October Goals

It's October! That means it's finally fall, hopefully with cooler weather than we've been having, Halloween, the release of the second season of Stranger Things, and a ton of new books coming out.

To start out, let's recap my September goals and see how I did:

1. Lose 4 pounds. I did not do this. I have been feeling really overwhelmed by pretty much everything for the past two weeks and this means I have let my healthy eating fall way to the wayside. I'm almost at the weight I want to be for my first mini-goal, but I really need to focus on eating healthfully again this month.

2. Read 5 books. I did this.

3. Submit to some poetry contests. I did not do this because of financial reasons and wanting to save money.

4. Start a library feature on the blog. The first Library Chronicles post went up on Friday!

5. Participate in Bloggiesta. I did this.

6. Write more of Queer Bookish Novel. I wrote once this month in addition to the poetry writing, so I guess I somewhat accomplished this.


Now, here are my goals for October...

1. Be stricter about eating well. I really want to get back to the weight I was at the end of August and surpass it and continue losing more, so I definitely need to get back on track with eating healthfully. I've come across a lot of yummy-sounding healthy recipes so that will probably help. I'm also going to try not to stuff myself when I go out to eat with my boyfriend when I see him in two weeks so I can maintain steady weight loss.

2. Write at least once a week. It can be more poetry for the Poetrygram, more of my novel, or whatever, but I want to set aside a chunk of time to write at least once per week this month.

3. Relax more and work on anxiety coping skills. For the past two weeks, I've basically been an anxious, stressed out, overwhelmed wreck. I've mostly been coping with it by giving into my sugar cravings, which is not good for goal #1, drinking lots of tea, walking, and reading. It hasn't really helped though, and I know I need to get better at calming my anxiety when it overtakes me, especially about work-related things so I don't go into my internship or actual job feeling generally terrified and unable to do things, because I want to be able to put myself out there. I also want to work on just relaxing, which I try to do a lot but hardly ever end up feeling truly relaxed. I want October to be a quieter, calmer month for me with fewer stressful things and unexpected emotion crushers, which I know I can't always control, but I still want it to happen.

4. Go to the gym more regularly. I'd been doing really great at this for a couple months after getting a gym membership, but again, the past couple of weeks have really killed me and I've had a hard time leaving the house for anything other than work or the internship. However, I want to focus on being healthy again and that includes fitness, so back to the gym it is.

5. Participate in Dewey's 24-hour Read-a-Thon. I love doing read-a-thons, and this 24 hour one is one I've been doing for the past couple years. I'll probably be working for at least 4 hours on the day of the event, which takes place on October 21, but I'll try to read as much as I can in my remaining 20 hours and try to stay up for the whole thing!

6. Read 2 October eARCs and 1 November release. I'm terrible at keeping up with my eARCs and ARCs, so this month I'm shooting for reading a couple October releases I have on my Kindle and getting ahead by reading at least one book releasing in November.