Stephany Writes

Categories: Goals

Monthly Goals | June 2024

Well, we’re nearly halfway through June already (eeks!) and I am just now publishing my monthly goals. I scaled back a tiny bit on these goals (only three goals for two of the categories rather than the usual five), and also, I’m not putting any pressure on myself to get everything done. I mean, I never put pressure on myself when it comes to these goals, but I am giving myself even more grace in June. So, let’s get into how I did on my May goals and what I hope to get done in June.

May Goals

Small Steps Toward My Yearly Goals

1) Hang up the rest of the prints I have for my living room gallery wall. I hung up two of the three prints, and then acquired another print while in New Orleans. Halfway complete?

2) Start researching rewards credit cards: add at least 5 cards to my spreadsheet to compare. Not complete, whoops.

3) Watch two seasons of a TV show. Complete! I watched the first season of The Bear and the first season of New Girl. Yay, me!

4) Read another Agatha Christie novel. Complete! I read A Murder Is Announced and gave it 4 stars.

5) Clean up my categories/tags. Complete!

Daily(ish) Routines

1) Daily movement. (54% successful) Oof, this was not a great month for daily movement! I went to the gym three times a week but did not get out for a walk the other days of the week.

2) Play with the cats for 10 minutes. (0%) My poor cattttts.

3) Do psoriasis treatment every day. (80%) Having a really bad psoriasis flare for the majority of May meant I was on top of those treatments. I’d rather not have had a flare, though.

4) Take my meds. (80%) Getting better about this!

5) Check my bank account daily and update my budget spreadsheet. (64%) Not great, but it is what it is.

Tasks

1) Take Gladys for her biyearly check-up. Complete! She needed an oil change and some fluids topped off, but nothing major. Yay!

2) Declutter and reorganize my dresser drawers. Not complete. I kept thinking about this goal and how I wanted to get it done, and then pushing it off to another day.

3) Get a new nose piercing. Complete! I switched out my stud for a hoop and I love it so much.

4) Go to the gym three times a week. Complete! It’s so satisfying to complete this goal every week.

5) Put my bedroom door back on its hinges. Lol, no.

June Goals

Small Steps Toward My Yearly Goals

1) Watch two seasons of a TV show. Right now, I’m halfway through season one of Suits (and omg, it’s so good!) and will probably also watch season three of Bridgerton to round this out. (I’ve been waiting to watch Bridgerton until all the episodes were released, so I’m excited to dive in soon!)

2) Work through one more section of my “I’m Dead, Now What?” workbook. It’s not a fun workbook, but it is necessary to do.

3) Research cake decorating classes to find an option that works for me. This is one of my yearly goals and I keep forgetting about it! I just need to figure out what options are around me, pricing, and who I can force to go with me!

Daily(ish) Routines

1) Daily movement. Let’s hope I do better in June.

2) Play with the cats for 10 minutes three times a week. Maybe I should bump this down to once a week? Gosh. Why is this goal so difficult?

3) Do psoriasis treatment every day. My flare has abated but the dry skin is back, so I have to keep on top of these treatments. I’m seeing my dermatologist in two weeks and cannot wait to discuss how to get to maintenance with this damn condition.

4) Take my meds. Let’s make it into the 90s in June, yes?!

5) Check my bank account daily and update my budget spreadsheet. I have a lot to say about my budget, but I’ll save that for my spending post coming later this week.

Tasks

1) Declutter the top drawer of my dresser. It feels very overwhelming to think about going through the whole dresser at once, so I think if I break this goal into smaller tasks, it has the potential to get done. So all I need to focus on this month is the top dresser drawer!

2) Put my bedroom door back on its hinges. Rollover goal.

3) Go to the gym four times a week. I’ve been slowly increasing my gym usage and I think four days a week might be my sweet spot. But we’ll see! I’ll probably stick with four times a week for a bit and then decide if I want to increase it from there.

Do you have any goals for June?

Categories: Goals

Monthly Goals | May 2024

April Goals

Small Steps Towards My Yearly Goals

1) Hang up 3 more prints for my living room gallery wall. Not complete. It was on my to-do list every week and kept being the task I never got around to.

