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?
Yes, I was wondering what happened with your digestion. Eliminating gluten seems like a good next step. Luckily it’s easier than ever to be gluten-free, with so many different options and restaurants offering GF options. It’ll probably be hard to start with, but once you get into it, it should get easier.
I hope going off birth control will help you depression! Ugh, that sucks.
You have some good August goals- even if you don’t get through all of them, you’ll make some progress. I hope you feel better soon.
I would much rather have to eliminate gluten than dairy, especially if it’s only a sensitivity and I could still have gluten knowing I’ll probably pay for it afterward lol. But there are so many great GF options now and my best friend is GF, so I can definitely lean on her expertise!
Ah, bummer– I heart gluten. I love your goal to declutter 4 places– very doable. Any way to Lazy Genius the fruit and veggies thing as well? Like, maybe her decide once rule would be a good one? Choose what those things are going to be at the beginning of each week, buy them, prep them, portion them out and then just go w/ it?
I already plan out the fruits/veggies I’m going to eat for the week. It’s just making sure I EAT THEM that’s the problem. Sometimes I just get busy and forget. Sigh.
I love gluten, too, but I’m interested to see how it helps me feel. Gluten may be causing more problems than I’m even aware of!
I was wondering if your GI issues were related to dairy. My dad had issues similar to what you are experiencing and it turns out he is lactose intolerant. There are certain things that bother him more than others. It’s kind of strange. Like sliced cheese on a sandwich, like American cheese, bothers him the most but he does fine eating ice cream. It’s really odd. But it could also be gluten! I feel like it’s gotten easier to live GF these days, but there isn’t a GF Pub Sub option I think? GF bread is so terrible in general unfort…
July was A LOT so good call to continue to be gentle with yourself in August. I’m sorry bc didn’t work for you. I hope you can figure out a good solution that works for your mental health. So far I’ve been amazed by my IUD. I have had very little spotting and I just had a period that made me wonder – am I actually having a period? Whereas before I was bleeding through supers so so fast… (TMI, sorry…).
August is a weird month. This week Paul’s at a camp which throws our schedule off a bit as we can’t drop off until 7:30 (we usually drop off at 7). Then next week he’s back for his last week of his usual summer program and I go to NYC. Then we go on vacation for a week, come back, and I go to DC/MD for 2 nights. And then it’s Labor Day and school starts!! So I’m really not planning anything this month since it’s going to be a bit all over the place. The boys are lucky and will be at my parents for over 2 weeks!
I am very worried about dairy! I am hoping the gluten elimination diet does the trick because I would rather have a gluten sensitivity than a dairy one. Most dairy products don’t bother me, but every now and then, they will. So who knows!
I am really glad you have had such a positive experience with your IUD! It definitely makes me want to consider that route, rather than birth control. That depressive episode was HORRIBLE.
The good news about the gluten thing is that there are a lot of options these days. Fingers crossed that helps you.
I have no goals for August! No wait, that is not true. I am making a photo book for Rob’s 60th birthday and this seems to have pushed aside my “organize my photos into albums” goal that I have been telling you about for months. But the good news is I have the photos! I have the prints! I just need to put them in albums. THIS CANNOT BE AS BIG A DEAL AS I AM MAKING IT. Anyway, I have got to get this photo book done before he and Jake get back from Scotland, as he has a tendency to “pop in” while I’m working in the office and I want to keep it a surprise.
YOU CAN DO IT! I believe in you!
You have some excellent goals! I like Sarah’s suggestion of limiting your choices and prepping them, so they don’t get overwhelming. Do you like hummus? I really like hummus with carrots or (even better) cucumbers. So crunchy and tasty. A good lunch or snack.
I am the weirdo who doesn’t like hummus! But I do love other dips for veggies. The problem isn’t having too many choices – I definitely limit what I buy at the store, but I just don’t want to eat them so I choose not to eat anything. I am a child, I know.
Arghhh a gluten intolerance would suck. I have a bit of that nagging going on too lately. I dont want it to be true.
I was wondering why not do the afternoon tea in London? Wouldn’t that be so much fun?
hope your August goes well. My goals are getting back in the exercising and reading routine.
We are going to do afternoon tea in London! We already have that planned. 🙂 But you can’t do too many afternoon tea experiences, in my opinion!