Helga without the H

Supposedly most people who make NY resolutions drop them in the 1st month. Gyms are overrun by new members in January, then things return to normal in February. I take my resolutions seriously, so to help me keep on track, I’m doing an end-of-month-1 check-in. Do NOT expect these from me every month. Here we go:

The truth is, this month has kicked my ass in many, many ways. Resolutions and plans are nice and all, but sometimes real life gets in the way, and this month I had a LOT of real life. So, some stuff got a bit derailed. And that’s fine- I’m not disappointed with myself or anything. Real life is more important. But none of that means that I have to give up with moving forward. With that being said, let’s check in:

1. Publish my 3rd book: Not finished, obviously. But my #1 priority for this weekend is to finish my editing. Book stuff often required me to block off a full day or weekend and put my head down, otherwise I have a hard time getting as focused as I need to be (hence editing takes years longer than it should.) This month’s weekends, which were originally almost entirely open for potential editing, were all quickly taken over by dog stuff, family stuff, multiple funerals, etc. Fingers crossed that February will be better.
2. Complete a rough first draft of my 4th book: Zero progress, but I’m not expecting any until resolution #1 is done.
3. Visit Museums: I haven’t done any yet. Maybe I’ll hit one this weekend. But, again, January weekends got taken over by other priorities.
4. Prepare estate documents (etcetera): This resolution was originally titled “Prepare for death,” which I changed because it sounded too morbid. I haven’t done any work on this one, but I did get a jarring reminder of why this resolution is a priority when a friend my age suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. So… yeah. Gotta get on this one pronto.
5. Focus on health: This one was about making sure to make doctor’s appointments (which I am bad at doing.) I’ve booked my “annual” physical (which I historically have done about once a decade, but this year would be 3 years in a row!) but need to get on the others. Actually… just now writing this I went “well why don’t I just get on that right now?” So now I’m also booked for my optometrist.
6. Return to food tracking: I’ve been doing this one all month. I’ve also starting using the same spreadsheet I used during the weight loss challenge to track calories, junk food, water, exercise, etc. I’ve been doing it, but not gonna lie, the accuracy is way off. Hopefully I’ll tighten it up over time.
7. Focus on budget: My goal here was to start tracking my spending using Mint again. This was a fine time to learn that Mint was shuttered a year ago! Doh! So in January I’ve spent time researching what the best replacement are out there. I’ve settled on Monarch and have gotten myself mostly set up. All January spending is categorized, and most of 2024 is categorized. The idea with categorizing 2024 is to get a solid snapshot of a year’s worth of spending to help me budget going forward. But I still have to categorize ALL of my 2024 Amazon purchases (which is a LOT), which requires finding a moment for my husband (who literally does this for a living) to walk me through the best practice for how to handle split purchases that partially use Amazon points. I also want him to look over what I’ve done to see if he sees places where my tracking could use improvement. Once all that’s done, I’ll take a closer look at setting up a budget going forward. So, big progress on this one! Huzzah!
8. Read 30 books: I’m on my way! I’ve finished 4 books so far. Granted 1 was read mostly in December and finished this month, and another was a book of comics. It’s been a tough reading month, though, because I haven’t liked the stuff I’m reading, which is a bummer. Especially in a month where I REALLY could have used some escapism. Oh well.
9. House Stuff: I’ve done one House Thing amidst all this madness! I purchased a surge protector with an 8 ft cord, as well as a cable cover, so that my husband can plug in his laptops right next to the couch where he works instead of running the power cables across from the kitchen counter where there are a trip hazard. I’ve almost eaten it on his power cables several times, and the foster dog traffics through there a lot, so this is a huge improvement. Ideally we’ll also buy an end table to kinda hide the plug and for the laptops to sit on, and maybe do the same thing on the other end of the couch. But right now this is a tiny change that’s made a huge difference.
   OH! I also bought us a squatty potty!!!! We’ve leveled up the Pootorium!
10. Focus on fitness: For this one I already set a January goal (Backyard BRRR- see below). I set a target weekly routine. and I planned to set more goals (probably running targets) later. The January goal was to focus on the Backyard BRRR, a contest to accumulate as many miles as possible, ideally outside. I was aiming for 100 miles of running, which would beat my previous monthly record on Garmin by 20 miles. This would have been a huge achievement for me, and I told myself that I wouldn’t do anything unsafe to get there, so the stars would really have to align. Well… it would have been unsafe. I would have needed to be consistently running every other day. Early in the month I had a Saturday volleyball tournament, and even though Friday should have been a run day, I skipped it so I’d be rested enough for the tournament. After the tournament my calves and achilles were WRECKED, so I took off the next day as well. The next morning I got word that my friend was dead, which made me too fucking sad to think about exercise (though I did somehow go through the motions for a vball game that night.) Between the wrecked legs and the sadness, I missed an entire week of running. So… 100 miles was right out the window. Also, despite the spirit of the challenge, we’ve had shit weather that left our sidewalks dangerously icy for half the month, so outdoor running was out the window as well. And the biggest challenge of all: we started fostering a dog at the start of the month (“because we have nothing else going on this month!” Hahahaha sorry world, we jinxed it for everyone.) So dog walking took up chunks of my day that would have been for running. And my husband had to be out of town a couple times, leaving me as sole dog watcher for a dog that hasn’t yet learned how to be left alone indoors. With ALL of those excuses out of the way… I’m still proud of myself for this month. I managed to break my Garmin record with a whopping 80 miles of running! Only 5 running miles were outdoors, but I did rack up a whopping 104 miles of walking (mostly outdoors), for a cumulative total of 185.11 miles. At the moment that’s good enough for 172nd place. That doesn’t sound good, but it’s out of 1,052 contestant. AND the challenge allowed biked miles and I didn’t do any biking. I think I’m in 23rd place amongst non-cyclists. Those standings will likely slide a little because people are allowed to enter their scores through tomorrow. But still… not too shabby! The flip to all of this is that my weekly plan (run 3x, strength 2x, vball 1x, yoga 1x) went right the fuck out the window. I kept up with vball. but only went to yoga once all month, and only did strength like 3 or 4 times. Oh well.