Oh, hi! I can’t believe it’s already April! Because doing halfway check-ins stress me the heck out, I like to do quarterly ones on my goals, so here we are, a quarter way through the year, checking in on my 2021 goals. ICYMI, here are the goals themselves, none of which I actually remember, and all of which I’m about to go oh yeahhhhh about. I think I may have managed some of them? I’m honestly not at all sure, so let’s take a look!

fitness

Though I’m not specifically working on inversions as a goal to accomplish this year, I am always working on them, and I do them in every single practice. I’m happy to report that I’ve managed a few forearm stands away from the wall, though I was at the wall when they happened, I just didn’t utilize the wall. I also did that twice(?) with handstands, though it was definitely a fluke, and I’m nowhere near balancing away from it. However, this is probably the only goal that I’ve been actively remembering to work on since I practice yoga about four to five times a week, so:

1. Find a split on my right side again.
2. Practice more backbends!
3. Work on arm balances.

I’VE DONE ALL OF THESE THINGS! I’m not all the way to the ground yet in my split, and I’m not entirely sure that’ll happen by the end of the year, but I’m working hard to make it a reality as much as I possibly can. Backbends, however, are another story entirely. Up until recently, I thought that the debilitating pain in my low back was coming from the sciatic nerve, and though it’s mostly been chill for the last decade after a chiropractic adjustment that changed my life, it’s flared back to life over the last six months, to the point where I wake up in the middle of the night in pain, it’s hard for me to sit up from lying down, and it sometimes makes working difficult. My massage therapist has been working on it from a hip-perspective, since that’s where the pain is located, but I knew I was supposed to be working on heart openers this year, purely for emotional healing, and what do you know, my pain started lessening.

This started to make even more sense when I finally went to a chiropractor again, and he correctly diagnosed the pain as an issue with my SI joint & 5th lumbar. Apparently, when you overextend so much in yoga, you can shift your lumbar out of place, and all that advanced folding over basically separated two pieces of my spine to the point where they were in danger of slipping, so heyyyyyy, I’m not allowed to forward fold or twist right now, but I am definitely allowed to backbend. Thus, not only has doing heart openers been a goal I’ve focused on a lot, it’s one that’s really helping me, and I’m so happy.

And yes, I’ve been working on arm balances! Not as much as I wanted to, though that’s because I’ve been honing in on the splits & backbends so much, but I’ve definitely been remembering to try out a couple at the end of every practice. I’m mostly focused on flying pigeon, eight angle, and crow, though I want to get back to working on grasshopper, side crow, and elephant.

reading

I know, with certainty, that I’m making progress on at least one of these, but I feel very not great about all the rest.

1. Read 100 books.
2. Catch up on all currently published Shadowhunters books.
3. Read one classic OR nonfiction per month.
4. Review volumes 3-7 of History of Middle-earth.
5. Stick to my monthly TBRs!

I’m actually ahead of my 100 books by five, I think, so that’s good, and, DRUMROLL PLEASE, I’ve finally continued reading Shadowhunters books! I’ve finished The Dark Artifices, and I’ve decided to just let myself carry on, so I’m getting ready to crack into The Eldest Scrolls. It’s great, watch out, I’ll have this goal finished in a month. (Yo, chill the heck out, dude.)

I, uhhhhhhh, have not at all worked on the one classic/nonfiction per month, though. Honestly, I’m tired, and I know that I have a lot of both of these to read, but I’d really rather just read YA fantasy right now, so I’m not too mad at myself about this one. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up crossing it out at my next check-in, based on how my reading goes. I did a lot of specific reading last year, and while it was fun, and I’m glad that I’ve made some big strides on my non-YA books, I just–don’t care as much this year, honestly. I do, however, want to accomplish review volumes 3-7 of HoME, even though I haven’t even read and reviewed the second volume yet, so I’m going to get my ass into gear and work toward that.

As for monthly TBRs, I’ve been managing pretty well so far! January: 4/5. February: 5/6. March: 5/8. March wasn’t great, but I went off the rails in the middle of the month, as is evidenced in my wrap-up, where I just had a big I DO WHAT I WANT moment for two weeks straight.

writing

Annnnd, the thing that makes everyone side-eye me:

1. Rewrite sister witches 2 & edit into a final draft.
2. Edit researcher & librarian 1 & 2 into final drafts.
3. Write the first draft vampire detective.
4. Get crazy, and write something unexpected.

SW2 is DONE. It’s been edited, I just got it back from my CP (yes, again, she’s a saint), and I’ve got a few more edits to make on it, but it’s in really good shape. I also, even though it wasn’t a goal, did slight edits on SW3 before I gave it to my CP, and she’s working on it now, and I am 100% confident that I’ll revise it when I get it back because I can’t help myself.

On the flip side, I haven’t even looked at researcher & librarian. I have my other CP’s edits for it, and I totally have the time to work on it, I just–decided to do goal #4 a bit earlier than planned, whoops? Look, I watched Feel Good, and it made me want to write lesbians, and then I was vibing a contemporary story, so I started writing sycamore girls, which is legit just my bookstore boys story, but with women, and has such RWRB vibes that it’s making me giddy, so here I am, abandoning one goal to work on another. I knew this was going to happen, so at least I’m consister.

And, though I started working on vampire detective, it was still fighting me a bit, and I only got 12k into it before wandering away to sycamore girls, so though I am working on this goal, it’s just not right this second.

I started a new job at the beginning of the year, and it’s in-office, so I’m actually failing pretty spectacularly on loving Grace & Lily even more than usual, and Grace would like to speak to management about that. She is pissed about a) the amount of time I’m not home and b) how busy that means I am on the weekends. Don’t I understand that she needs maximum lap snuggle time?? Gods, mom.

Lily just makes me say goodbye to her thirty-five times in the morning now, and it’s the cutest thing ever. I’m definitely almost late for work every single day.

If you set goals for the year, how are they going?