2) Start researching rewards credit cards: make a spreadsheet to compare at least 5 cards. Complete! The goal here was the make the spreadsheet and that’s what I did.

3) Watch two seasons of a TV show. Not complete. I finally finished Mr. and Mrs. Smith last night, so at least I’m not three seasons behind coming into May, ha.

4) Fill out the first section of the “I’m Dead, Now What?” book. Complete! It was a pretty easy task since it only involved filling out some personal info.

5) Clean up my categories/tags. Not complete, but I did spend time every week working toward this goal. Hopefully I can finish this up in May!

Daily(ish) Routines

1) Daily movement. (86% successful) I’m very happy with my daily movement goal. I’ve been doing two gym workouts per week, 1-2 walks outside per week, a stretching workout, and sometimes a quick arm strength-training workout.

2) Play with the cats for 10 minutes. (33%) Ohh, this was a struggle. I even brought down the goal to doing this three times per week (because doing it daily was a very silly idea for me!) My poor cats.

3) Do psoriasis treatment every day. (71%) I would have liked to be a lot more successful with this goal in April, but it is what it is. Treatment includes medicated shampoo and two different types of steroid oils (one of the steroids helps with dry skin, the other with itchiness).

4) Take my meds. (73%) Sigh.

5) Go to bed by 10:30 p.m. (0%) I was doing so bad with this goal that I finally accepted my fate that getting to bed at 10:30 isn’t something I care enough to do. I’d rather go to bed at 11-11:30 and wake up a little later in the morning. In the middle of the month, I changed this goal to checking my bank account every day and I was 71% successful with that goal.

TASKS

1) Install the TubShroom. Complete! I installed it yesterday, so nothing like waiting until the last possible minute, but I got it done. Yay!

2) Declutter my “Deal With It Later” basket. Complete! I did this early in the month and it felt good to get everything in the basket to its proper location.

3) Get a new nose piercing. Not complete. Womp, womp. I didn’t have time this month to go to the piercing place for a custom hoop, so I ordered some nose rings from Amazon but could not get the hoop into my nose for the life of me. Wah!

4) Go to the gym twice a week. Complete! We took lots of fun classes this month: HIIT, some strength classes, hot yoga, etc.

5) Put my bedroom door back on its hinges. Not complete. Another task that just kept falling off the to-do list.

May Goals

Small Steps Towards My Yearly Goals

1) Hang up the rest of the prints I have for my living room gallery wall. Rollover goal.

2) Start researching rewards credit cards: add at least 5 cards to my spreadsheet to compare. Spreadsheet is made and has one credit card on the list, and I want to add a few more in May to continue my research project.

3) Watch two seasons of a TV show. Maybe I’ll finally do this in May? I want to watch Apples Never Fall and maybe Lessons in Chemistry.

4) Read another Agatha Christie novel. I’m not sure which one I’ll read next – maybe I’ll switch over to Miss Marple this time? Your recommendations are encouraged!

5) Clean up my categories/tags. Rollover goal.

Daily(ish) Routines

1) Daily movement. The goal for May is to increase my percentage, maybe into the 90s?

2) Play with the cats for 10 minutes three times per week. Listen, if I can do this even 50% of the time in May, I’ll be a happy girl.

3) Do psoriasis treatment every day. Scalp psoriasis continues to be an annoyance of my life, so I must complete my daily treatments. They are helping!

4) Take my meds. Okay, Steph, let’s make it into the 80s for successful attempts in May. You got this!

5) Check my bank account daily and update my budget spreadsheet. This is a very doable, very easy goal for me when I remember to do it.

TASKS

1) Take Gladys for her biyearly check-up. Gladys, my car, gets a check-up every six months, and I’ve already scheduled this for the last week of May when I have a day off before I leave for New Orleans. Hopefully all she needs are some fresh fluids and a tire rotation, but we shall see!

