August Updates and Goals

Happy What I Ate Wednesday! I didn’t get around to putting a post together this week but you best believe I’ve been creeping all of your daily eats.

Actually, if I’ve been a little absent from the blogging world lately it’s because of this book:

I am obsessed. Seriously, I find myself reaching for this book in every spare minute of time I have (full disclosure: I’m rushing this post right now because I really want to get back to it).

It’s got a good ripped-from-the-headlines plot but with a big twist in the middle and one of the most delightfully deranged characters I’ve encountered in a long time.

Other than holing myself up in my room to read, I’ve been pretty busy at work. Last week, I randomly got promoted (surprise!). I think I mentioned before that my responsibilities at work have been increasing lately. Well, now my job title (and salary) have been upgraded to match. That was a pleasant surprise to say the least.

In other work-related news, our office is being renovated in mid-August and will shut down for two weeks. The first week, I’ll be working from home and the second week I’m using up some vacation days. In the interim, we get to wear jeans to work since we’ll be packing up the office. In other words, for the next three weeks, I do not have to wear pencil skirts, blouses or high heels. I cannot begin to express how thrilled I am about this!

I’m really looking forward to the time off and not just because I get to avoid rush hour traffic and rock my finest sweats all day. I’m feeling a little burned out after the move and I’m hoping a little hiatus from the office will help me re-charge. I also have a bunch of Groupon classes I need to use up, so this will be a good opportunity to crack a dent in those.

Two weeks of sleeping in, wearing sweat pants and doing yoga? I’m gonna be so zen come September.

I’m also really pumped for the long weekend. On Saturday, we’re going to The Black Keys concert at Molson Amphitheater (one my favourite music venues) and on Sunday, we’re having our friends over for a BBQ. On Tuesday, Josh and I are celebrating our 7th anniversary so we both booked the day off. I don’t know what we’re doing yet – I told him to surprise me (after 7 years, you can be pretty direct like that).

So, yeah, August is shaping up to be a pretty awesome month. Some of my goals are:

1. Get back into the habit of saving – with closing costs and all that jazz, we weren’t able to save much in June and July. I’d like to get back into the habit of automatically putting away money at the end of every month.

2. Try some new fitness classes – last month, I had so much fun experimenting with new workouts (kettlebells, pilates, aerial yoga, yoga spin). This month, I’d like to try barre and ropewall and some new yoga classes I haven’t been to before.

3. Get more sleep – pre-move, my typical bed time was 10 p.m. on weekdays. Josh, however, is a night owl and since the move, I’ve been going to bed a little later in order to spend more time with him (we’re both pretty busy during the week so those few hours at night are really the only time we get to see each other). The problem is that I’m still waking up at the same time in the morning so I’ve been getting less sleep overall. As a result, I’ve been feeling pretty exhausted and I don’t  like it. The plan is to get to bed by 10 at least 3 nights during the week.

4. Cook 3 times a week – I had a really good system going when I lived with my mom but now that I’m living with a man who eats more than I do, my little meal plans seem to leave us without any food left by Thursday. Basically, I’ve worked it out that I need to cook at least 3 nights a week and one of those meals has to make more than 4 servings. The plan – cook one large meal on Sunday night and two smaller meals on Mondays and Tuesdays (I prefer to front load my cooking and be lazy and eat leftovers the rest of the week)

5. Keep my house tidy – the first few weeks we moved in, I went through a major honeymoon phase where even the most mundane of domestic chores had me giddy with excitement. I just loved keeping our little house neat and tidy. Yeah, I’m kind of over it and I’ve been backsliding ever so slightly – leaving my dishes in the sink, not putting my laundry away, etc. I know it’s not realistic to expect perfection – we’re both busy – but I also know that’s no excuse to be a slob. The rule is: if it takes less than five minutes, just do it now. There’s no reason to delay putting a dish in the dishwasher when it literally takes two seconds.

What are your goals for August?

When was the last time you got totally sucked in to a book or a TV show?