The End of the (Regular) School Year

In August, I posted thoughts about my resolutions for the new year. Since yesterday was the end of the regular school year (we do have 28 days of an extended school year that will start in a week, but the regular year is now over), I thought I'd take today to see what progress I made this year. The original information is in italicized print, and my updates are in bold below.

So, here are my new school year resolutions for the 2018-2019 school year!

1. Daily happiness: Over on some of my other social media feeds, I have a practice of finding something in my life that is a positive. During this past year, I've found that this focus on positive thoughts in the morning really helps me focus on something that is good rather than dwelling in the negative. Today's post? About the past computer problems that I've had on this day - seriously, I've had to replace my computer twice on August 13th, the internet seems to stop working on this day, and monitors blow - it's fascinating. Seems that things are going well this time around (just jinxed myself, but that's par for the course on the 13th!). I'm going to keep up this practice. Okay - this one was an easy one. My daily happiness practice at home is a habit, and one that I really enjoy. I am trying to make this more of a habit at work - it is way too easy to dwell on the frustrations than the happy bits, so I will start to do this a bit more at work while continuing my home practice.
2. Eat better: This is a constant goal of mine. I do not always go for the green things that I should. So, I am working on that through the use of meal planning and a new journal to track my meals. I did this because I had a little journal that came in a new subscription box that I am trying. I wanted something to do with that little journal,... and I think that I need some discipline when it comes to this particular goal. So, I am using this little journal to record my food intake, coordinate my shopping lists, and keep track of my vegetable consumption as well. Ha. This was not something that I did well at all. I will continue this - well, actually, I will restart this practice. I do continue to need more and more vegetables and eat better on a regular basis.
3. Exercise daily: Again, this is something that I want to do more often. I'll keep track of this in my regular bullet journal and give myself a tick in my tracker when I finish this task. I have a new exercise bike, so I have no excuse not to exercise except that I am lazy as all get out. Oh dear. This has not happened at all lately. While my exercise bike is not completely covered with stuff at the moment, it has not been used in a very long time. I'm sure that there is a layer of dust on the seat. Okay - summer is a good time to start an exercise habit that I can continue during the winter months as well.
4. Write to Mom and Kelly weekly: My sister has been complaining that she never gets letters, so I am adding her to my goal of writing to my Mom every week. Guess she won't be able to complain as much if she actually gets letters now. I've done pretty well with this goal. I have missed weeks, but writing to Mom is a pretty well-established habit. Sister, on the other hand, gets the occasional letter, but she only goes to her mailbox about once a month, so if there is a letter when she goes, she's perfectly happy!
5. Save money: This is also a constant goal of mine. I want to purchase a house, so saving is essential. I have no real financial goal in mind, but I want to do this because I just spent over $700 on a bed and needed to raid my savings account to pay for the shenanigans that Mom and I got into over her visit this past break, so I'm feeling that I've gone overboard on the whole money thing. So, it is my goal to get my savings account built back up again. I reached my first financial goal and then some! I am very proud of this fact and things are a bit less scary now that I am no longer living paycheck to paycheck. I have another financial goal in mind, so I am keeping this in the forefront of my mind.
6. Clear stuff out: I was able to clear out some of my extraneous stuff, but not nearly enough. I want to keep going with this goal. I want to clear something out every week. I made a good start yesterday by cleaning out the boxes of stuff that I removed from my car. I have a full bag of reusable shopping bags that need to be in the car so I'll use them. I have my out-of-date emergency kit that also needs to be in the car. I sorted the confidential shredding from the trash and now I am ready to reorganize the car. This task is going to be another one that challenges me, especially because I am often exhausted after work. Oop - yet another goal that I did not do much. I have some time and an incentive to do some of this in the upcoming week, but I have not made this into a habit at this point. I would really like this to be my practice rather than the exception, so I'll work on it!
7. Challenge creativity: This is where my graphic design interests and other crafting, composing, and creative explorations will fall. I want to post things to my website and to my TPT store on a weekly basis. I want to be challenging myself to be creative, even when I don't feel all that creative. This is really vague on purpose because I want to see where it goes. I've done some of this. I enjoy making things for other music therapists (anyone want to nominate someone??), and I've also started to watercolor - interesting hobby, that. My output to my business side of things has not been as consistent as I want, but that is the next step.
8. Sew and crochet new things: This is another creative goal. I like sewing and crocheting, but I often do the same things over and over again. I want to expand my repertoire to include more than prayer shawls and bean bags. I made a good start on this when I figured out how to do some new dishcloth patterns. I am working on a new prayer shawl as well. I did finish a couple of prayer shawls, but my sewing machine has been dormant for the entire year! So sad.

So, it looks like I can take the daily happiness goal off of my tracker completely. It is an established habit that is now part of my morning social media routine. I won't track that anymore. I will also stop tracking letter writing and saving money. They have also become habitual, so I don't need the reminders. The others, however, need development. I think I will track these a bit more formally over the next two months - eating better, exercising daily, clearing stuff out, creating things (this may have to be focused more on business stuff), and sewing and crocheting.

My list has shrunk from 8 to 5. Not as much progress as I would like to have been able to report at this time, but I did turn three things into habit - and, I'd argue that those three are the most important to my continued success as a person. Of course, I am the one writing this, so I am biased - I freely admit it!!

I don't think I will set any new resolutions for myself at this point. Maybe by August, I'll be inspired to change things up a bit, but now is the time to focus on my health, diet, and creativity, so off into the last bit of school!