2) Declutter and reorganize my dresser drawers. I mentioned in a Five for Friday post that my dresser drawers needed to be decluttered and I needed to invest in some drawer organization, so May is the month I plan to do that!

3) Get a new nose piercing. Rollover goal.

4) Go to the gym three times a week. I want to continue doing two classes per week and add in one morning of cardio using the machines at the gym.

5) Put my bedroom door back on its hinges. Rollover goal.

Do you have any goals for May?

Categories: Goals

2024 Goals | Q1 Recap

It’s time to check in on how I’m doing on my 2024 goals! I set a lot of goals for myself this year, as I always do, and it’s been fun working through some of them. I feel like I’ve gotten a lot more accomplished than I imagined, so that feels good. It helps to make my yearly goals an active part of my monthly goal-setting process so I remember what I’m striving for! So, without further ado, let’s get into it:

HOME

1. Create a book nook in my bedroom. I made huge progress on this goal by finding the perfect cozy reading chair for the corner of my bedroom. I also added a side table (which I already had on hand, so I didn’t have to spend extra money!) so things are going well with this goal. Next up is to decorate the wall with some floating bookshelves and bookish prints.

2. Finish my living room gallery wall. I should be able to mark this complete in Q2! I added some pieces to the wall in Q1 and it just needs a few more prints to be complete.

3. Move to a two-bedroom apartment. This will be a Q4 goal.

4. Buy a new area rug and a new coffee table for my living room. No progress made. Maybe a Q3 goal.

5. Reorganize my home: add shelving to my kitchen, hang an organizer in my kitchen pantry, and buy new organizing containers for my closet. Complete! The shelf was hung in March. I hung a headband organizer that I already had on the pantry door to organize small items like cat treats, oatmeal packets, snack bags, etc. And I added organizing containers to the shelves inside my pantry to make it easier to store things.

MONEY

1. Switch to a rewards credit card. No progress made.

2. Complete monthly budget posts on the blog. So far, so good.

3. Add at least $1,000 to my emergency fund by the end of the year. No progress made.

4. Pay off the majority of my LASIK bill. I’m making payments, but I’d like to start making extra payments toward it in Q2, if possible.

5. Complete a no-spend month. Not yet. Maybe a Q3 goal.

HEALTH

1. Figure out an exercise routine that works for me. When I originally made this goal, I wrote, “I do not want to join a gym.” Joke’s on me because I joined a gym in March and I’m so happy I did! Right now, taking two workout classes a week at the gym is working well for me. I’m also trying to get movement in other ways throughout the week, like a 15-minute walk outside, a stretching workout, etc. So far, so good.

2. Lower my resting heart rate. Currently, my resting heart rate according to my Apple watch is 92 BPM. Hopefully, after a few more months at the gym, that number will improve!

3. Use my standing desk more often – get to a place where I’m standing for two hours each day. I was doing pretty well with this goal (standing for about 30 minutes of my day to work my way up to two hours), but then sciatica hit. Hoping once I’m doing with my chiropractic treatments, I can get back to this goal!

4. Get a sleep study done. I’m picking up the equipment to do an at-home sleep study on Tuesday, so I’ll have this done in Q2!

5. Be able to comfortably walk 3 miles regularly. No progress made toward this goal specifically, but I am trying to do harder workouts at the gym, which will increase my endurance and fitness levels.

HOBBIES

1. Read 100 books. (28/100) I am one book ahead of schedule!

2. Read 6 books by Agatha Christie. (2/6)

3. Reach 100 listeners per episode on the podcast. So far this year, our best episode was the one we recorded with Mikaela all about being an enneagram 1 (71 plays). We’re averaging around 52 listeners per episode, so we’ve got some work to do to bring up those numbers!

4. Update the blog with a new theme and reorganized categories/tags/pages. I’m working on reorganizing my categories and tags right now, but I’m hoping to launch a new blog theme in Q2.

