I am not excited about this check-in. It’s been a rough year so far. Between a lot of travel, an insane uptick in business at work, and just a whole slew of little things, I have gotten very little done. Although maybe I’ll surprise myself? I don’t honestly remember what about half of my goals were, so here they are to remind us all, and let’s dig in!

fitness

I am actually going into this section knowing that I’ve done both a good & bad job with this recently, and I know where I need to work on. Somehow, these are the only goals that have been at the forefront of my mind, though I guess that also makes sense given that my mindset hasn’t been great lately. I don’t even really like saying that, though, because I really haven’t been doing a lot of negative self-talk. Recently, I was aggravated about my bridesmaid dress not fitting, and my first thought was I hate myself for letting this happen, but my second thought was it’s absolute bullshit that I fit into a size 12 in EVERYTHING ELSE except this dress, so? That feels like a win to me.

1. Get to a regular 5.10 climbing level.
2. Work on forearm stand away from the wall.
3. Practice yoga every week outside of teaching.
4. Try to eat more intuitively.
5. Hike more!

It’s not shocking to me that the literal second I said that I needed to find people to climb with, Ryan & Brian at work became available for twice weekly climbs. I’m not at a 5.10 climbing level yet, but I am consistently climbing, and that’s half the battle. I’m struggling with overhangs right now, so that’s been my current battle, but I am climbing consistently, and I’m happy with that.

I definitely haven’t worked on my forearm stand, though, and haven’t done yoga outside of teaching since maybe the first two weeks of January? My schedule has been insane at work, which has really tanked my desire to do anything outside of work, but things have begun to slow down, so I’m going to refocus on practicing outside of my classes.

Eating intuitively is a work in progress. I’m still snacking at work, but I have definitely pulled back a lot, and I’m working on pulling back even more. Chips are great, and I totally get why I like eating them, but I also don’t feel great after eating them, and I need to replace them with something else, so I’m getting back in the habit of yogurt. It’s one of my favorite things to eat, but it was also one of my you can’t enjoy life foods back in the day when I was disordered eating, and it’s taken a while to convince myself it’s okay to eat it again. (Don’t ask, I can’t explain it.) Thus, work in progress. We’re getting there. I ate a lot of whole foods while I was in Portugal, and I felt amazing the entire time, so I’m working on maintaining that.

And this last goal will have to wait a bit! The weather is getting warmer, so I’ll definitely have more to say in my next check-in, but it’s not hiking weather yet, so stay tuned!

travel

Looking back, this was a bit of a unless COVID cancels everything, we’re good kind of section, and while I am kind of eyerolling at myself, it’s also nice to know that I checked most of these off!

1. Explore Lisboa & Ponta Delgada for a full day without a plan.
2. Talk to people on the tours!
3. Solo hike in Peneda-Gerês and Pico Arieiro & Pico Ruivo.
4. Try as many new foods as possible.
5. Plan Scotland.

I kind of explored without a plan? Walking around an unfamiliar city in an unfamiliar country isn’t super ideal, and it definitely doesn’t vibe with my overall anxiety, so I went halfway on this. I picked out some places that I wanted to see, but didn’t set myself a schedule or book any tours. Thus, it was totally up to me. I could either see the cathedral & tower while in Porto, or I could just see one, it wasn’t set in stone, and I’m glad I did it that way. I ended up having a full day in both Lisboa & Porto to just see the sights, which is not Ponta Delgada, but I ended up kayaking & swimming in the open ocean for three hours on my day off in Ponta Delgada, so you’ll have to forgive me for filling my afternoon with food and rest.

I talked to so many people while abroad! Whether it was my tour guides or the other people on my tours, I made sure to talk to people every single day that I was out and about, and it was a lot of fun. I did hike for a bit with other people on Pico Ruivo, too, though they quickly abandoned me when I was hiking way too slow, and while I did solo hike on Pico Ruivo, it nearly killed me (I’m only kind of exaggerating), and I would not recommend that hike to anyone. There was a landslide on Arieiro that meant we had to hike up the opposite side of the trail, which is significantly harder, and I derived 0% of joy from that experience. I also didn’t solo hike in Peneda-Gerês because my transfer cancelled at the last minute, and I decided to just explore the city of Porto instead. However, I did kayak into the open ocean and snorkel (awful, but glad I tried), so I’m calling this one a win.

