August 2015 Goals and July Achievements
Hello August! It’s back to school month and we’ll be living it up this month before all 3 boys are back in school. Time to tell you about my reading, blogging and home goals and hope I do a better job with checking things off this list.
Writing about my goals helps keep myself accountable for what I set out to do. Keeping my goals S.M.A.R.T. helps break down my goals into manageable pieces in my reading, blogging and home life. The beginning of the month is also a good time to reflect on the past month, what I accomplished, what worked and what is still left to work on. My trusty Erin Condren planner/bullet journal helps me stay on track to get it all done!
We have a linkup too to support one another in our quest to achieve our goals, so if you have a blog post or goals you are shooting for, linkup with us or leave your goals in the comments.
Note: This post contains affiliate links as indicated. I receive a small commission should you decide to purchase from an affiliate link at no extra cost to you. All opinions are my own, I only recommend products I use and love myself. Thanks for supporting my blog.
July Achievements
Reading:
* Read 4 books, I was too busy enjoying family and getting spoiled on our vacation to read more but the good news is 3 qualified for our Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge!
1. An Unwilling Accomplice by Charles Todd
2. Hello from the Gillespies by Monica McInerney (also qualifies for the Big Book Summer Challenge hosted by Book by Book).
3. Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann
4. Open Boxes by Christine Organ
Blogging:
* 12 posts published, averaging about two a week still.
* 8,400 page views, best of 2015 so far and happy with that since I wasn’t promoting posts on social media as much.
* Pinterest continues to hold the #1 spot for social media referrals bringing in a whopping 87% of my traffic. I attribute it to implementing strategies learned during Pinning Perfect– a Pinterest ecourse (affiliate link). I highly recommend this course, it’s keeping traffic coming to my blog even when I don’t post new content as often.
Home:
* We took 2 fabulous trips in July.
First, Superhubby and I went to Asheville, NC for our anniversary. We hiked 5 miles and to 3 gorgeous waterfalls at Dupont State Forest and I didn’t even hurt afterwards! We also hung out and played piano and guitar with our friends Chuck and Stephanie, the rock stars from Stephaniesĭd. It was so much fun and got me wanting to play piano again. They are amazingly talented, check them out! I really need to write a full post about this trip.
Then we visited Superhubby’s family in Texas. We took the kids fishing for the first time and the kids and I each caught a fish. We saw comedian Cristela Alonzo at a show and got a picture with her and an autograph. She and the other comedians that night had me laughing so hard, I cried!
* Finally got a kitchen table and totally in love with my bookshelf from Ikea.
* I’ve really been focusing on my diet and exercise. Eliminating sugar this month has given me less pain and more energy to exercise. I got a Fitbit Charge HR and loving it.
August Goals
Reading:
1. Finish The Autoimmune Solution by Dr. Jan Meyers, cutting out sugar has been helping me manage pain.
2. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende for our Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge readalong.
3. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes for our IRL book club. Excited to reread this, it’s one of my Top 10 Books to Read for Book Clubs.
4. 3 books for book tours!
Blogging:
1. 10,000 pageviews.
2. Update 10 posts to make pinworthy.
3. Get 2,000 followers on my Pinterest page.
4. Write about planners, RA, or another recipe. Books are easy for me to write about but want to diversify my content some more too.
Home:
1. Work on family photos.
2. Book the painter to paint our two-story family room.
3. 5 Summer Bucket List activities
Linkup Your Goals With Us!
This post linked up with SITS Sharefest and Mommy Monday Blog Hop.
Now tell me what your goals are for this month, what motivates and helps you achieve them!
My son has been home since the beginning of July and I’ve been enjoying my holidays as well, so blogging has been a bit slow for me too. I actually brought 2 books with me on our trip, but so far didn’t read a single page as I’m always out & about.
