February?

Hi, friends! I wanted to make sure I got my January goals post up quickly this month. I still have lots of “Best of 2022” blog posts to share with you guys, as well as my last quarterly budget report and annual budget recap, so I slotted in this post today to make sure I’m not waiting until mid-January to share my goals. A lot of these goals are related to my annual goals. After finalizing my 2023 annual goals, I made a list in my planner of my quarterly goals to make sure I’m attacking my annual goals little by little. From there, I chose smaller goals for my monthly goals, which I’m sharing with you today! I’m hoping this method of goal-setting will help me complete many more goals this year.

1) Figure out how much my bedroom set will cost. At some point this month, I need to sit down and figure out how much money the new bedroom set I want will cost. I will be buying a new mattress, box spring (if required), bedframe and headboard, and new sheets/pillowcases/duvet. I have $1,100 saved for this purchase, but I need to figure out if I need to save more money or if I can give myself the go-ahead to make the purchase!

2) Recategorize all 2011 blogs. I was halfway through February 2011 when I put my blog recategorization project on hold in October. So this month, I’d like to get back to this project by working through all posts from 2011.

3) Schedule a knife skills class with Amber. We’re planning on taking a knife skills class through Sur La Table. All of the January and February classes are sold out, so we’re looking at March or April dates.

4) Watch Glass Onion. I want to watch 6 movies and 6 standup specials this year, so I’m going to start by watching a movie that I’ve actually been super interested in seeing. I looooooved Knives Out, and the trailer for the follow-up, Glass Onion, was maybe the best movie trailer ever (?!!!?). I’ve heard great things about this movie, so I’m excited to watch it at some point this month!

5) Make a “to-do” list for my morning and nighttime routines. Listen, sometimes I need to treat myself like a 6-year-old who needs a checklist to make sure she does all of her morning routines before getting out the door for school. I’m probably going to use the Todoist app to make a daily checklist for my morning and nighttime routines. The trick will be doing all of my to-dos in a timely manner.

6) Find the hosting platform for our podcast website. Originally, I planned on hosting our podcast on Squarespace, but either I’m just very dumb when it comes to techy elements or all those Squarespace ads have lied to me about how easy it is to build a website on Squarespace. IT IS NOT. I messed around with it for too many hours before giving up in frustration. I’m hoping I can find a more user-friendly option for our podcast website (maybe even WordPress?), so my goal for January is to find the right hosting platform.

7) Hang my wall clock. My mom bought me the wall clock that was on my Christmas list this year, and it is such a beauty! Buuut it’s still in its original packaging because I haven’t gotten around to figuring out how to hang it. A goal for this month!

8) Start each day by filling up my water bottle with ice water. One of my annual goals is to drink just one measly bottle of water every day. A good habit I can form to make this happen is to fill up my water bottle with ice water every morning.

9) Attend a silent reading event. My friend Amber told me that there is a silent reading book club in Tampa! They meet at different coffeeshops around the area on a monthly basis, so I told Amber we are both going to the first one of 2023, which is on January 15th.

10) Pay off my credit card. I should be able to accomplish this! Last month, I was able to pay off my statement balance so I’m finally paying off what I spent the previous month, which is something I haven’t been able to do in MANY months. I should be able to do the same in January, which will put me in the clear from all my 2022 travel, 2022 emergencies, and the holiday season.

What’s something you’re hoping to do this month?