The winner of the give away will be announced on Tuesday.

You may have noticed that I missed a post last week. I think this may be the first time since I joined the Yakezie challenge that I completely missed a post- no filler, no posting a day later, etc. I just missed it, and I let myself miss it. And I am okay with that.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I have been doing the Sunday evening post for 2 years now. It has changed during these two years, and it is time to change again. The reason this time is that my life changed drastically at 10:45pm on April 30 when SP entered our lives.

And as if that weren’t enough, when I went back to work after my “maternity” leave, it was to a new, more demanding job, with a much longer commute.

I am now out of the house roughly 12 hours every weekday. And when I come home, my goal is to be present with SP, C, the dogs, etc. Most days, my computer doesn’t even get turned on until after SP is in bed. And while I miss interacting with my online friends, I would not change one thing. I really wouldn’t.

The goals I have been tracking this year were set when my life was very different. I already know I cannot meet them, and it is unfair to hold myself to them. One of the things I am having to work on right now is making sure I’m still taking care of me, and part of that is giving myself a break on meeting goals that I know are no longer realistic.

What you see below are the new goals I am tracking here. They are going to seem a lot less ambitious than the previous ones. But that’s okay with me, because my primary goals (which can’t really be tracked like this) are to be the best mom, wife, friend possible and to excel in my new position. And I happen to think those are ambitious enough for anyone.

 

Blogging

Try to maintain posting 2-3 times per week on both Life by Pets and Dog Ate My Wallet. 100 Words On is on hiatus, and I rarely write at Prose Passage, though I really should do a book review or two over there, now that I am reading on my commute.

The thing I’ll be tracking here is doing a blog round-up every month. Yes, I used to do them every week and then I moved to every two weeks, and now I’m making it once a month, but again, this is about giving myself the time to develop new routines and find balance. So there we are.

July: Yes

 

Writing

I love writing. Going to my critique group meeting every two weeks helps keep me sane. I need to try and find homes for a number of completed pieces I have, so I’ll keep looking for venues to submit them to, but here my goal is simply to keep making progress on my novella.

The goal is that I write roughly 1,000 words every two weeks (this is generally how much I write in the hour before critique group meets). I will give myself bonus points if I can manage to get some writing done on the weeks critique does not meet.

 

 

Finances

In many ways, our finances are currently a mess. We’re not struggling or in over our heads or anything, but my tracking kind of went by the wayside for a while, and we haven’t felt the need to be super prudent in our spending because of the now regular paycheck and the severance pay.

My main goal here is to establish a new budget. It will need to wait until August 25, when I get my 3^rd paycheck and know roughly what each one will be. The budget will be figured without the severance money, in the hopes that we will be socking most of that away.

So new budget and we will go from there.

 

Floating Goals

Fix the plumbing issues. This made itself a priority this weekend when the small leak in our pipe became a big leak. C will be calling plumbers tomorrow.

Sell the Condo. This is now on hold. Our tenant (one of the few people who remained friends with MIL) is asking to stay another 6 months to a year. The rent more than covers mortgage, taxes, HOA, so we’re fine with that.

Get an Exterminator.  Still have ants. Mostly in the bathroom.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. I have to let this go for now.

Refinance the house. DONE.

Earn my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. DONE.

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. DONE. (I do love seeing the savings balance grow.)

Replace all the windows in the house. DONE. (And rebate has been submitted.)

Find a new job. DONE.