For those of you who looked at my title and said “But it’s only August! New Year’s isn’t for another four months. Did you miss schedule this post?”: No, because for me the start of a new academic year is really my new year.
Traditional calendars and planners:
For number of years, I tried to sync my calendars and goalsetting to the traditional January 1 date but I would always get frustrated. The misnamed Spring Semester might start in January, but I’m in the middle of my academic year. It just never worked for me. Eventually, I gave up on the January 1 start date and went for a mid-August beginning of the year (date variable depending on the whims of my university’s calendar committee.) This is works out much better. It also helps get me excited for the coming semesters.
My inner sorority chick:
About mid-summer I start looking for my new planner. For the past two years, I have used a Day Designer by Blue Sky set to the academic calendar and I really like it. I usually end up buying at least one more packet of stickers to put in it-even though I have a huge box of sticker packs that I got on sale a few years ago. Then I let my inner sorority chick out to decorate and fill in my planner. I’m generally horrible with arts and crafts, but prettify in the planner is really foolproof. I make a list of all of my goals – this year there are several categories from financial to fitness. After I have my goals, I decide on dates. Everything goes in the planner using multicolored pens and then the stickers. I have stopped using glitter because it drives me crazy and is bad for the environment but this is a very girly affair. I know this practice terrifies my male colleagues. To see me transformed from my normal, no nonsense, and fairly sarcastic self into a girly girl strikes fear even in the stoutest of hearts. (I actually take great joy in this.)
I’ve decided to share some of my goals here in the hopes of making myself accountable.
Fitness:
I used to work out and run regularly. When my father got ill and I took an administrative position a number of years ago, I could no longer find the time for my fitness routine. I also packed on the pounds. After my father died and I left admin, I found it very difficult to start working out again. I’ve had a few false starts but I am recommitting to getting back into shape.
I am determined to meet my daily Garman step goals. To motivate me, I joined Yes. Fit, which offers virtual races. So far I have completed two races (I obviously started this earlier this summer.) My first race was the 155 mile Tortoise Creep which I completed in 45 days. My second race was the 32.8 mile Nashville race. I managed this in just six days. I have now started on the Alice’s Adventure: Queen of Hearts, a 75.4 mile race. It is my goal to complete it in 21 days. I’m very excited about this!
To help lose the 30 extra pounds that I’ve been carrying around, I also subscribe to a meal kit service, Home Chef. I got my first delivery last Tuesday and have been very pleased so far. Each recipe makes enough for two meals and I get three recipes per week. The Spicy Orange Glazed Salmon in the London Broil were excellence. Since I’m off to the Killer Nashville conference later this week I’m not getting another delivery until the 28th. This service makes my life so much simpler. The closest decent grocery store is about 45 minutes from my house so fresh food delivered to my door in the proper amounts is a huge timesaver. I think this may end up being a money saver too since there is no food waste and I’m not making hunger induced bad purchases at the grocery.
Writing goals:
This is probably the set of goals that y’all are most interested in my musings about but I swear the get fit/eat better goal is part of this. The better I eat and the more fit I am, the more energy I will have. The more energy I have, the more I will write.
As I told everyone in my previous blog, my fiction writing took an unplanned hiatus this summer while I wrote 150,000 words of lecture for my Dark Folklore class. I have set out weekly goals and word counts to get me back on track. The plan is to finish a chapter a week at 5,000 words per chapter. This should have the rough draft of Under the Harvest Moon done by January 11. I’d really like to see it done before that but I have that pesky day job that takes well over 40 hours of my week.
Under the Harvest Moon isn’t the only writing on my docket. I’ll be publishing this blog every other Monday (please ignore the today is Tuesday.) I plan on writing about a multitude of things including conferences that I attend and my cats. Hopefully, this will be entertaining. My author newsletter will also be making a monthly appearance. This should be informative.
The semester is already off to a galloping start and December (as well as the real New Year) will be here before we know it. If you want to keep up with me through my monthly news newsletter, sign via the handy pop up box. You’ll also get a free short story for signing up.
Until next time, may midnight and moonlight make magic in your life.