Half-Way...

So we're almost at the half way point for the year. A few days shy of the six month mark. I thought it was a good time to check in on my goals and see how I'm doing.

With this blog a day in June push I'm back on track here. In fact this puts me ahead of the game a touch. I should be at 58 by the end of June and I'm sitting at 68 as of yesterday so I'm a touch in the black there. Which is good because I still have sabbatical coming up and that's two months of a totally different schedule staring at me. I want to be ahead of the game by a chunk before that happens, this helps put me there and hopefully I'll keep it there until September.

My reading goal was lighter this year and that's good. I'm three books ahead of the curve there but if I had set my normal higher number I would be quite a bit behind. So I was right in that I had so many other things I wanted to do that my book count would suffer. But for now I'm still ahead of the game. I would guess I will be even further ahead after our Alaskan cruise. I think there will be a lot of downtime on the ship where pretty much what I will do is read. I have no idea, I have no clue what to expect, but I think that's what will happen?

Health. I was aiming for 5 days a week at the gym plus more active outside of it. I'm pretty good about hitting the gym. Most weeks it's the 5 days. I skipped a day last week to get some things taken care of around the house before the day got too hot and I skipped today due to a blister and some things we'll talk about at the end of this list. Cooking and eating. I've drastically lowered the amount of sugar we are taking in. During the week I don't eat anything with added sugars if I can help it. I eat things that have natural sugars, fruits, cheese, milk, but no "sweets." On the weekend I do eat dessert and maple syrup. It's gotten to the point that I cannot tolerate a lot of sugar. It makes me a little ill. So that's good. Still not great, but it's good.

Gratitude and Picture of the Day. I've been consistent with both of those. The daily gratitude has been challenging some days. Not that I don't have things to be grateful for, I always have a lot of things I'm grateful for, but I find myself judging what I post. Does this sound stupid? I mean I am grateful for catching the time of day at 12:34 but how lame is that? Does this sound like a humble brag? I am really grateful we are going to Alaska. But I know a lot of people who can't take trips like that. Is it shitty to talk about it? So that's the challenging part. But I try to remind myself that it's MY daily gratitude and it's what I am grateful for. I shouldn't be less grateful for the things I have because others don't, I should be more grateful for them. And if you don't know that I love seeing sequential numbers then why the hell are you my friend? Picture of the Day I might drop at the end of June. We'll come back to that as well.

The year long list. I've checked off a few things. I still have a few to go. I've added more as well. Which is what it is for. So that's still chugging along.

Goof off time. This one has been hit and miss. I have time where I am goofing off but it's not supportive. Supportive? Is that word I want? I don't want to use productive because that is the opposite of what I am supposed to be doing there, but supportive seems right. It's not enhancing my life. There are some things I've done that have. I'm watching a TV show C recommended and I enjoy that. But I want to bust out my crayons more. And figure out a nice way to do a puzzle without messing up the kitchen table. Things that bring me joy. THERE YOU GO! Joyful! I find that sometimes when I'm goofing off it's not joyful. It's just...meh. So more good TV or movies. More coloring. More puzzles. Less online time suck things.

And then to track it all I got a calendar and some flashy colored stars to motivate me. I do love getting a star. And that worked...for a bit.

So here we are at the parts that I need to evaluate. Health is always the big one right? Though I've been pretty darn good about the gym I have not been as successful at the additional fitness things. Part of that has been weather related. We had a brutal winter so getting outside and doing things just wasn't appealing. Hopefully now that summer is here I will be better about it. Get us a few hikes in on the weekends and such. Last month I did a squat challenge with Brent, Susan and Liz and that was fun. It was extra physical activity and a group project in a way. Checking in daily kept me motivated. So maybe I will look for other things like that. Part of my problem is all of the other things on my list are sitting things. I can't read, write, color, while being active. I have conflicting goals here. So time management needs to step in.

Health is an issue with diet as well. I know it's all about being fit but I still really want to lose about 10 pounds. Now this is good news because on January 1 I wanted to lose 20. My problem is I've tapped out where I am. It goes up and down in a new range, but I'm not really lowering any further than I first hit back in March. It's just settling in in this area. So the cutting back on sugar was REALLY helpful, but it wasn't all of it. I know I should switch the way we eat further. Mediterranean is the diet style that comes up over and over as best for heart health and brain health. I just have been super resistant to actually doing it. I went to the bookstore today to pick up a plan book. I was going to just put us on it for a month and see how it went. BOOM. Then I looked through the recipes and remembered why I haven't done it yet. It just doesn't appeal to me. I need to get past the block and try it out, I think, but I'm so bad at sticking with things that feel forced on me.

I mean, I'm already frustrated with the sugar thing and I've lost 10 pounds and I think I'm sleeping better and it's got to be healthier for my insides. But I haven't lost more. I'm not making HUGE strides and damn I love sugar. So I'm sort of pouty right now. I'm trying to add in a bit more fruit to see if that gets me past this slump. And like I said about the Mediterranean diet part, I am lousy at sticking with things. I like cake. I like cookies. I want to be able to eat them whenever I want without getting sick to my stomach or a head ache. Even though everything I have read says they are SO bad for you. But dang it they taste so good...Like I said, I'm just pouty right now. I want my workouts and my eating to be showing better results, not slow results. Not I'm 48 so really this is very good (according to my doctor) results. But I'm hopeful it will pass.

I need to work out my writing. I feel like I've not been as focused there as I should be. I think maybe I need to block out a few hours every day where I just sit down and write. Blog or other work. But daily writing. Sort of what I have been doing this month, but not just focused on the blog. I don't have to have anything at the end of the day to show anyone except myself sort of thing. So I think I might do that.

I mentioned dropping Picture of the Day again. This one is always tricky for me. I do it because I enjoy it. Then I drop it because it's not bringing me the joy it did. Then I go back to it because I miss it. Maybe it's just that I need a different prompting list? Maybe I will find someone else's list instead of Fat Mum Slim for July and test that out. I've done her lists often enough that I recognize the repeated prompts and it's difficult not to repeat myself with the pictures.

And then there is the star chart thing. I need some sort of plan. Some sort of scheduler. But the stars aren't cutting it anymore. I've done 6 months of shiny stars and now they've lost their sparkle. Maybe I need to set goals for the number of stars of each color I am aiming for instead of just marking them? Though what am I working for at that point? What is the master YAY you did it? Hmm...not sure. But the stars have lost their motivating abilities so I think they will go away in July.

Maybe.

And this is where the other issues come in. I feel like I've set these yearly goals and designs and I'm only halfway through them. I feel a need to finish but I also feel like some of them aren't working for me right now. I have three more days of June to think on it and make any final changes before July 1 for the next 6 months. I will have to see what I do.

So there you go. Half point check in.