5. Watch one season of a show every month. (1/12) I am behind on this goal!

  • January: Only Murders in the Building, season 3

FUN STUFF

1. Spend a long weekend at Rainbow River. Take a solo vacation. We decided not to do the long weekend at Rainbow River, so instead I’m thinking about doing a solo vacation. I’d like to make it a reading vacation where I wouldn’t feel pressured to get out and see the sights, but rather enjoy some time to myself in a cute Airbnb. I have my eye on a trip to the other coast of Florida, Deerfield Beach, because they have a new romance-centric bookstore called Steamy Lit that I’ve been dying to go to! So we’ll see if I can make it happen.

2. Get my nose pierced. Done!

3. Get more tattoos. No progress made.

4. Take a cake decorating class. No progress made.

5. Find a dry shampoo that works for my hair. So far, I’ve tried two dry shampoos – I Dew Care Dry Shampoo Powder and Not Your Mother’s Plump for Joy – and neither have worked like I wanted them to. I received some good recommendations in my original post so I need to go back and try one of those!

6. Listen to one new album every month. (3/12) On track!

  • January: Olivia Rodrigo, GUTS
  • February: Noah Kahan, Stick Season
  • March: Florence + the Machine, Dance Fever

7. Learn how to back into a parking space like an overconfident white man. I’m working on this, but I haven’t seen much improvement, HA.

8. See a Dolphins game in person. This will be a Q3/Q4 goal.

9. Buy new luggage. No progress made. My current priority is getting a new carry-on suitcase, which I’ll need for trips I have planned in May and June.

10. Start working through the “I’m Dead, Now What?” planner. I bought the planner! But I need to start working through it.

What’s something you accomplished recently (big or small!)?

Categories: Goals

Monthly Goals | April 2024

March Goals Recap

Small Steps Towards My Yearly Goals

1) Install floating shelves in my kitchen. Complete, and just in the nick of time! My stepdad came over yesterday and hung up a shelf. I wanted to have two shelves, but I quickly realized I could only have one, otherwise the other shelf would have made opening and closing my freezer very difficult.

2) Read Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. Complete!

3) Watch two seasons of a TV show. Not complete. I watched two episodes of one TV show. So there’s that.

4) Buy the “I’m Dead, Now What?” planner and fill out one section. Half-complete. I bought the planner, but I have not opened the planner.

5) Clean up my categories/tags. Not complete.

Daily(ish) Routines

1) Go for a walk Monday-Friday (three of which should be 30 minutes or more). I was less successful with this goal once my sciatica started to act up because even a 15-minute walk causes my back to hurt.

2) Take my meds daily. Complete-ish. Taking my meds is one of those tasks I do as my morning/evening routine. However, if I skip either of these routines for any reason, it also means I forget to take my meds. No bueno!

3) Do my skincare routine daily. Mostly complete. I don’t do my skincare routine every day of the week, but probably 80-90% of the time and that’s good enough for me.

4) Continue doing 30-minute standing sessions once a day. Another goal that was going well until sciatica. It hurts to stand for too long so I’m not going to worry about this goal until after sciatica treatment is complete.

5) Go to bed by 10:30 p.m. Not complete, ugh.

TASKS

1) Get my tub unclogged and install the TubShroom. Half-complete. The tub was unclogged but the TubShroom remains in its packaging.

2) Declutter my junk closet. Complete! It looks so much better.

Big things: got rid of my vacuum (it was falling apart), moved my broom and mop to the wall, and reorganized the rest of the items differently.

3) Do a big Goodwill drop. Complete!

4) Do my taxes. Complete! In the end, I owed $8 and that was only because TurboTax’s “free” service cost $59 and my tax refund was $51. Not too shabby!

5) Do a week of time logging. Complete! I’m excited to share my results next week.

April Goals

Small Steps Towards My Yearly Goals

1) Hang up 3 more prints for my living room gallery wall. Once these have been added, I think the gallery wall will finally be complete!

2) Start researching rewards credit cards: make a spreadsheet to compare at least 5 cards. One of my goals this year is to switch my credit card to one that offers rewards. Just need to do the research to find the one that works best with my lifestyle.