And the food was mostly a success, despite the fact that I ate a lot of Italian & Indian food while I was in Portugal because everything was mostly large quantities of meat & fish, and it was a real struggle to find any kind of vegetables on the mainland. However, I did try the traditional cod dish, I had cheese from three of the different Acores islands, I got as many pastries as possible, and I fell in love with passionfruit! All in all, I will 100% go back to the Acores and eat my way through all of them.

Stay tuned on Scotland! I just got back from Portugal at the very beginning of April, and it was certainly a learning experience. (IE: two weeks was a little too long.) I am very excited about the prospect of Scotland, though, so as soon as my friend’s wedding is done in June, that’s my focus.

reading

Oh, this is going to be dismal. I read four books in March, y’all. We’re not about to have fun.

1. Read 100 books.
2. Stick to my monthly TBRs!
3. Do not buy any books until The Great TBR Challenge is at or below 35.
4. Stay current with new releases.
5. Read five books in Portuguese.
6. Try to read 10 books a month.
7. Finish Jane Austen!
8. DNF @ 100 pages if you don’t like it, ya dummy.
9. Buy two more bookcases.
10. Stop forcing yourself to read outside of fantasy if you don’t want to.
11. Reread at least one book a month!

As I’m drafting this at the beginning of the month, I’m six books behind on my Goodreads goal, so. I am really trying to refocus my reading time, though, so hopefully this is about to turn around. For TBRs, I know that this isn’t going to be great, either. January: 5/8. February: 4/7. March: 4/8. April: 2/6. SIGH.

Lol, let’s just same at the rest of these. I bought books in February when I went to see Erin, I’m not doing too bad at new releases, I haven’t read any book sin Portuguese yet, I’m not even close to ten books a month, I have read Persuasion and plan on tackling Mansfield Park before the end of the month, A ROUSING SUCCESS! Off the top of my head, I’ve DNF’d two books so far this year, and one of them was by one of my favorite authors, so that’s saying something. I haven’t bought two new bookcases yet, but this is reminding me that I should because I’m about to move into a new room. I haven’t bought a house yet, we’re not that excited, but my brother is renting an apartment (he, too, is struggling with the market and has marginally given up), and I’m officially moving into his room, which is eons bigger, so I finally have more room for shelves. I’ve been doing great at not forcing myself to read outside of fantasy, particularly this month when I just dove all in, and I have not reread a single book so far this year, so.

We’re at, like, 5/11 goals? Like I said, it’s been rough, but we’re going to turn things around, just not yet because the next section is also one I don’t want to look at.

writing

I’ve probably written less than 20k this entire year so far, and that’s just–I hate that so much. Oh, I’m going to look for real, and this is going to break my heart. LOL YUP. It’s around 10k. I don’t know what to say on this. A lot of things haven’t been easy. Work was way busier than I anticipated at the start of the year, my free time has been absolutely eaten up by just being exhausted, and Andrew is hard. This is probably the most difficult novel I’ve ever written, and it’s taking the stuffing out of me.

1. Finish the first draft of Andrew.
2. Keep querying sister witches.

I still want to finish the first draft of his book this year, I really do, but my goodness, I am so far away from that. I’m slowly crawling back to it, but it’s not looking good. I’m at about the same exact place I was when I set my goals for this year, and there’s more than half of his novel left, and I just–I don’t know. I keep saying I’m determined, but that also keeps not translating into anything but me being upset that I haven’t written anything. And it’s not that I don’t want to, or I don’t have ideas, I literally don’t have time. There is so little of my day free, and I’m struggling to figure out where writing fits into that, and it’s something that’s really causing me a lot of anxiety & stress, and I hate it. I just want to be able to write this damn book so it’s done, and I can finally have the foundation built for my entire universe, and, even more than that, I just want to know Andrew’s story. I’m so stuck in so many different places because he’s the center of the universe, and I don’t know so much about him, and I need to write this to find out, and ughhhhhhhh.

Don’t even start on sister witches, I haven’t been querying, and I don’t want to until I finish Andrew’s novel.

Lily was so pissed at me when I came back from Portugal that she wouldn’t accept treats from me. She had such a I don’t know who you think you are, but my mom died energy about her that it took her a full day and a half before she even let me pick her up. We only just got back to her drooling on me and snuggling at the end of the first week, and I feel so bad. Two weeks was way too long away from them, both for my mental state and theirs. (Grace, however, went full I HAVE NOT BEEN OKAY LOVE ME the moment I walked in, and we’ve snuggled a ton.) So I think I’m kind of failing on my love my cats even more goal, too?? Good grief.

If you set goals, how are they going?