We back! Not only are we back on the blog and back to reading amazing books, we’re back to check on goals! ICYMI, here is my initial goal setting post in January, as well as my quarterly check-in in April. There’s definitely going to be some revising of goals, one that I know for sure that I accomplished, and maybe some surprises? We’ll see!

fitness

Not only have I worked on all of these goals, but I’m now teaching four times a week, and it’s amazing. Regrettably, I am not practicing outside of my teaching currently, which I would like to find some time for, but my only free days are Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday, and all of those are book-ended by days that I teach or are, you know, Friday, which is pizza night, so I’m not actually sure that’s likely anytime soon. However, I miss practicing on my own so much, so I really need to wiggle some time in somewhere.

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

Y’ALL. YA GIRL GOT HER SPLIT BACK ON HER RIGHT SIDE! WHAT IS UP! I didn’t even realize it, and then I taught a super hip intensive class because we were in the middle of the summer games at the gym, and there was a psycho dyno comp, so a bunch of the competitors came to class and asked if I could warm them up for the comp, so we did hips and shoulders, and I was feeling so open that I popped into a split at the end of class and was like, you know what? I feel good, let’s see, AND I GOT ALL THE WAY TO THE GROUND. I am so hyped, I don’t even have words. It’s been three years since I injured my right hamstring and was able to do a split, and I only got the left side back about a year ago, and it’s been such a long journey, but I’m back and badder than ever.

I’ve been practicing heart openers every time I get on my mat, regardless of whether or not I’m teaching, which is working out really well since it’s both great for me and excellent for climbers. There are a few that I do every time without fail, but there are a couple more involved ones that I’ve been working in here and there. I’ve also officially started twisting again, nothing too crazy, but more than the absolutely nothing I was at before, and I’m really excited by that.

Funny that I should be drafting this post right now, in the middle of August, because one of my students asked if we could work on arm balances this weekend, and she wants to work on more than crow, so we’re about to have a heck ton of fun. I haven’t been doing as many of these as I would have liked, and now that I’m being reminded I wanted to work on them, I’m definitely going to focus on this a little bit more.

reading

You guessed it, we’re doing some revising here.

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!
6. Do not buy any books until The Great TBR Challenge is at or below 35.

I honestly did not expect to be crossing off two goals in this section, and though I’m a little bummed out, it is what it is. I said in April that I wouldn’t be surprised if I crossed off reading classics or nonfictions, and given that I’ve been steadily reading mostly fantasy and had a terrible month in June, I don’t anticipate feeling up to tackling this goal at all for the last quarter of the year. Oh well! I also just don’t like HoME is going to happen. I keep looking at it, and I keep not doing it, and I want to, I do, but I think this is going to take longer than the year I tried to overachieve it for.

However, the others are going along swimmingly! At the time of drafting this on 8/20, I’ve read 75 books, and I’m 12 books ahead of my goal. I won’t have finished this by the time it posts a couple weeks later, but I’ll hopefully be around 80, so I definitely see this goal coming to fruition very soon. I’ve also officially only got two Shadowhunters books left! I can’t believe it. I didn’t finish it in a month like I tried to do it you won’t at myself back in April, but I will finish it before the end of the year.

Annnnd, TBRs! Let’s see: January: 4/5, February: 5/6, March: 5/8, April & May did not have a TBR, June: 8/20, July: 3/5, August 2/5. I’ve got a list of the outstanding ones I have left, so I am trying to focus on those, but I also recently dropped The Great TBR Challenge, which outlines the 72 (!!!!!!!) books that I have that are owned & unread. There are more outside of that (an additional 30, yikes), but I don’t envision reading any of those soon, and I’m going to revisit them at the end of the year to see if they’re even worth keeping. I’m adding this challenge to my goals list because I’d like to be at or below 35 books (around half) before I do any serious book buying because it is out of control, y’all, and I’m running out of room.

writing

This is also going to need some revising, but I’m not going to go too in-depth because I talked about where I’m at with my writing in my recent life update, so if you’re really curious why one (lol two don’t lie) are taking a backseat, it’s all in there.

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.

We already knew that the SW2 goal was done, but it’s the second goal that I’m going to have to quietly say nah to. I’m not going to cross it out because I’m not 100% sure that I won’t work on this at all this year, but I’m so consumed with vampire detective that it’s unlikely to happen. However, I have been taking some breaks from Andrew’s story here and there, so it may end up happening that I need a bit of a longer break and dive back into Freddie’s story real quick. However, it will only be the first one because one of my CPs has not read the second one yet.

I am steadily working on vampire detective, and though I definitely won’t finish it this year, I’m hoping to be a little over halfway. There are eight lovers in total, and I’m on the third, so if I could get the fourth & fifth squared away by the end of the year, I’d count that as a win because that’d probably be nearly two full book lengths of words. I’m anticipating taking most of 2022 to keep writing Andrew’s story, too, so my writing goals are going to be very slim next year (I say this now, just watch, the Aries fire will rear its ugly head before then), and that’s also why the fourth goal is crossed out. Zero percent chance that I write anything outside of Andrew, and I am totally okay with that.

Considering I actually spent probably a full work’s week worth of time panicking myself straight into near tears over the girls and their food last month, I’d say I’m definitely loving them more than normal. They are both very excited about the fact that they’re eating wet food twice a day now, and though they miss the dry food, they get so hyper at breakfast and dinner, screaming at me for love and affection WE ALL KNOW IT’S CHICKEN AND SARDINES that they’re doing just fine. I’ve been specifically setting aside time at night after I get home from the rock gym for Grace to sit in my lap, too, and I usually have a twice-weekly snuggle with Lily in the morning when she asks for it, so we’re starting to figure out this whole having a job thing that they think is rude.

If you set goals this year, how are they going?