2020 Quarterly Goals: Update & 2nd Quarter Goals

There is a meme that has been circulating about Facebook and other sites regarding the first quarter of 2020, and I find it has been appropriate.

The first quarter of the year has been quite the roller coaster for our family and for many others we know and have heard from via social media. Of course, this impacted the goals I set for myself in several different ways.

So, let's get right to the point and see how this quarter went.

1st Quarter Goal Results

1. Make a habit of exercising at least three times a week.

This has actually been one of my most successful goals for the quarter. Other than one particular week in the middle of March, when I sat out due to a severe ear infection, I managed at least a minimum of three workouts a week. Quite often, I managed five to seven 15-30 minute workouts.

​2. Make writing a daily habit again.

Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to always write daily. I tried so hard those first weeks and fell flat on my face while working admin still 8-5. I ended up completely exhausted, stressed out, and my mental health took a huge hit.

Leaving that work-from-home admin job and wading back into freelancing has done more for my productivity and mental health than anything else I have tried in the past five or six years.

I have been back freelancing since the second week of February. I have a few regular clients, and while I am not making as much as I did working admin, I am happier and healthier than I have been in a long time. The vast majority of the writing I have done in the past month and a half has been articles for said clients. I have actually managed very little for myself aside from blog posts and getting started on correcting Icarus’ outline, but I am writing much of the day Monday through Friday.

Poor health and the fatigue associated with it has sidelined me on the weekends since the beginning of March. I was exhausted for a full week and a half before I realized why I felt so worn out. I’m used to a certain level of background pain in my head and neck, as well as a constant ringing, so a growing ear infection blindsided me. It didn’t dawn on me that’s what was coming until I woke up with one side of my face swollen and severe pain in my left ear one Saturday morning.

It took several weeks to get completely over it.

3. Get back to regular meal planning.

We did the meal planning on the weekends while I was doing the admin from home job. It has not really been necessary since I left. However, our diet, in general, has been much better throughout the quarter regardless.

4. Completely restock Contented Comfort, including updated product photos.

Yep, I didn’t even come close on this one. To be frank, I do not have enough usable ingredients in stock to restock let alone make new varieties at this time, and unless and until the remaining “ugly” stock currently on sale in the store sells, it is unlikely I will be able to purchase new ingredients.

In any case, communicable or not, mask and gloves or not, it is against Contented Comfort policy for soaps to be made while I am even slightly under the weather. So, not a single bar has been made since early March.

2nd Quarter Goals

1. Maintain quarter one habits.
I feel this one is pretty self-explanatory. I plan to keep up with and improve the new habits I cultivated last quarter.

2. Make a habit of drinking plenty of water each day.
I admittedly drink far too much coffee and not enough water. I realize this is not good for my health or mental state, and it probably contributes to sleep issues despite not having coffee past 2 p.m. So, it’s time to correct this.

3. Get the garden changes done.
We had to cut down the one tree in our yard a couple of years ago due to it being ill to the point of being half dead. At the same time, it was a species prone to reproduce through self-cloning along the parent’s root stock, which has grown too close to our septic tank for comfort. We are still trying to finish the job by stopping these clones from popping up and feeding the root stock.

Unfortunately, my iris and day lily bed makes this difficult for clones that come up in the middle of them or in the vegetable bed we built a few years ago. Therefore, we plan to move the irises, day lilies, and the improperly planted daffodils in our yard and tear apart the vegetable beds. The excess soil will be used to fill in holes created when the tree was cut down.

4. Design new soaps for Contented Comfort.
Assuming Con Kasterborous is not canceled come June as all of the conventions scheduled for the past several weeks have been thanks to Covid-19's spread, I will need new designs and fragrances to carry.

5. Get the artwork hung at home.
I have been making paintings and other artwork for our living room off and on over the past few years. Now that the walls are done being painted, and we will be redoing the floors soon, I want to get this artwork hung up.

So there you have what I managed of the goals set for last quarter and what I plan to work toward over the next three months. Do you have any goals for this quarter, and what accomplishments have you achieved in the past few months?