On some level, it does not seem like it was that busy of a week. We saw Flogging Molly on Tuesday night, and I took Wednesday off. But I did not read a single other blog this week (which I feel bad about), so I did not do a round up yesterday.

I did get my hair colored yesterday. Priorities, you know. 🙂

I really have done very little this week, and while I needed

that, it does make me feel like a major slacker as I put together tonight’s post.

On the good side, we had Shepherds Pie for dinner on Friday, Corned Beef and Cabbage on Saturday, and went over to friends’ for chicken enchiladas and a game of Arkham Horror tonight.

 

Blogging

The purpose of these two goals is, yes, to grow my blogs, but also to support and highlight blogs and bloggers I enjoy. Just like I will be posting 2 new to me blogs every week in my round ups, the point here is to draw attention to blogs that others might not be familiar with. (Blog swaps will not count toward either of these goals.)

Write one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- yes

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

I need to get better about asking people if they want to write guest posts. I have to be as proactive about that as I am in writing posts.

Writing

Writing fiction is my side hustle, though I have yet to make any money from it. I’ve found that I devote much more time to the blogs than I do my fiction, though, because I am on a schedule. I feel accountable to my readers to get posts up when I say I will. And because I am a procrastinator, deadlines are a must for me. I get the energy I need to work on something from an impending deadline.

I am hoping to transfer the power of those two things- accountability and deadlines, to my fiction this year.

Submit at least one piece to a paying venue per month.

December: Yes (rejected)

January: Yes (rejected)

February: Yes x4 (1 rejection)

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits.

Finances

A lot of financial goals will actually end up as floating goals- ie they will be things I expect to complete well before the year is out. But I do have some long term financial goals that I think will work for year-long tracking.

Create and track a practice stock portfolio.Post went up on Tuesday. And just a warning, I’m currently taking a computational finance course through Coursera, so you might see me getting “fancy” with future analysis.

End the year “on budget” in the categories I’m tracking.

March Numbers

Category	On Budget
	Month	Year
Groceries	Yes	No
House	No	No
Eating Out	Yes	Yes
Allowance – E	Yes	Yes
Allowance – C	Yes	Yes

We decided to start making our own dog food, so we spent a lot of money last week on groceries for the ingredients. This will raise our grocery budget somewhat, but we’re not sure how much right now. However, we can’t make food as low in phosphates as the prescription stuff, so Howie will be getting a combination Rx kibble and homemade.

In addition, I mentioned last month that we decided to join Direct Buy. This weeks is when the payment on the credit card for that membership went through. This should even out as the year goes on.

Floating Goals

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. .

Replace all the windows in the house. We got the information for the vendor Direct Buy contracts with for window replacement. Next step will be to get someone out to give us a quote.

Fix the plumbing issues. We have a number of little plumbing issues all of which we really need to get fixed.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. My artist is in. Now we just need to start working out the logistics.

Refinance the house. DONE.