July...

And June is done. 

As I left you all on the first of June I didn't really have any specific goals for June. Just working toward the end of year items. 

A week later I added another workout challenge to the normal monthly one. I hadn't really mentioned the monthly workout challenges because they aren't anything more than what I normally would do. I use the treadmill to get my cardio and iFit does these challenge series things where you do their package series "Beaches Around the World!" or "Best Christmas Markets!" and then when you are done they send you a magnet saying, YAY! You did it! So OF COURSE I have been down with doing them. They fit into what I normally do anyway and I get a gold star in the form of magnet? Hells yeah I'm doing it!

So anyway on top of their Summer Challenge one they had a Climb to Everett Base Camp one. It was 18 extra work outs and I didn't get the email about it until the second week of June so I wasn't going to, but...magnet. So I started it. Then I threw out my back and didn't work out at all for almost a week so there was no way I could finish it and the Summer Challenge, though technically the way they have the Summer Challenge structured although there are three sections for June, July and August as long as you finish all of them by August 30th you get credit and...

So yeah, I doubled up my cardio last week and got through both of them by the end of June. DOUBLE MAGNETS! 

But other than that I didn't really have specific June goals. Just working toward that end game. 

And so...

Yeah.

July Goals! 
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic!

I was 5 books behind in my reading at the end of May and I'm 6 behind now. I was 20 blogs ahead in my writing and I'm 16 ahead now. I needed to get three submissions in for the year and I still need to get three submissions in for the year. I wrote exactly one fiction piece for the month...

Which funny story...

That fiction piece actually was a story prompt for a contest. My friend Terri and my friend Justin both tagged me to get my attention on the post thinking it was right up my alley. I looked at the submission process and it's a sort of writing club you join and you post things and everyone who is part of it critiques you and...well...I'm not really up for facing group rejection right now so I passed on that part. BUT...even though my first reaction was that the prompt was really more Dana's style than mine I had a story forming in my head within an hour of reading the prompt so maybe my friends know me better than I know myself? *gasp* Long few sentences, sorry. 

So basically as you can see I need to focus on the reading and the writing or my math is not going to work by the end of the year. 

So this month there will be a bigger effort made to get my ass in here and write more. And when it's not in here writing it will be sitting someplace with a book. I mean, along with working out. (July's iFit challenge is Mountain Climbing. Seriously? I just hiked to Everett Base Camp and you want me to climb more? Fine. Whatever.) And I will keep working toward that last pound and a touch that I wanted to lose this year. (yes, I'm actually thisclose to that goal which is really exciting and frustrating because I've slowed to a crawl on the losing portion, it's still going down, but instead of a couple pounds a week I lost just over a pound last month and the month before, but it's down and that's what counts, and the fact that I was down 17.7 pounds at the end of May and down 18.8 at the end of June really amuses me)

And of course POD and DG will still be happening. Though I've gotten less worried about hitting those every day. Or at least hitting the public DG every day. I do a private listing at night before I sleep so I will always have some sort of daily practice, but I've been less focused on the public posts. Some of my gratitude isn't really the sharing kind and I try to stay away from too big of generalities for those so if there isn't something really specific I've been less worried about getting that post in. Might take the same bend toward POD. If I see something that grabs me for the prompt I'll do it, but if not...eh.  Maybe. 

And of course I still need to take care of the house and the cats and keep us fed BUT other than that...

Basically I want to catch up where I am behind in the reading and at least get to even ground. So breaking out The Sandman series I want to reread should help there. And really making sure I write. And trying really hard to get some fiction in there as well. AND finding some submission places that seem a little less ego slashing. I had considered just throwing in the towel and saying I was clearly not ready for submissions this year, but I've got 6 months left in the year so giving up right now seems a little premature. 

The year is halfway over. I need to get my groove on. 

OH! And the last July goal to work toward. My new hashtag. 

#50IsNifty worked great
#51derful that became #51DamnThingAfterAnother was accurate after the change
#52PickUp has actually been kind of on the nose what with the weight loss and the diet experiment bringing some much needed relief. We will see what my blood work looks like here soon. 

But 53 has me stumped. #53CardMonte...find the Queen? #53TimesTheCharm, just don't know what I'm doing in 3s. #53NothingGoesWithThree?

Hmmm....Maybe I'll take that whole last paragraph and post it as a status and see what people suggest. 

#53FaceMcThreeFace here we come...