June Boom!

And June is done and dusted. Or it will be in about 12 hours, but close enough!

Halfway through the year so a really good time to take stock of it all and see what's working and what isn't. 

Writing goal is on track. Still a bit ahead, this will be the 123 blog of the year (ONE TWO THREE!) with 27 being fiction and 96 non fiction. Puts me ahead on fiction by one (plus the banked pieces I wrote for Dana that I can choose to publish later) and ahead on non-fiction by 18. Which is great. We are planning on a little vacation in August and I won't write during that so being ahead works there, and then I often slow down a little toward the end of the year. But what I really need to watch out for is knowing I am ahead and taking off more days on writing than I should, I'd still like to write more days a week than not. It can be stuff to be published here or working on Dana's pieces, but I need to sit down and write most days a week.

Reading I'm ahead by 9 books according to Goodreads and the number I set there. Again, that's nice. Sometimes you end up with a really long book without realizing it and it slows downs the works. I picked up a 700 pager this month, the last half of the month, that needed to be done by the 30th to get a gold star in the Kindle app. I mean, I made it, but it was a bit of a shock when what I thought was going to be a quick read ended up taking so much time! The bio/memoir/autobiography part is still good. Read Kal Penn's book this month. Super interesting look at his acting career and his time in the White House. Also counted it as a good Pride read since he's gay. We've talked about the self help. I'm going to finish it out, I mean it's only 6 more books, but I think I'm about ready to call that part of my challenges a bust. 

Maybe. I mean I've gotten some good things out of them but I think the time it takes to read them, I read nonfiction much slower than fiction for some reason, just hasn't been worth the information. We will see what the second half of the year brings. Maybe I just REALLY need to look deeper at my choices. No books that make you a better worker bee. No books that are geared toward the woman who wants to have it all. 

The Fantastic Stranglings this month was another hit. Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens. I haven't loved a western this much since the first time I read Lonesome Dove. 

I mentioned last month that I was just really bored working out. Not with the routine but with the whole thing. That did not change so I am taking a month off. Not off, off. I can't do that. My arthritis and my mental health would both lock up if I did that. But I'm not going to lift for July. I'm just going to do cardio. Walking or dancing. Just easy work for the month. See if I can zap myself out of my ennui about it all. I also mentioned I needed to do something about my size and I did lose about 2 pounds by cutting back on sugar again, not out, I still haven't been able to convince myself to just cut it out, but I did cut it back. And it did make a difference. 

So the year is going well. The things I wanted to work on are going well for the most part. I still haven't started pulling the photos off of Facebook, I think it's doable but it seems so fucking daunting that it's hard to actually sit down and start. 

And that brings us to July. Second half of the year! I'm waiting to see what comes available from the library for the self help book. Planning on it being Existential Kink, but we will see if it happens. I'm torn between two autobiography choices, I own both so I have time to decide there. I don't know yet what she chose for the Fantastic Stranglings book, hoping she announces today so I can get a hold on it at the library in time. 

I mentioned the month off from lifting weights. I will keep cutting back on sugar and I am going to do dry July. It's not like I drink a lot, but I get a cider at games and we had a lot of games last month. Still only like 3 drinks a week but I'm teetering on that line of going teetotal again. No matter how much or how little you drink your body processes alcohol into a poison. It's weird that we voluntarily drink poison, but we do. At different times that bugs me more or bugs me less. Right now I'm in a bugs me more zone so I'm going to take the month off. I'm not doing it in August because we are visiting family in August. (kidding! It's Brent's family not mine so it is never as hard)

And then the social media diet that I was talking myself into earlier. For July I'm not going to post status updates on Facebook. I will go and look at other people's posts, mainly to see travel pictures. I have one friend traveling the whole month, another set the first part of the month and yet another the last part. I LOVE looking at travel photos (and really LOVE my friends who give me an actual itinerary of what they did that day. I cannot even tell you how much I love that) and I'm not willing to give it up for the ones that aren't on Instagram. 

Speaking of Instagram, for July I will still be posting photos there. I am going to turn off cross posting to Facebook though, so if you aren't on Insta you won't see them. I'm less engaged there so I it works for the taper down month. And I will be posting links to the blog on the Facebook page for July. 

August might be a bigger cut back, might not, it really depends on how I feel about it at the end of July. Then of course I will decide at the end of August if I come back to Facebook or not. Again, depends entirely on how I feel. 

And that's really it. The overarching goal of 2023 was to figure out what made me feel my best and do more of that and less of what doesn't. It's not always easy to actually figure that out. Which is weird. You would think it would be the easiest thing in the world to figure out what makes you feel good, but we sometimes get in such a routine of just doing we stop paying attention to feeling. 

Even navel gazers like myself. 

So that's that. Half the year is gone. 

Here's to the down hill part!