February always sucks, but at least this year it was productive!

Happy March, yall! Does anyone else just absolutely hate February? Is that just me? It’s cold, dreary, and if you’re single, reminds you of that fact pretty much constantly. The only upside is 50% off chocolates the day after Valentine’s Day (my favorite day). That said, I HAVE been taking advantage of the indoor weather to work on my (many) goals for 2019. (2019 Goals Post HERE)

Life Updates

Overall I’ve been doing pretty well with my goals, except for the reading books thing. My bedside stack is at least 6 books high right now. IT WILL HAPPEN. Otherwise, I’ve just been trying to keep up with my day job (I’m actually trying to become a good real estate lawyer, ugh), my workout schedule, all of my friends’ weddings and associated bridesmaid activities, and sleep.

My mom is doing ok. She’s still going through her second line of chemo treatments and eventually we’ll be in the transplant stage if all goes well. For those who are praying or sending good vibes, in addition to the obvious Cancer Stays Gone, these are her hopes: (1) No infections, (2) No complications, (3) Find a stem cell donor match, (4) No future side effects from chemo, and (5) because she is the sweetest person on earth, Healing for all the other cancer patients at the hospital where she is “because a lot of them are so much worse off than I am.” I appreciate ALL your love and support and so does my family! <3

Funny story: I was supposed to get tested to see if I was a match, and the hospital sent me a little kit since I’m not local. They told me I could go somewhere (harder to find a place that will draw your blood and give it back to you than you think) or have a friend do it if I know someone who knows how. So I called a doctor friend of mine and asked him to do it. He said he could and came over one day armed with tiny butterfly needles because he knew I was afraid of needles and though smaller ones would be better.

Turns out, smaller needles take WAY longer to drain the blood than larger ones and also...this dude hadn’t drawn blood since MED SCHOOL. After a few rogue sticks and a clotted needle, we ended up with about 1/4 a vial of blood out of the 2 total vials they needed for testing. He asked if he could try a different vein with a bigger needle and I said thank u next to that one. I’ll be finding a real life phlebotomist this time (Tayshia, where you at girlllll? < for all my Bachelor fans!)

Lessons learned: (1) Doctors don’t draw blood on the reg; call a nurse for that, and (2) If you’re scared of needles, choose the one that will be in your arm for the shortest time, aka a larger needle, rather than a tiny one that will be in there FOREVER for a good draw. I also now have sweet tract marks on my arm that would make me a good candidate for an episode of Intervention if you didn’t know the story.

Anyway, that’s been my month! On to the goals.

Here’s a breakdown of each goal and how well I did with them:

(1) Spend less money & repay most of the consumer debt

Budgeting for real. Meh.

I’m probably going to start tracking all of my expenses in a spreadsheet, which is something I’ve never done and which I think will be helpful since I do a lot of reimbursing other people (gotta get those points, right?)

Total failure. I have a card or two I need to pay off before they start accruing interest and then I’ll be able to monitor my spending better. A lot of my big, block expenses occur in the first quarter, so those are starting to hit (car insurance, personal training package, doggie daycare, etc.), but I’m using some of them to churn another travel card so I’ll get $700 of rewards for my trouble! :)

Reducing my dining, grocery, travel and shopping expenses.

I’ve done pretty well with this. Haven’t been going out or overspending at the grocery store. My $300 Target gift card I bought last year on the 10% off gift cards day has helped big time with this category. I also returned quite a few items I purchased over the holidays because they didn’t fit just right, and who needs clothes who don’t fit just right? I haven’t bought a single item of clothing in 2019.

Reducing my personal training to 1x/week. Done!

Accept all somewhat reasonable Poshmark offers.

Success! I’ve sold $324 on Poshmark since January. Actually a couple of the big items sold at asking price (some Tory Burch flats that were in great condition for $80 and a Kate Spade bag in perfect condition for $150), but I also sold a few items by lowering the prices or just getting lucky.

(2) Build the blog.

I hit my 2500 Twitter and 1000 Instagram followers by the end of February! This was a HUGE reach for Instagram, but I had a couple of big shout-outs (thanks especially to Veronika!) and put a lot of effort into the platform for the past few weeks that ended up paying off!

My goal will be to start monetizing the site right after its first anniversary at the end of March. Not the time yet, but it’s coming!

