Is it really May already? I feel like 2015 just started and soon we’ll be half done with it! Weird. 

Admittedly, I wasn’t very intentional about my goals for April. I rushed in setting them, because, like, that’s what I do–I set goals! I do things! I am a goal-setter.

Which, you know, is cool and everything, until you realize that the whole purpose of setting goals is to try accomplishing them. Instead, I set goals because it was expected.

I didn’t feel any impetus to complete them because I wasn’t attached to them. But let’s review and see how I did.

April Goals

1. Read at least one more book. // Done. I finished Wolf Hall. I actually finished Bring Up the Bodies on May 1st, too, so.. I’ll count that as April. Am I right? GOOD FOR ME.
2. Write at least 5 letters. // I wrote two. Fun fact: I want to write letters when I’m happy & I don’t when I’m sad.  I apologize to all my pen pals. I’m in a lot better state of mind now and hope writing won’t be as laborious as it was!
3. Save $50. (This is really small, but..) // Did this! Now that I know where I’m going to school in the fall, saving is a lot easier for me. When you’ve got something tangible to save for, it’s not so hard to put away money for the future. Who knew?
4. Stick with my eating plan. // I did this. I finished the last round of my eating plan.
5. Go. To. A. Movie. GO TO A MOVIE. // HAHAHA NOPE I AM JUST GOING TO STOP TRYING BASICALLY

So, here’s what’s on deck for May:

May Goals

1. Read two books. (This should be easy [famous last words]; I’m already halfway through one!)
2. Have a wonderful tour for Bremen Town Musicians.
3. Write at least 5 letters (Writing is really important to me and I want to be consistent)
4. Save at least $100. (Let’s up the ante.)
5. Write a blog post at least once a week.
6. Keep up with my money-saving, rebates, & rewards apps (I’ve been using quite a few apps recently to earn points/rewards that I can use for gift-cards for groceries and other items in the fall! I’m planning to write a post about this, so stay tuned.)
7. Keep up with my garden journal. Record daily temperatures.

Do you have any goals for this month? Share them with me! Let’s cheer each other on; I feel life heating up for me and am going to need all the encouragement I can get!

Sorry, y’all, but I just refuse to post on April 1st out of principle, so welcome to April 2nd, where I will now tell you about the goals I have for the rest of the month! I know you’re excited.

How’d I do for March?

Goals for March:

1. Read at least two books (I’m a book ahead of my overall goal for 2015, so I’d like to keep this up!) // I managed to read one book, which I really loved, and I started another. I’ll call that a win!
2. See one movie in a cinema // Nope. Still haven’t seen a movie in 2015, honestly…. whoops?
3. Give a confident, well-prepared, passionated, joyful audition in Philadelphia. // This I can say, without a doubt, I did. 🙂
4. No email after 7PM. // I would say I was very good about this until the end of the month, when things sort of.. went wonky. But it was relatively successful and considering what an email-obsessive demon I was prior to challenging myself, I’m pretty pleased.
5. Send at least 5 postcards/letters. // Oh man, did I do this. I love sending mail!
6. Be mindful of my spending. // This could have gone better than it did.
7. Be intentional with my eating. // Nope. I sort of forgot I was going to do this at all.
8. Unplug for an hour everyday. // I was doing so well on this. And then I wasn’t. Um.
9. Get one new aria to presentable level. // I didn’t learn anything NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW, but I’m feeling very confident about my newest repertoire. So!

April Goals

1. Read at least one more book.
2. Write at least 5 letters.
3. Save $50. (This is really small, but..)
4. Stick with my eating plan.
5. Go. To. A. Movie. GO TO A MOVIE.

What are your goals for April?

I would say that I can’t believe it’s almost March, but after the busy two months I’ve had, it had better be March, you know what I mean? 

I’ve been thinking about the next month and the sort of things, both physical & mental, I want to cultivate in my life. Even with the snow we’ve had over the past few days, I know spring is on its way and I want to be ready.

Goals for March:

• read at least two books (I’m a book ahead of my overall goal for 2015, so I’d like to keep this up!)
• see one movie in a cinema (this should be movie #3 I have seen this year, but I have not completed my goals for February or January–oh well!)
• give a confident, well-prepared, passionate, joyful audition in Philadelphia
  • Those three things are the only controllable variables. I cannot control the state of my voice that morning. I cannot control my external environment (people or places). I can only control myself and my attitude.
• no email after 7 PM
  • An exception can be made while traveling.
• send at least 5 postcards/letters
• be mindful of my spending
• be intentional with my eating
• unplug for an hour everyday (no phone, no social media, nothing)
• get one new aria to presentable level

I was inspired by Lara Casey‘s willingness to unplug from social media and technology for lengthy periods of time but I’m not entirely convinced I can go all in yet… I’m hoping to dip my toe in the proverbial water and then dive in once I know I can do it (yes, I’m totally a chicken).

What are your goals for March?

Something that will not surprise you: I like winning stuff. You probably like winning stuff, too. Bonus points when the stuff you win is actually useful stuff and not just another branded koozy that ends up sitting empty, waiting for a Diet Coke, taking up space in your junk drawer. (Though.. if you want to send me koozies, feel free, y’all. I’m not picky and I drink a lot of Diet Coke.)  Continue reading →

I probably don’t need another medium with which to ruin my reputation. But here I am, today, on the ninth day of January 2015, sitting at my desk, writing the first post for my new blog.

New. That’s a word I’ve always liked.

I relish this time of year. Before we get to the good part–the beginning of a new year–we’ve got the weird, nebulous end to the previous calendar year, fraught with over-indulgent reflection and self-flagellation over things that didn’t go as we so meticulously planned last January. We pine over and mourn the projects we left unfinished, the errands we didn’t run, the money we didn’t save.

For me, on January 1st, I seem to forget that there’s a critter in my garage eating my (very expensive) plant food, I’m still eighty pounds heavier than I would like to be (if not more), or that I didn’t quite manage to hit my number of books I wanted to read in 2014.

Come January 1st? All things new. The unknowable–what 2015 is going to bring–doesn’t seem scary just yet. It seems exciting. It seems filled to the brim of potential. In a few months, maybe I’ll remember that anything that has ‘potential’ to be good also has potential to be quite terrible. But today? For now? Just… openness. Just immediacy. Just possibility.

I’ll let y’all in on a not-so-secret: I am extremely long-winded. Even my daily to-do lists are purple prose. When I heard about the concept of choosing “One Little Word” to embody what I wanted 2015 to be, I struggled. Couldn’t it be “one little paragraph”? One little novel? One little treatise?

But I managed to do it. I managed to find the word that lit a fire under my feet when I thought about it, when I spoke it aloud, when I wrote it down and I looked at the letters and how they stood next to each other like little calling cards to the world.

Gumption.

This year, I’m going to live with gumption. I want to go into this year guns blazing–and when I meet an obstacle that scares me and causes me to put my pistols in their holsters, I pray that I have the gumption to draw them again the next day.

I pray that I have the gumption to be as authentically me as possible–no apologies, no addendums, no disclaimers. I pray I have the gumption to celebrate my successes. I pray I have the gumption to learn from my failures. I pray I have the gumption to admit I’m wrong, or that I don’t know, or that I can’t know.

Just.. a whole lot of gumption. And aren’t y’all lucky you get to see how it all turns out?