3) Watch two seasons of a TV show. I am currently behind on my goal to watch one season of a TV show every month. In April, I’m once again challenging myself to watch two seasons of a show. I want to finish Mr. and Mrs. Smith and watch Apples Never Fall, which just came out on Hulu. I only have 6 more episodes of Mr. and Mrs. Smith left and ANF has 7 episodes, so it is an ENTIRELY doable goal!

4) Fill out the first section of the “I’m Dead, Now What?” book.

5) Clean up my categories/tags. Rollover goal.

Daily(ish) Routines

1) Daily movement. It can be a 10-minute stretching routine right before bed or a hard workout at the gym, but I need to move my body every day no matter what.

2) Play with the cats for 10 minutes. I want to be better about playing with the cats! I have some fun teaser wands and bought some new toys for them (including catnip bubbles! We’ll see how that goes…), and while I tend to find playing with the cats kind of boring, I know they enjoy it so I need to do it!

3) Do psoriasis treatment every day. I’ve talked about my scalp psoriasis on this blog many times. I’ve started a new regimen from my dermatologist that includes using a prescription-grade shampoo twice a week and treating the dry spots on my scalp nightly with a steroid solution, but I’m not always great at remembering to do those nightly treatments. If I want my psoriasis to go into maintenance, I need to be better about treating it!

4) Take my meds. I really shouldn’t be this bad at taking my meds every day, but alas.

5) Go to bed by 10:30 p.m. A goal that is so very difficult for me, but I’m committed to getting back to a normal bedtime!

TASKS

1) Install the TubShroom. Rollover goal.

2) Declutter my “Deal With It Later” basket. The basket where I just throw all of the things I don’t have time to put in their proper locations is overflowing so it’s time to bring it out of the closet and go through everything in there.

3) Get a new nose piercing. It’s been two months since I got my nose pierced, which means I can graduate to a hoop piercing now! I want to go to the same place where I got the piercing done so they can fit me for a properly sized hoop. Apparently, they are all different sizes because humans have differently sized noses—who knew?!

4) Go to the gym twice a week. I’m not putting pressure on myself to use my gym any more than this! I’m starting small and my mom and I are trying to find two fun classes to take every week. I don’t like taking the same class every week, so we want to switch it up to keep things interesting.

5) Put my bedroom door back on its hinges. I took my bedroom door off its hinges way back in January so my reading chair would fit through the doorway, but I have yet to put it back. I never close my bedroom door so there isn’t a huge need for this, but it’s a task I should do anyway.

What’s a goal on your list for April?

Categories: Goals

Monthly Goals | March 2024

I miss making monthly goals. I tried moving to quarterly goals this year, but it’s not working for me. I find it hard to figure out what goals I want to accomplish each month… so why am I doing this to myself? Just make monthly goals! That’s what works best for me, and so I’m back to setting goals every month. Yay!

I’ve broken my goals down into three sections:

  • Small Steps Toward My Yearly Goals – I’m setting five goals each month that will directly relate to my yearly goals.
  • Daily(ish) Routines – I have a spot in my planner where I can list out a handful of daily routines and mark them off throughout the week. If I get an A or B average at the end of the week, I get to buy something off my Amazon wishlist, which is a fun bonus!
  • Tasks – One-off tasks I want to get done this month.

Essentially, it means I’m setting 15 goals in a month but some of those are really fun goals (like reading an Agatha Christie novel!) and five of those are very small daily routines (taking meds, doing my skincare routine, etc) so it’s not as massive as it may appear. But before we get into my monthly goals, I want to take a look back on the quarterly goals I set in January and mark down which ones I accomplished:

  • Find 2-3 new prints for my living room gallery wall and get them framed and hung up. I did this! I have a plan in place to showcase some of the changes I’ve made to my apartment since my original Apartment To-Do List post, and my gallery wall is really coming along now.
  • Figure out my new organizational scheme for my bookshelf bins/walk-in closet and buy new containers to organize everything. Done! It feels so good to have everything in their rightful place and for my closet to be less of a chaotic mess.
  • Schedule an appointment with my PCP and my gynecologist. Done and done. I have a follow-up appointment with my PCP to go over my bloodwork results (I’m getting bloodwork done today, in fact!), but all went well with my annual exam.
  • Get my nose pierced. Done!
  • Try two dry shampoo brands. I tried the I DEW CARE dry shampoo powder, but I didn’t care for it. Right now, I’m trying out Not Your Mother’s “Plump for Joy” dry shampoo.