(3) 50 Blog Posts

6 Posts Written (with this one as the 7th)!  We’re like 8 or 9 weeks into the year, so I’m a little bit behind, but it’s not as bad as it could be. I’ll need to do a few extra over the course of the year, but it should be manageable.

(4) 30 Minutes of Productive Screentime Daily

I’ve done a great job with this one. I’m keeping up with my Givling (which hopefully will pay off one day in the form of $50,000 of student loan repayment!) and I’m ALMOST to Ambassador status on Poshmark...plus I’ve made some good sales. I’ve done ok with Duolingo, but I need to get more consistent. Same with the dating apps.

I’ve been a bit lazy with this goal, in part because Poshmark sharing was truly taking a lot of this time, but mostly because the language learning, dating, and listing items on Poshmark are all exhausting. So in March I’m going to have to set some more active/productive parameters on this to make sure I’m accomplishing the underlying goal.

(5) Fewer than 5 hours/week of TV (except football season/sports)

I’ve done well with this! Obviously keeping up with my trash TV: Bachelor, Siesta Key (OMG WHO ELSE IS WATCHING THIS….WE MUST DISCUSS), and Teen Mom 2. The rest has been college basketball, a couple of ER episodes and Miracle for the 100th time.

Surprisingly, I haven’t had much trouble cutting back from last year when I was legitimately binging shows 3-4 nights per week AT LEAST. I’m proud of myself for how much less TV I’m ingesting.

(6) Read 12 books

I’ve read zero. Better up my game on this one, huh?

(7) Finish The Federalist Papers

I’ve read 3 ½ (18, 19, 20 and most of 21). I read 1-17 last year. This has been a before-bed thing a few nights and I’m starting to get in the swing of things on it. Last night I started to read 21, but I didn’t have a pencil nearby to mark interesting passages, so I aborted the mission until I could adequately annotate. I am such a lawyer nerd, geez.

(8) Walk my dog more (specifically: around the block almost every day at least once)

This has been difficult, especially with the nasty, unforgiving February weather. Can someone please explain to me the purpose of this godforsaken month? Anyway, I’ve been putting more effort into this and doing a decent enough job. I still need to up my game, though, because my pup has only lost one pound since his last vet appointment and he really needs to be a couple pounds lighter! Plus exercise is just good for them.

(9) Work out 200 times this year

29 Total workouts through February 28! That puts me on track for 174 workouts by December 31. Not quite on track, but I’ll probably pick up a few extras in March and as long as I average about 4x/week, I should make it to 200. I’ve also been focusing on variety more than I did last year, which includes yoga, running and weights on my own without my trainer. For the next couple of months, I have a soft goal of more yoga and barre, but getting to classes has been such a stressor for me lately. We’ll see.

(10) Go to church 12 times (and preferably commit to one)

I’ve tried one new church! Probably going to go to a church this Sunday that I’ve tried a few times in the past and really like. I guess I’m not on track, but I actually went to a service...which is...a whole other story. Nothing like an intensely Calvinist reading of 1 Corinthians 13 (“Love is patient, love is kind” etc., etc.) from an associate pastor. I actually felt worse at the end about everything, so one strike for that church. I’ll try it again when the senior pastor speaks.

(11) $5,000 in Emergency Fund

On track! Currently, my emergency fund has about $3425 in it, and I added a $100 draft from my other paycheck to bring my monthly contribution to $200. By the end of the year, the total will absolutely exceed $5,000!

(12) 1-2 new dates per month (unless I meet someone)

Success! January: 1 Date; February: 2 dates (same person!) and a wedding makeout. HOO. BOY. has it been an adventure. If you don’t already follow me on Instagram, doooo it, I actually started a dating Highlight where I discuss some of the fun times dating has brought me since January. My one date in January went sour over third-party voting/polling theory, so there’s that.

My two February dates were with the same person, and he’s actually promising (we have a date tonight!) despite being on the receiving end of this Yoda .gif for not asking me out again directly enough:

Since then he’s really stepped up his game. Stay tuned!

On to March!

I’ll be focusing on Duolingo and reading more in March, as well as putting effort into dating, either with this guy or with other guys depending on how things go! I’m also headed to MIAMI soon for a bachelorette party, so lots of travel in my future!

How are yall’s goals coming? Are you on track for most of them or not? What are you going to work on in March?! Share in the comments!