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It’s April, and that means we have moved into the second quarter of 2019. Spring is in the air, and it’s a good time to check how we are tracking on our 2019 goals. I love using my Rituals for Living Dreambook and Planner to plan my year, and it is conveniently formatted by quarters to help break your long-term projects into achievable tasks. You might recall that my focus for the year is ADVENTURE, and I planned to embody that word through three avenues: attitude, activity, and (of course) books. Let’s review each of these and I will give myself a pat on the back for making it this far, then we will look forward to what the second quarter has in store.

Attitude

The first three months of 2019 have been hard on me and my family. Everything cycles. I know that to be true, but it only makes the downward spirals a tad bit easier to manage. I know they will end and the skies will be blue again, but hard times are hard.

I started the year doing a new Bright Line Eating program. It was supposed to last 8 weeks. I got through the first video of Module 7, and I have not been able to pick it back up. I had a minor health issue that turned into several really rough weeks. Sparing the gory details, it was something that made it seem impossible to stick to my food plan and my healthy daily habits. One thing seemed to compound upon another until I found myself barely able to get out of bed and seriously contemplating asking the doctor to put me off work for two weeks so I could just sleep and cry. Normally, I am a self-professed annoying morning person, so being at a point where staying in bed for two weeks seemed appealing was about as far into the ditch as I get. (Also, it wasn’t really gory but I do tend towards hyperbole.)

I started feeling better in time to take a trip with the kids for spring break. That was a great trip. More on that below. Then the hard stuff kept coming. If I told you that I have to pay taxes this year instead of getting a refund and that I found out I was getting sued for hospital bills I thought I was currently paying… you would probably think that was the worst of it. It’s not! But despite my reputation as an over-sharer, some of this is just too sucky to talk about outside of my closest inner circle. Clues to understanding Trina: when she’s quiet, it means she is really stressed out, and whatever she is NOT talking about is the thing that she’s stressing about most. Also, I reserve the right to act in a manner completely inconsistent with those statements.

The good news is… this too shall pass. Sometime in the future I will have good news and high-highs to balance out the current low-lows. All is well, and all will be well.

Attitudinal highlights of the first quarter: I connected with a lot of people. I did my best each day according to what “my best” meant at the time. I got out of bed on some of the hardest days. I persevered.

Activity

Despite some of the downiest dumps, there was some fun had in the first quarter too. Within the first few weeks of the year I saw hair band legends Nelson with two of my cousins. That was fun! Then I saw Metallica with my husband for our birthdays. (One of my cousins was there again too!)  I went to my tap dance classes every week except one. I went to yoga most Fridays with my BFF.

January through March tends to be our coldest weather in beautiful Northwest Arkansas, so my time outdoors was minimal. I did take the kids on a short trip for spring break. We went crystal digging in Mount Ida and spent a couple of nights in a yurt in Hot Springs where we attended the World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Then we went to Mount Magazine State Park and spent a couple of nights in the lodge and did some hiking. I also spent the very last day of the quarter hiking with a group of adventurous women. I took my boots off and stuck my feet in the creek. In March. I want bonus points for that one!

Activity highlights of the first quarter: digging, hiking, and more hiking.

Books

Why can’t I ever talk about books without also talking about math? We are 25% through the year and I am 37% into my reading goal. My reading goal is modest, but I still feel like 16 books in 3 months was a feat. Those are the ones I finished, plus I am still working on 4 others that I started during that time.

Some of the books, like Vox, are blogs in progress. Others may only ever be immortalized by their spot on my Goodreads “read” shelf. Here’s a quick recap of everything I have read so far.

Books for book club: Vox, Sharp Objects, Furiously Happy, The Second Ring of Power, To Kill a Mockingbird

Books for self improvement: Authentic Happiness, Dare to Lead, Think & Grow Rich, Better Than Before, Radical Candor

Books for fun or because they were available on the library audiobook app or because my daughter picked it on a road trip: Coyote Ate the Stars, Blood Communion, Saga vol 2, Welcome to Night Vale, Roses and Radicals, A Sucky Love Story

Book highlights of the first quarter: slaying goals, reading my oldest official TBR, and checking off a couple of re-reads.

Second Quarter Plans

As I sat down to review my first three months and plan for the next quarter, I realized my goals for the year fall into five buckets with some tasks qualifying for more than one bucket. I had not approached the first quarter with these buckets in mind, but they became the focus of my plan for April, May, and June.

Home

There are a ton of things that need to be done around the house, and this is one of the areas that gets pushed to the back burner. As we go through empty nest cycles, I am thinking more and more about downsizing. It’s time to Kon-Mari the crap out of this place and rack up some credits for next year’s tax return by donating everything to charity.

Books and Blog

I aim to post a blog every week on Wednesday. Most of the tasks in this category revolve around finishing books that I have already started or writing blogs about books I have already finished. I reserve the right to write about whatever I want, when I want, but y’all know I want to talk about books.

BLE/Health/Activity

I lumped these areas together because almost everything in my life falls under BLE now. My BLE lifestyle touches every aspect of my life from my morning routine to my evening routine. It includes gratitude, journaling, and meditation. Things like taking my vitamins and practicing my tap steps fall into this bucket. One of my key goals for the second quarter is to finish all of the videos and modules for that program I started shortly after the first of the year. I’m a Bright Lifer. Bright Line Eating will be on my goals from here on out.

Financial

One of the big second quarter tasks for this bucket is already done. Taxes are filed and set up for payment. Ouch. During the first quarter I built a “snowball spreadsheet” using Dave Ramsey’s methodology to design a plan for paying off all of my credit cards and store cards. This is where the Dreambook helped me by asking where I want to be in 3 or 5 years and prompting me into action to ensure I get there. This is an area with some serious upsets like having five accounts at one hospital and being sued for some while paying others… yeah… what!? In other words, this area will be getting a lot of attention. Money is hard. People don’t like to talk about money. My oldest kid is taking a personal finance class as one of her last undergrad college credits, and that has sparked a lot of interesting conversation between us. Let’s face it, this bucket enables all the others.

ADVENTURE

This is my theme for 2019, and all roads lead to Adventure. Having things squared away in case we want to sell our home and go on an adventure. Reading for adventure and blogging about adventure. My BLE program allows me the health and well-being needed for certain adventures. And while there are many adventures that can be had for free, I need some money to do some stuff. My biggest planned adventure this year does’t come until July, so this bucket contains a lot of planning for that along with some simpler things close to home. I definitely want to get back in a kayak and just get outside for more walks and hikes.

Comment to let me know how your year is going so far!