I decided to mostly give myself August off. It was not planned. It just happened. But life has been crazy enough that I do not feel bad about it. Come September, SP will be back in school, and we should get back on a schedule that lets me feel like I can blog without missing out on time with her.

I love blogging, and I plan on being back, maybe even better than ever. But I have to be honest, I am kind of enjoying this time off. There’s a piece of advice that I have given numerous friends over the years, to remember, no matter how stressful and busy life gets, to take care of themselves. This is part of that for me. I am giving myself a break so that I can take care of me and not stress about “one more thing”. And next week, we’re attending the complete Ring Cycle, so that’s going to take up all of my time anyway.

 

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. (Obviously not happening at the moment.)

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.

I haven’t written at all this month yet.

 

 

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 26, 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.

Not having a budget is kind of driving me crazy at the moment. I’m actually counting down the days until I have enough information to make my new one.

 

Floating Goals

Sell the Condo. Our renter is now staying another year.

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.

Fix the plumbing issues. DONE