Good luck on getting your August goals all done 🙂
Alex – Funky Jungle
Aw, glad you’ve been enjoying your holidays with your son. I always say I’ll schedule ahead but I’m normally just writing for the next day, I can’t seem to get ahead. I think my normal reading has taken a hit too. No worries, I know once kids are back in school in a couple weeks, I’ll be so exhausted at the end of the night that my reading mojo will come back 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and the support!
I’m always interested to see what others are up to and how they set and meet goals each month. I’ve never set goals for an entire month, per se, but I tend to do them by the week. Maybe I should have a place where I collect my goals set and achieved so I have a visual of my overall progress 🙂
I will have to look into The Autoimmune Solution. I have a tentative diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, and it’s so bad right now that I can’t do half of what I could just a month ago. I can’t walk up my stairs, so I can’t imagine hiking 5 miles! I feel like walking a block should be my goal right now! I’m going to go read everything you have here on RA. When the doctor told me he thought it was RA (that was actually a second opinion which matched the first), I thought “I know a blogger that has RA, I bet she has info!”
Well I’ll be glad to answer any questions you have, I’m so sorry you have this diagnosis Stephanie. The beginning was definitely the hardest before I got diagnosed and the 7 months until they found meds that would work for me. I couldn’t walk, couldn’t unbuckle my infant out of his car seat or lift him and I’d just cry from the pain, losing a lot of weight after just having my son. In hindsight, I wish I had tried more natural approaches like changing my diet from the beginning. But I suppose I would not know just how much it’s helping. Honestly, the Autoimmune Solution book is incredibly overwhelming with all the drastic changes it demands in your diet, environment, etc. I have to read it in small doses and know that it’s a plan/goal to work towards. For me, I saw a nutritionist too and she suggested cutting out one group at a time. First was sugar, it’s surprising how many packaged foods and sauces have sugar, so cutting out sugar for 2 months had the most dramatic impact on me. I recommend starting with reading labels and avoiding sugar. I was a big dessert eater and loved sweets. So cutting that out alone allowed me to do quite the strenuous hike. I think it amazed both hubby and I. I don’t blog about my RA much because the emotional stress of the condition will send me into a flare but I’m finally excited to share how cutting out sugar has helped me. Post has been in my head for weeks, I need to get it down on paper! Feel free to send me a message if you’d like to talk more, I’d be glad to help any way I can even if you just need someone to talk. Gentle hugs, hope you’re feeling better soon.
Thanks Tanya. I understand not writing much about it. I haven’t talked about it much to anyone, and I’ve known in my heart that it was RA since the first doctor said as much, 5 months ago, but just last week got the referral to the rheumatologist and I can’t really hide it anymore.
I might reach out to you at some point. I feel too raw right now. I guess I’m still grieving for my better health (not that I’ve ever been all that healthy). I’m educating myself and reading about it in small doses. I’m learning that there’s so much conflicting information. Which I suppose makes sense – everyone is different, so of course one thing may work for one person but make no difference for another. It seems to be a lot of trial and error.
I enjoy reading your blog and your honest look at living with a chronic illness (even before docs mentioned RA to me as I’ve had chronic illnesses since I was a toddler), so thank you for taking the time and energy it takes to run a good blog.
Congratulations on a great July! We have only been to Asheville once, but we loved it! Glad you had a such a good time. This is the first time I have read your goal posts, Tanya, and I’m looking forward to seeing how you do on your August goals. I’m curious, are you getting most of your page view increases from Pinterest using strategies learned in Pinning Perfect?
Yes! It’s totally from Pinning Perfect! I’m an affiliate so if you sign up for it when it starts back up in the fall, tell them I sent you. I haven’t even done everything they suggested yet, implementing just a few things and being active in the Facebook group has helped my views from Pinterest so much in the last 7 months since I took it! And it’s fun, I love working on the images and Pinterest seems to have the most return on my time investment.
Ooh some great travel and look at those blogging and reading accomplishments! Way to go 🙂
Would love for you to also link this up at #GratitudeGoals
Thanks so much Julie!