Good morning! I’m not going to lie, the past couple of weeks have been a bit of a wash in terms of my goals, although I am planning and trying to take advantage of opportunities. This week, I traveled back to Ohio for work and so travel ate up a chunk of time.
One thing that I’ve been really good with this year so far is my reading goals. I have read 10 books already which is on pace with the goal I set in Goodreads. I’d like to read more, but as always time is a big factor. My raid group cleared the tier on Final Fantasy XIV which means we will hopefully be meeting only one night a week instead of three. I did sign up on NetGalley to received ARCs (advance reader copy) to read and review before they are available in stores. And the first one I read might be one of my favorite books in recent memory. The Library of Amorlin is about a conwoman who is basically forced to infiltrate the library, which is the seat of magic in the world, and try to find a way to have the Librarian removed from power. I think it’s one that benefits from knowing less before jumping in, but I have posted a review. I don’t know if I would have found this book without the ARC process on NetGalley and I’m so thankful I did.
I do have an opportunity coming up at work that would advance those goals. The manager counterpart to my role in Financial Planning is moving back to our group to backfill a manager who is transitioning to a large project team. I have not been in the Financial Planning group at all, but it would go a long way toward being involved with strategy. I have a meeting with her this coming week to discuss what else is involved in her role. I’m hoping it materializes into a new role for me soon.
My gardening goals keep changing. I keep changing how I feel about reorganizing it. Some days I feel like I should go ahead and reorganize the whole thing to the shape I want and then spend next year or even later this year putting out stepping stones and a fountain. Some days I think doing all of that would be too much work and too much for our budget given the wedding. I may stick with using the raised beds I have already and put money towards taking the mostly dead tree down in the back of the yard. I can recycle those pieces into fill for the new beds next year. The pop-up nursery that we love will be opening around the end of March/beginning of April so time grows short.
For the remainder of my goals, I’m going back to the drawing board a bit. I have my new laptop now and it has been great for the little while I’ve been able to use it. I’ve set it up with most of the programs I need and I’ve obtained a planner and a couple of small notebooks to keep around. One thing I’m terrible about is note taking and getting thoughts out of my head. I picked up one notebook for quotes and one for general thoughts. I set up an Obsidian account on this computer to help keep everything organized.
You know, I think that’s where I’m stuck currently. There are a lot of things that require a considerable amount of effort to get set up and running. At least in my mind, I feel like I need to complete the set up before I can begin. The book reviews are a prime example. I thought I needed to get the 2025 wrap up done before starting 2026 and found that I was doing a disservice to my more current reviews. Obsidian is another that needs some time to get set up although I have created the skeleton.
Anyway, back to goals. I’ve voiced that I need to seriously start losing weight and setting up a time to exercise. I think that time has to be between feeding the dogs in the evening a shower time. I have a cheap elliptical that’s easy to set up and take down. I have a small set of weights. I need to start setting out clothes and shoes and finally plug in the TV in the bedroom so I can watch while exercising. The hard part for me is that this is typically reading time for me, but the sacrifice needs to be made there for my health goals. My art goals are hanging out, just waiting for me to start. I think it will actually be a good thing to start drawing and learning programs like Blender and Unreal Engine at the same time. I’ve thought about doing my art practice during my lunch hour at work as a nice break. My mornings should be dedicated to meditation and reading and starting the day off in a calm, positive way. I’ve been bad about sleeping in later, but I have felt very tired recently.
The bottom line is that I’m trying to use the start of March as a soft reset for everything. I feel behind on everything, but at the same time I tell myself that most people have fully given up on their goals for the year by this point. At least I’m making the effort to reassess and keep going. At the very least, my goals are always on my mind and haven’t dropped off entirely. Routine is going to be key and that hasn’t been happening a lot in the past few weeks with the raid team having scheduling conflicts. I am proud of myself for protecting my days that are now free since the team has finished progressing. It was offered to go back and do some old content on the other two nights, but I said no. It’s one of the boss fights that I would have liked to do, but I need that time for myself right now. I’m still on the fence about whether I will do the ultimate level content in a few months or not.
It seems as though my other half is still sleeping, so I think I’m going to squeeze in some reading before breakfast. Until next week!
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