It’s my 100th Sunday Evening Post- which is cool, but I prefer to think of things in years, not round numbers. So there will be a Sunday Evening Post celebration coming up soon, for the 104th edition, which will mark 2 years of my weekly check in, but not tonight.

It’s been a pretty good week. I received and accepted a job offer for a job I’m pretty excited about. I ordered my new Faire dress (as a reward for losing ~60lbs).

We have also been spending money a little bit crazily for our “new” hobby – post-apocalyptic zombie boffer LARP camping. If you can follow that, you are our kind of geek. If you cannot, don’t worry, it is rather extreme geekiness.

Friday was a ton of shopping for that, during which we also picked up the Cheap Ass Game Veritas (we have not played it yet), an Adventure Time graphic novel for SP, and the first 4 issues of the comic Damsels for me. (I miss Ruse. Damsels is in no way going to replace Ruse, but I miss having a comic I read.)

Today we also did some shopping for me- a new swimming suit (SP earned a trip to the water park), also a new suit jacket and a white shell.

Then we went to visit some friends and played the Days of Wonder game Mystery of the Abbey. It’s a lot like Clue, only not quite. And while you are prevented from lying by the rules, it turns out that if you make a mistake, and then pass information based on that mistake on to the other players, it can take a lot longer for the game to end that it perhaps should.

Still, it’s been a good week if an expensive one. But we have the money in savings to completely pay off the new windows (we’re doing a one year same as cash deal), and for 16 weeks, I’ll be getting paid double, so while we have spent some extra money, we will still have very full cash reserves.

 

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.

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

March- no

April- no

May- no

June – yes.

 

At least one thing is back 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 (2 rejections)

March: No

April: Yes (rejected)

May: No

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits.

Only one week before I am back at work. I really should try and get some writing done this week.

 

 

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 will try and get the June post up this week.

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

June Numbers

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

 

Everything is in the “no” category right now. I don’t know that our allowances will ever get back in the yes category for the year. However, in our defense, there are other areas where we have not spent nearly as much as was budgeted – student loans (we paid off my graduate loans in Dec) and school for C (he won’t be back full time until fall).So we’re not in danger of blowing the overall budget, we’re just over in these categories.

 

Floating Goals

Find a new job. DONE. I start July 1. I am very excited.

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

Sell the Condo. Our renters are getting divorced (sad), and moving out. The wife will be staying until her job transfers her to another state in September. We’re using the realtor that my mom worked with, and our goal is to get the condo listed in July, and just make a note that it can’t close until September when our renter moves out.

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.)

Replace all the windows in the house. DONE. I have new windows. They are lovely, though already covered in doggie nose prints.