Look, I know that everyone did that tag for goals check-in during the summer, but I was on a quarterly system, and I’m sticking with it. I also kind of like checking in every four months instead of halfway through the year because it feels a little less stressful.

Back in January, I outlined three goals: fitness, reading, and writing. In April, I checked in on how they were going, so if you want to follow along the progress, that’s linked, too.

fitness

A confession: somewhere around my last goals check-in, I hurt my hamstring pretty bad. I definitely did it to myself while teaching my advanced class on Saturdays, and it took a huge toll on my fitness. I usually wake up at 6AM every morning, work out for 30-40 minutes, and then go to work. I teach Mon, Tues, Wed, and Sat, so the only actual day I have off from working out is Sun, and a lot of the time, I end up at one of my favorite yoga studios. And, just like, it all stopped.

Obviously, I was still teaching. I can’t just stop because I’ve hurt myself, and admittedly, I kept pushing myself too hard. I had stopped working out in the morning because it hurt to even walk around, but I was so angry that I had to stop that my yoga classes got a little intense. That was, right up until it was starting to hurt even when I was sitting down and stationery.

Thus, these past couple of months have seen a lot of backward movement. My handstand got wobbly and hard to get into. I didn’t work on my forearm stand at all. I wasn’t doing anything outside of my classes, which were still at their same level, but were seeing a lot less of me actively participating in anything that involved hips or hamstrings. I gained 10lbs, and I was seriously unhappy with the way my life was going.

I tried to jump back into fitness because of that unhappiness, and hurt myself again.

I finally decided to learn my lesson and take a break until I was feeling better. And really, since April, it’s only now, in September, that I’ve started stepping back toward working out in the morning. There were a few mornings in the last few months that I did light yoga, and I even worked through some calisthenics to start gaining strength back once my hamstring was starting to feel better, but I’m finally feeling like I’m back now. My nutrition has stayed on a mostly good path, which is why I think I didn’t gain more, but I’m back to my 6AM workouts, my advanced class is back from a summer break, and I’m promising myself I’m not going to push too far again.

That said, there’s something amazing about what happens in a handstand when you start working out again. It was so bad all summer, and the second I crept in a little calisthenics, it was back like nothing had happened. I’m not away from the wall, and I doubt that I will be by the end of the year, but I’ve still learned a lot from this goal.

reading

We’ll get to my actual reading goals in a second, but since my last check-in, I started a bookstagram! It’s nothing special, and it’s really just me holding up books in front of my shelves, which is probably never going to change into a more complex aesthetic because I don’t have the time/money/energy, but it’s a lot of fun to have another place to quickly scream about books.

There’s a signing tonight that I’m really sad I can’t go to because I’m teaching, but I have two more events lined up! I’ll be meeting Joe Hill & Leigh Bardugo in October, and I’ll definitely have posts up for both.

My Goodreads goal is set at 150, and though I briefly teased the idea of 175, it’s not going to happen. I’m currently at 124 books, so I’m definitely going to make my goal, and I’m happy with that. I’ve been stressing myself out too much with books, and that’s just not fun.

I also had 10 specific goals, though one of them is crossed out because I decided in April that it wasn’t going to happen.

1. Finish The Mortal Instruments series reread. I DID IT! I DID IT! I DID IT! Not only that, buttttttttt!
2. Read The Infernal Devices trilogy. I’M ON BOOK TWO! Wow, guys, these two goals shouldn’t make me this excited, but this has been the longest two years of trying to get TMI reread and TID actually read, so I’m really pleased this is finally almost done. And not in a god I want this to be over finally almost done way, but more of a YES I’M BACK WITH SHADOWHUNTERS!
3. Finish A Series of Unfortunate Events. Also done! It sucked! I’m so glad it’s over!
4. Reread the Inheritance Cycle. I’m striking this out. I’m honestly not sure I’ll be able to get to this by year’s end.
5. Reread the Shades of Magic trilogy. I’m not striking this out, but also not sure if I’m actually going to accomplish it.
6. Reread the Crows duology. see above
7. Read one classic per month. NEARLY PERFECT! I’ve read, in order, The Secret Garden, Pride & Prejudice, half of Ulysses (that counts because jfc), The Divine Comedy, Sense & Sensibility, and Emma. Yes, that does not exactly add up to enough months, but I was burning out with reading this summer, so I took a small break and read some adult literary instead.
8. Read the Bible in its entirety.
9. Read every book I bought in 2018. When I made this goal, I had a little over 60 books on my 2018 backlist. In April, I was at 34, and I am now proudly at 18! Holy shit, this is awesome.
10. Stick to my monthly TBRs!  Let’s see. January? Yes. February? 4 out of 5. March? 4 out of 5. April? 3 out of 5. May? I didn’t set one, but told myself to catch up. June? 2 out of 5, yikes. July? 5 out of 5. August? 6 out of 6. September? I have 10 preorders to catch up on, and of the currently released 8, I’ve read 4.

Not too shabby, actually!

writing

Wow, okay, so I was about to give some bullshit about how my writing life sucks, but um? Here were my goals for 2019:

• Edit Saints at sea into a final draft.
• Write Saints at sea 2, and edit it into a final draft.
• Finish first drafts for the following: sister witches, there are thieves, the ones we left behind.
• If time allows, start Saints: the bastards.

Here I am thinking that I haven’t been writing at all this summer and that everything is terrible and I just want to be energetically creative again, and GUYS.

• Done. Saints at sea was officially edited into a final draft last month.
• Saints at sea 2 has been started, and while I’m not sure a final draft is going to happen this year, a first draft definitely is.
• Sister witches & thieves were finished AND edited into final drafts. (Well, thieves is, but sister witches will always be changing.) I’m striking the ones we left behind off this list because I didn’t hike the mountain that I needed to in order to write this.
• This isn’t even a goal that I definitely want to accomplish this year since it’s just if I have enough time, but.

Okay, so I wasn’t 100% that I would have time to write Saints: the bastards this year, but my goal for the last four months of the year is to write the first draft of Saints at sea 2 and at least one other novel. That’s not slated as the bastards because I’m going to need a Saintsverse break, and I can’t really say what the other one is going to be because I’m leaning in so many different directions, but honestly? Consider me almost back to writing, so I’m just casually not going to give my bullshit “I haven’t had time to write because life sucks and I don’t have the energy” because clearly that’s not true.

And because it’s basically tradition now, here are my little loves! They turned five in April, and my goal for the year was to love them more than I usually do, and honestly, considering I just spent $100 on bloodwork for Lily (she’s fine) and am now stuffing her full of wet food to help her get her weight back up, I’d say I’m right on track for that goal.

Well, I think I’m actually pretty happy with how my 2019 goals are going. How are your goals for this year coming along?