Okay, with all that fun stuff out of the way, let’s talk about my March goals:

Small Steps Towards My Yearly Goals

1) Install floating shelves in my kitchen. My stepdad is coming over sometime in March to help me with this. Yay! It’s going to give me some extra room in my pantry, and that’s a win/win for me.

2) Read Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. My goal is to read 6 mysteries by Agatha Christie this year, and this is the next one on my list after getting multiple recommendations.

3) Watch two seasons of a TV show. I gave myself a goal to watch one season of a TV show every month—and it can’t be reality TV. Well, I failed in February as all I did was watch reality TV. It’s such a comfort for me! But I am committed to this goal so in March, I need to watch two seasons of a show. I’m thinking of finishing The Bear (I watched the first two episodes and it was very intense, so I haven’t gone back to it) and maybe watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith since it’s getting great reviews. We’ll see!

4) Buy the “I’m Dead, Now What?” planner and fill out one section. This was one of my quarterly goals, so I’m putting it on my list for March so I can get it done!

5) Clean up my categories/tags. I have finished my massive blog recategorization project! Yay! But now I need to clean up my categories and tags before I install a new blog theme.

Daily(ish) Routines

1) Go for a walk Monday-Friday (three of which should be 30 minutes or more). I do okay with my weekday walks, although it’s rare for me to hit 5/5 days. It will be easier when the time change hits and I can go for a walk after 6pm (when I usually end my workday).

2) Take my meds daily. I made this goal in January because I was doing such a bad job at taking my meds regularly. But now I’m not! However, my goal with these Daily(Ish) Routines is to keep them for three months and then move on to a new routine if I feel confident that I have the routine down. So I’m keeping it on the list through March.

3) Do my skincare routine daily. Another pretty easy goal, and one I genuinely enjoy doing every morning and night. Some nights, I get lazy with it but that doesn’t happen all too often anymore.

4) Continue doing 30-minute standing sessions once a day. I have a yearly goal of standing more during my workday, and I really like making sure I hit this goal! Most days, I get it done and it’s a nice break for my butt, haha.

5) Go to bed by 10:30 p.m. Ugh, my forever struggle goal. I probably only hit this goal 1-2 times a week, sigh.

TASKS

1) Get my tub unclogged and install the TubShroom. I put in a maintenance request to have my tub unclogged three weeks ago. SIGH. I could do it myself, but it’s the principle of the matter, you know? I rent so I don’t have to deal with these problems myself! (And also because owning a home is expensive.) But once I get my tub unclogged, I’m going to install the TubShroom, which will ensure my tub doesn’t keep clogging with all my hair. Lolz.

2) Declutter my junk closet. Some people have junk drawers, I have a junk closet. It’s my hallway linen closet and where I have all of my cleaning supplies and miscellaneous items like my suitcase, an old TV tray, wrapping paper, etc. I have just been throwing things into this closet and shutting the door very quickly so nothing falls out. EVERYTHING’S FINE. This is the month I will tackle it finally.

3) Do a big Goodwill drop. I have quite a few items that need to go to Goodwill, including a TV and computer monitor. Could I try to sell these on Facebook Marketplace? Yes. Do I want to do that? Hell no. I just need to get it all out of here finally.

4) Do my taxes. I still haven’t done my taxes! I usually do them as soon as possible because I like getting my tax refund early in the year. But recently, my tax refund has been tiny (literally $40 last year, ha) so I haven’t been compelled to complete my taxes. I’m also always worried I’ll have to owe, and I just don’t want to know if that’s the case. But I’ll do my taxes in March. Promise!

5) Do a week of time logging. For the last two years, I’ve time-logged during the last week of March. I’m excited to do it again and see how things have changed (or stayed the same).

What’s something you want to get done in March?