First, a shout-out to Kae’s January report which inspired this post! I am very impressed with her comprehensive review and there is no way this is going to come close, but I will do a related post. I already reviewed some things that were working / things that were not, but we can definitely get a bit more granular!
Strength Workouts: 11! 8 at the strength gym and 3 Peloton workouts to round out the week. Super happy with this one (and a demonstration that I needed to take a different approach with this goal – one I flailed on last year).
Running Stats: 199.48 miles. Rather annoying to be THAT close to 200, huh? For fun, average pace was 9:08 and running took up a cumulative 30 hours and 24 minutes. Ooh, and temp average at the start of runs was 59F!! No wonder it felt so amazing. This is good even for us; last January was average of 65F. (This data is on Runalyze, I am not tracking it myself!)
Meditation Sessions: 22/31. I am actually trying a different meditation app right now (The Way) via free trial. Not sure if I will switch to that long term or not, but I do like it!
Duolingo Sessions: 28/31.
Screen Time: There’s no easy way to look at the monthly total here, but it’s been an upward slide (nooo!) since week one. But, I remain 100% free of all social media (including Reddit). It’s been more “checking” than “scrolling” behavior which I don’t find as toxic but I still don’t love it. I am going to try Kae’s favorite app, Forest, and will try to figure out the “go to a strength gym” or “have an editor to report to” equivalent for this issue. (AM I A CLOSET OBLIGER!?!?! I don’t think so, but it might be like my secondary tendency.)
Books Read: 5 books finished (I am including one that I finished RIGHT at the start, but am not counting the 3 books I am in the middle of right now!). They are here! I loved The Wedding People but I think I loved Annie Bot even more.
Other Media: VERY little! Music-wise I really liked Anna B Savage‘s album. TV: I watched a whopping 3 eps of Sex Lives of College Girls though now that I’m writing this, I think I might go lie down and watch some more right now.
Date nights: ONE weeknight date night, which was impromptu and fun.
FUN events & highlights:
Accomplishments: HANDING IN MY DRAFT!! Sending in my last sections and knowing that my the initial draft of my book is complete was huge. I still have a ton of work to do (and honestly NOT a ton of time to do it!) but this was a huge step and very exciting. A related highlight was that it got officially announced.
Other fun things:
- Both big kids had awesome school field trips (both overnight; A one night and C two!). Just happy to see them enjoying these experiences and having fun social time.
- Spectating my first gym meet. A didn’t compete (broken finger) but it was really cool to see her teammates and just see what the whole experience was like.
- Riding bikes with G (who can ride really well now!), including to a neighborhood chalk drawing contest. (She didn’t win but she loved the free chocolate muffins, haha.)
- C getting into A’s school for next year
- Organized my closet, woohoo!!!
- Neighborhood book club – which was super well attended! Book club is BACK!
- G getting her ears pierced!
- G improving a TON with her reading — she started working with a tutor a few months ago and it has helped so SO much.
Lowlights & struggles:
- I didn’t make it through even ONE full week of electronically tracking my time! For whatever reason, I think I am just not cut out for doing this in an online way. (I do better on paper where it feels more natural to approximate!)
- Some people in my life are dealing with really hard things.
- A’s broken finger and our cancelled trip to Vegas
- Stressful news stuff (didn’t focus on this too much, though — too much of LIFE going on that I don’t want to miss) + very very sad events (fires, plane crashes, and more)
Note: I know Kae pulled her lists from her detailed google sheets; I pulled mine from my Hobonichi 5-year journal! Similar practice, different medium.
Few Pix:
Finances: JK, I am not going to include numbers here. But holistically, I think we did reasonably well! I did not yet shop for any date night outfits but instead I saved some $ from my “Extras” account, so I definitely will this month.
Back tomorrow with some Feb goals!
8 Comments
Im on Duolingo now too! Add me! 🙂
DONE!
You had a really great month! I’m glad that strength training is working so well for you!
I need to figure out what to do about my five year journal. My writing is absolutely terrible in the splint because I have to use my thumb and middle finger and it’s just bad so I don’t know if I should just take an eight week break from it and accept that this is not the time to Capture my life in written form? I could capture it digitally and then write it in the journal when I can write again, but that kind of seems like a hassle. Sigh.
Since you loved Annie Bot even more than the wedding people, you’re making me really want to read it!
Hi, I have a five-year diary too, actually starting my 16th year of them. When I travel, I don’t take the book, I take a small notepad, write entries, then I’m too lazy to transcribe them into the diary so I just fold I the page into quarters and tape it into the book. Since you have eight weeks, an idea – go digital like you said- write a brief entry for every day and then when your eight weeks are over, print the page(s) two- sided and tape it into the book. Hope your hand feels better soon!
Sweet list! I got my daughter Angelique’s ears pierced this month! She was so excited.
Congrats to C- I’m sure you’re relieved. Was it a whole process? We’re going thru it now for private kindergarten – 12th and the 4 year old admissions game is… a thing.
thankfully it’s not that competitive of a school (some of the Miami ones are, but I don’t think this one is terribly selective, esp w a sibling already there). BUT still involved SSAT, interview, etc. Not fun!
Congrats on handing in the book draft! And this reminds me to go to my Duolingo today – I forgot yesterday and now my poor Duo’s been stuck in ice. 😉