My days usually pass in consistent patterns, even in the summer. I thrive on this consistency and seek to carve out a modicum through times of unusual change. This summer has come with its fair share of bumps in the road and deviations from the original plans. Before the last third of the year begins in earnest, I want to check in to my 2019 goals to refocus and to share some ideas for my plans for the last third of the year.
As far as the goals go, the travel-filled summer presented a few obstacles. Despite those, I did manage to maintain my hip and glute exercises at least four times a week with modifications to account for available space. Drinking water on the other hand, while in Europe, I had to balance that with the available restroom facilities and cash with which to pay for them. Since I returned home, however, I have fallen back into old habits so while I write this entry, I take sips when I finish sentences.
Healthy eating took a back seat for way too long. When combined with a lack of speedwork as well as exercise in general – the month in Europe and the week of the back incident – a general sense of flabbiness have settled on me. This has motivated me to, once again, become more vigilant with why I eat when I do and to return to the goal of eliminating most processed sugar.
Since I last checked in, obstacles both foreseen and unforeseen, have kept me from my fitness goals. I do not consider that a failure since I chose to listen to my body (after the injury obviously) and recover well. My desire for consistent running has increased; absence makes the heart grow fonder. I also crave speedwork both for the increased fitness it will bring as well as for the help it will provide in reducing the “fat” feelings. (I struggle with how to describe that in a way that avoids giving off the idea of body dysmorphia.)
On the school front, now that I have two weeks at the new school under my belt, I want to amend those goals. Well, more accurately, I plan to eliminate one goal and amend the other. I will no longer make “staying out of drama,” a specific goal. While every workplace has drama, including my new school I’m sure, most do not have drama that even approaches the level of chaos of my old school. I will also amend my goal of leaving by five, still an overall fallback goal, to using my second planning period, which takes place just before carline, wisely so that I can leave immediately after school most days.
As usual, I have had no trouble with the reading goal, especially over the summer as I worked through the junior and young adult book club award nominees. The writing, on the other hand, has not gone as successfully as it started. Journalling suffered a bit on the return as did blog writing, part of the plans I referenced in the title and first paragraph. I want to seriously dive back into my writing, these books I read compelled me. In that effort, I want to wean myself from simply scrolling through social media and blogs because that takes away from time I could spend writing. Since old habits do not break easily, I know this will take a lot of effort. As I work on this, I want to gradually increase my blog posting from once a week to twice a week which will happen sporadically at first. Additionally, after just discovering that I purchased a set of two new journals while in Europe, not knowing I had one waiting at home, I want to not only scrawl a few sentences and call it a journal entry, I also want to flood those pages with words. That will mean hard work, significant effort, really digging deep to build my writing stamina muscles.
Lastly, my financial goal must change, at least a little. I now, for the first time in a while, pay actual rent and once again have utilities expenses, things I did not have while at Grandpa’s. The financial side has felt spend heavy for the past several months. Although part of that comes with the travel territory and I had planned for it, the purchases still add up to money flowing outward. On top of that, certain random-seeming expenses piled into the same month. I entered all of the charges for the Europe trip, prepared to start a new school year, and moved to a new house. Since my financials have fluctuated a bit and I need time to factor in my pay raise as well as learn what to expect for monthly utility charges, I will suspend my numerical savings percentage goal for a renewed focus on purposeful spending and saving.
I already look forward to the last third of this year. I know God has great things in store.