May Goals and Highlights

Can you even believe it's May? Time is weird...I almost feel like April didn't even happen. I was a lot busier than previous months, so I think having more projects to do and more to look forward to helped make the month fly by. 

Let's start off with my highlight of the month, which would be the camping trip that I took last week! I shared some pictures from our hikes in my workouts summary on Monday, but the entire trip was so relaxing and nice. I've been having a really stressful few weeks at work, coupled with getting ready to sell our house and moving, so having three days with no Internet connection and be able to just relax was VERY much needed. I would highly recommend everyone visit Rickett's Glen State Park- the park was beautiful and it was my favorite camping site! Now I just have to go back when the weather is better...

Now let's talk about my annual goals-

2021 Combined Miles

January -  44 running miles and 218 bike miles for a total of 262 miles

February - 32 running miles and 206 bike miles for a total of 238 miles. 

March - 36 running miles and 113 bike miles for a total of 149 miles.

April - 31 running miles and 118 bike miles for a total of 149 miles (staying consistent with last month hah!)

So far, I've done a total of 798 miles, and have 1,223 to go. I'm still ahead of schedule so things are looking good!

Get Ready to Sell!

Things are definitely getting more serious now! April was all about finishing our projects (more on that below) and we actually signed a lease for our next place. May will be the month where we hopefully list our house so things are definitely down to the wire. In my planner I made a task for each day to help spread out the work and also (hopefully) not forget anything. I'll share more next month on how that goes and any tips I learn along the way.

Music Challenge

Each weekend I picked out a different album to listen to (based on this list from Rolling Stone) and it's been a great way to discover new (to me) music and have a "soundtrack" for the weekend. So far I listened to (new ones from last month in bold)-

Kid A by Radiohead

Purple Rain by Prince

Thriller by Michael Jackson

The Low End Theory by a Tribe Called Quest

Who's Next by The Who

The Doors by The Doors

Revolver by The Beatles

To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

I Never Loved a Man the Way that I Love You by Aretha Franklin

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

Funhouse by The Stooges

VooDoo by D'Angelo 

Reasonable Doubt by Jay-Z

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie

Paid in Full by Eric B. and Rakim

Next let's see how my monthly goals went!

Morning Routine

I did great with this in April! My goal was to do a yoga or stretch class, change into a different outfit (even if it was a sweat suit), make my bed, drink a glass of water, and take my vitamins before work. I did all of these at least 4 days each week, and I found myself waking up easier every morning. I'm still working on being a morning person (I'm fine once I'm awake, but don't like getting out of bed) but I liked having a routine in the mornings.

Read 5 Books

This month I read exactly 5 books (started my sixth but didn't finish yet). There were some great ones in there and some meh's, but I'll be sure to share thoughts in an upcoming post.

Finish House Projects

This month was really productive in terms of finishing our projects. Dan and I both had our own tasks to complete and did a great job of taking care of things. I sealed our deck (you can see my midway progress below..even though we used a clear sealer it makes a HUGE difference), finished painting all the trim and doorways in the house, and re-pointed some of our exterior. Dan did a lot of the yard work and also fixed any rotted fence posts and built a new gate for our fence. He also did tons of electrical work which probably saved us a ton of money- yay Dan! 

The only project left to do is repaint our exterior, which we have a contractor coming for in May. It's kind of funny to me that the only work we hired people to do happened the first month that we bought the house (to replace some rotted wood in the garage) and the last month that we'll own. We did so many projects on our own thanks to Youtube and researching online..plus a ton of hard work and help from family and friends. I can't wait for a post of our before and after shots to see how much we've done in these 5 years.

In May I'm going to take a break from goals, just because I want to focus on getting packed and moved. My only goal will be to get through it and not be stressed! We'll see how that goes!