Inching Forward

I'm having a hard time reconciling myself to the fact that the holiday season has officially begun. Halloween is behind us, Thanksgiving is looming on the horizon and Christmas music reverberates through every store I enter, yet somehow my brain keeps expecting it to be summer.

Today I realized that I posted my three year plan six months ago already. SIX MONTHS! Where has that time gone? Have I made any progress at all on my plan? I felt very unprepared for this check-in, but when I went back to my plan to look at what I've done I was actually pleasantly surprised at what I found:

Writing
I have NOT improved my blogging skills. If anything, I think I've back-slid. I never got around to creating an editorial calendar, either, which probably accounts for how random and infrequent my blog posts are. Clearly, this is something I need to work on.

On the other hand, I do write daily, I've joined a writing group and I have taken several writing classes. I have even created a solid outline for my novel already. In fact, I am working on a fist draft of it right now for NaNoWriMo. So far it is going well. I have about 25,000 words written already (disclaimer: a good 4K of my word count consists of chapter sketches and notes that don't count towards my final word count).

Finance
If you remember my last update, this was the area where I took the biggest hit. I was really struggling, having wiped out my savings after a series of unfortunate and unpredicted incidents.

Today I am able to say that I have built my savings up again, but really only because I finally got my taxes back. Saving continues to be a challenge and, since I haven't found a part time job yet, I expect it to continue to be challenging until I do.

To the good, getting my taxes back means I can take the next big step on the road to rebuilding my credit. I have taken out a secured credit card. I will begin using it to make routine, planned purchases which I will pay off immediately, things like groceries, the utility bills and the like.

Self-Care
The self-care area has been challenging, too.

I started out doing great. If you recall, I bought a set of pedals for under my desk and I pedaled all day long. I lost about thirteen pounds this way. Unfortunately, I pedaled so much I broke the machine. I've gained all the weight back, sadly, but I have a new set of pedals on order and intend to pedal my way to victory once again.

I suppose you can say the moral to my six month story so far is don't give up. Things will happen. It will be hard. Keep going anyway.