Today was C’s first Fathers’ Day. SP and I made Reeses’ Crumble muffins last night to have for breakfast this morning. We took the dogs on a walk and played some Uno. Then C went out for his scheduled D&D game. SP and I cleaned the kitchen and proceeded to make almost 8 dozen cookies (44 white chocolate chip, 44 butterscotch chip). Then we took the dogs to the dog park, came home and she got a nice long bath. By the time her bath was done, C was home. We had pizza for dinner and then watched Flash Gordon- yes, the movie from 1980. The Queen soundtrack is awesome (because it’s Queen). The rest of the movie is awesomely bad.

 

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

May- no

June – yes. It’s not really a full on guest post. I was one of many people who gave a quote for Stacking Benjamin’s post on How to Be a Great Saver

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

March- no

April- no

May- no

June – yes. In case you missed it, on Tuesday I had a guest post from Pamela at Hands On Homebuyer.

 

At least one thing is on track.

 

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 (4 rejections)

March: No

April: Yes (rejected)

May: No

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits.

I skipped writing altogether this week. Today should have been critique, but I stayed home since it was C’s first Fathers’ Day.

 

 

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. Will try to get June’s post up this week.

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

June Numbers

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

 

Things are going a little out of control here. It doesn’t seem like we’re spending that much, but then I go to pay the credit card, and in the 2.5 weeks since I last paid it, over $2k of charges have hit. Part of it was car care and our Memorial Day weekend trip, but sometimes it adds up surprisingly fast, even when you think you’re paying attention.

 

Floating Goals

Find a new job. I am one of the top two candidates for a job I’m really interested in. I’ll know late Monday if I get it or not. If not, I did also have a good first interview for another position on Friday.

Replace all the windows in the house. DONE. I have new windows. They are lovely.

Fix the plumbing issues. Once the windows are taken care of, this is my next priority.

Get an Exterminator. The ants all seem to enter around the windows, so I’m thinking the window replacement might solve this issue. We’ll have to wait and see.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. One of my goals for my “down time” is to start working on this project. Sadly, my down time hasn’t been very down.

Refinance the house. DONE.

Earn my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. DONE.

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. DONE. (Transferred a nice chunk this week to the high yield savings account. That felt really nice.)