APRIL GOALS

1) Keep a food journal. Not complete. I didn’t even attempt to food journal this month. I have made this a goal many, many times and I never complete it. Maybe I just don’t want to?

2) Replace my bed. Mostly complete. My new bedsheets, pillowcases, and quilt are here. My bedframe has been delivered. My brother has ordered the mattress and box spring from his work. All that’s left is for him to deliver the mattress/box spring and then set up my bed, which should be happening either today or tomorrow. WOOHOO!

3) Schedule a LASIK consultation. Not complete. I submitted a request for a LASIK consultation at a nearby eye center, but I never followed up with them. Oops.

4) Work through the Anxiety Toolkit that my psychiatrist sent to me. Complete! Once I finally sat down with the workbook, it didn’t take me all that long to go through. It wasn’t life-changing by any means, but it was useful to go through it.

5) Set a biweekly budget. Complete-ish. I set the budget, but I did not really check in on it like I wanted to. I must get better about this!

MAY GOALS

1) Work out every day in May. This will be a tall order for me, but I’m also excited about it. I failed miserably with my walking/exercise goals last month, so I am very behind with my goal of logging 50 Peloton workouts (of 20 minutes or longer) this year. I’m also not doing great with my goal of walking every day. A goal like this, where I have to find the time to get in a workout daily no matter what, has worked well for me in the past and I’m hoping the same holds true this month.

2) Check my bank account every day. After many years of being meticulous about tracking my spending and itemizing every purchase, I grew very tired of the practice in early 2023. And… I just gave up on it. I wanted to find a different way to track my spending that didn’t feel so overwhelming. I’ve been playing around with different options, and I may have finally settled on something that works better. It may feel like this idea of a daily check-in of my bank account isn’t any less overwhelming than itemizing my purchases, but we’re experimenting here. Maybe this works, maybe it doesn’t. But I won’t know unless I try!

3) Schedule a LASIK consultation. Rollover goal.

4) Get my skin tags removed. I have a variety of skin tags that need to be removed by a dermatologist. I’ve had to get skin tags removed before (I’m prone to them), and it’s a very easy process, but best handled by a professional. I just need to schedule an appointment!

5) Do not use my phone until my morning workout is complete. Elisabeth has been having some interesting conversations on her blog about phone usage. I have a tendency to use my phone a lot (my current daily average for screen time is over 6 hours, if that tells you anything). I don’t necessarily feel bad about how often I use my phone, but I do think I use it as a crutch to avoid switching to different tasks throughout the day. I also almost always use it first thing in the morning, blearily scrolling through Instagram as I try to wake up or wasting the first 30 minutes of my day playing phone games (ugh). Since I have a goal of working out every day this month (and I’m going to try to always do my workout first thing in the morning), I’m going to try to build this new habit right alongside it. I already keep my phone on DND from 8pm-8am so it’s not that I get distracted by notifications when the alarm goes off… but other apps can easily distract me. Hopefully, this goal will not only challenge me to use my phone less but also to get up and do my workout so I can use my phone, ha.

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?