Once again this is going up late, though not as late as last week. I had meant for it to go up earlier, but Junebug had to stay overnight at the vet’s, and we weren’t able to go pick her up until after 3pm today. But as always, it took us over an hour to go, hear from the vet that she still can’t really be diagnosed (because she remains a medical mystery).

During the day, I spent most of my time working on my resume and trying to craft a cover letter for Valve, a very unique game/entertainment company here in the Seattle area. It has a totally flat structure, with no managers. It is an intriguing setup, one I would love to get a chance to work in, but it does not really call for the standard cover letter.

 

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

March- no

April- no

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

March- no

April- no

April turned out to be not any better than March when it came to getting guest blogging done or posted. With my certification out of the way hopefully I’ll get my act together in May.

 

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 (2 rejections)

March: No

April: Yes

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. I am still up in April, though not as much as I was in March.

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

April Numbers

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

 

The credit cards have been paid, and we are over budget for the month. A good part of that comes from buying my laptop and all the eating out I mentioned last week.

 

 

Floating Goals

Find a new job. I have not heard anything from either position, which makes me think there may be something going on at the school of medicine that is holding things up. I have an email in to the recruiter for one of the positions and hope to hear something this week. I also have training set up with the career transitioning service my current company is paying for as part of my severance package.

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. We’re up to $5,375.

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.

Get an Exterminator. I have ants in my kitchen and my bedroom. They need to go.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. My artist is in. Now we just need to start working out the logistics. I will be back in contact with her this week and hopefully we’ll start working on it.

Refinance the house. DONE.

Earn my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. Passed.