June Goals and Highlights

It's so hard to believe that it's June, probably because the last two months flew by! We've been really busy with getting our apartment moved out and cleaned and trying to make our new house feel like a home. Like most people, we've been hit with shipping delays, so we have a lot of stuff picked out to furnish our house and are just waiting for them! 

There are a lot of little highlights from the month but nothing really big that happened, since most of our energy has been spent moving. Probably the best thing is that we've been meeting a lot of our neighbors and went to our first get-together and had the best time. Having people around us that we like and are friendly was one of the most important parts of picking a place and we're so lucky to have great people all around us! I think we're going to be very happy here.

Let's talk goals, starting with my annual goal check-in.

Spend More Time Outdoors

• 1000 Hours Outside -
• January - 54 total hours, breaking down to 41 hours running/walking/hiking, 5 hours reading, and 8 hours socializing/misc. 
• February - 52 total hours, breaking down to 31 hours running/walking/hiking, 7 hours reading, 13 hours socializing/misc, and 1 hour biking. 
• March - 97 total hours, breaking down to 47 hours running/walking/hiking, 17 hours reading, 32 hours socializing/misc, and 1 hour biking.
• April - 103 total hours, breaking down to 41 hours running/walking/hiking, 20 hours reading, 37 hours socializing/misc, and 5 hours biking.
• May - 94 hours total, breaking down to 26 hours running/walking/hiking, 19 hours reading, 35 hours socializing/misc, 13 hours biking/kayaking/SUPing, and 1 hour swimming (new category!)
• 2,022 Outdoor Miles - 732.71 total so far
• January Running - 106 miles, Walking - 25.97 miles, Biking - 0 miles
• February Running - 101 miles, Walking - 22.4 miles, Biking - 10.7 miles
• March Running - 106 miles, Walking - 37.82 miles, Biking - 10 miles
• April Running - 65.15 miles, Walking - 41.43 miles, Biking - 32 miles
• May Running - 64.62 miles, Walking - 40.72 miles, Biking - 52.9 miles, Kayak/Paddling - 10 miles. This month I decided to add in time spent kayaking and paddling! I'm going to do a conversion of one mile per 10 minutes, and hope this will help me make up some of the miles towards my goal.
• Visit all the gardens and free museums in the Triangle
• I visited Art Space earlier this month during First Friday in downtown Raleigh. Every month there are lots of free exhibits and live music going on- it's a lot of fun and I really enjoyed visiting this particular place. It's a combination of different studio spaces for local artists, and some of the pieces were unbelievable.

Donate to a Different Charity Every Month

January - Autism Center of North Carolina - improves the lives of individuals with autism, supports their families, and educates communities. 

February - Black Girls CODE - builds pathways for young women of color to embrace the current tech marketplace as builders and creators by introducing them to skills in computer programming and technology.

March - GlobalGiving Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund - supports humanitarian assistance in impacted communities in Ukraine and surrounding regions where Ukrainian refugees have fled.

April - Amputee Blade Runners - I heard about Jacky Hunt-Broersma's attempt to break a world record by running 102 marathons in 102 days in order to raise money for other amputees. Her story is so inspiring and it's been a lot of fun following along with her journey (which included the Boston Marathon!)  

May - Everytown for Gun Safety - the largest gun violence prevention organization in America. 

Read all the Goodreads Best Books of 2021

This month-

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney - Best Fiction - 1/5. Not a fan of the writing style and was not an interesting story line for me.

Previous months-

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid - Best Historical Fiction - 5/5. Fun story told in flashbacks and culminating in a disastrous star-studded party in a Malibu beach house.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Best Science Fiction - 4/5. Good starter sci-fi book for people who want to get in the genre! Gets a little tedious in the middle but fascinating book about a scientist who tries to save the earth from extinction.

The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman - Best Poetry - 5/5. The inauguration poem for President Biden. Beautiful words but even better to watch Amanda perform! Makes me want to get more into poetry.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry - Best Romance - 5/5. Lovely, sweet book to satisfy your wanderlust and just enough cheese for any rom-com lover out there.

Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson - Best Humor - 3/5. Some parts were laugh out loud funny and it was an engrossing (and sad at times) story- I just didn't enjoy the stream-of-conscious writing style or the disjointed chapters.

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas  - Best Debut Novel - 4.5/5. This book seems to be very hit or miss (according to Goodreads) but I really enjoyed it!  A little slow and repetitive at the beginning, but once it got going I absolutely loved it and couldn't put it down.

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave  - Best Mystery and Thriller - 2.5/5. Great, twisty start that had a disappointing and weird ending.

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix - Best Horror - 3/5. Slasher-style horror book that felt like a fast paced movie. A little too much going on and too many characters for me to keep up with.

Re-launch Etsy!

My Etsy shop is still on a break right now, but I posted more to my Instagram and TikTok! I did a watercolor painting of our new house and also got to do a mural for a friend's nursery. I set up an art space in my bonus room, so I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things this month. I gained a few followers on each platform and am up to 79 on Instagram and 108 on TikTok. 

Let's check in on my May goals-

Get Moved In

Done! We turned in our apartment keys over the weekend and got everything moved in to our house. We moved the majority of our stuff ourselves and then hired Bellhops to take our larger furniture pieces (and we ended up not having to rent a truck for our portion at all!). It was nice to have movers come but we ran into a few issues and lessons learned- one of our biggest pieces (and the main reason we wanted to hire people) ended up not fitting in the room we wanted. If we planned ahead for that we could have just sold it before moving and probably would have moved everything else ourselves. Secondly- we didn't read the fine print that the movers are hired for a minimum 3 hours, and since we only had a few pieces they were done in less than an hour total! If we realized that ahead of time we would have left more pieces for them to move. Lesson learned.

Bike 50 Miles + Kayak/SUP

I hit 52 miles this month and also went kayaking and paddleboarding! It was nice to have a goal and I made myself go out during the week to make sure I hit it. I'm looking forward to getting back to longer rides on the weekend once they're free again, and hopefully spending lots more time out on the water.

Here are my goals for June-

Trail Run and Swim 4 times

It's getting HOT out, which means it's the perfect time to start trail running more! I also decided to sign up for my second triathlon and just got access to our neighborhood pool, so my goal is to do each at least once a week. Hoping it'll happen a lot more often but that's always a good number to aim for.

House Projects

I have a lot of house projects that I want to work on before we host our housewarming party at the end of July. My goals for June are-

• Hang art in each room
• Wallpaper and add wood trim in powder room (really excited for this project!)
• Get furniture for spare bedroom and living room
• Mural in the bonus room
• Finish unpacking boxes and put them away in storage

Of course I have way more things that I want to do, but that should be a good list for the month.