MLISunderstanding: Goals Check-in: November

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Goals Check-in: November

Here's my end-of-the-month wrap-up regarding my 2013 goals:

Self-Care
Got a homestudy application and discussed with my wife what we'll need to do to submit one (talk to references, have a new address, attend orientation, etc.).

Returned someone's lost driver license. (She'd mailed me mine and had somehow included her own in the package.)

One of my Kinja comments on Jezebel got recommended a bajillion times and promoted out of the gray. A couple others were well-received, too.

Spent one of the big holidays (Thanksgiving Friday) with my extended family. Decorated five Xmas trees and ate two turkey dinners. Also got a mani/pedi. Floated adoption plans to the family at large.

Upcrafted a generic Costco wreath to be most glorious.

Minimize
6 garbage bags of trash (aside from our usual household output)
2 boxes to Out of the Closet

Packed up books to sell to Half Price Books. Got them out of the house, along with a bunch of other stuff, and set up my home office for the rest of the year.

Passed along teacups from our wedding to a friend.

Spend Time and Money Wisely
Managed to see more than one of my favorite people in the same day trip, because I now know that they're located close together.

Notable transactions:

$548 for dental care; more for my wife through Care Credit.
Presents for a 4-and-a-half-year-old girl who loves books and whose favorite color is purple.
I lost my wallet for a while, so public transit fees were paid out of pocket instead of with pre-tax funds deducted from my paycheck automatically and loaded on my transit debit card. Paying in cash (especially exact change) sucks.
$118 income for the used books.
Received inheritance from my grandmother's estate. We might be able to buy our first home much sooner than expected.

Keep Learning
I learned a bunch about mortgages and home financing.

I learned a bit about how scent dogs track.

I'm sure I learned other things, but right now I have a cold and am not braining correctly.

Selected things I Googled: pursuit predation, side effects lidocaine epinephrine, [oops I forgot to save my search history before switching computers]

Try New Things
I had anesthetic shot into my gums and then had several cavities filled. Yay. All in all, not a traumatic experience. My face felt very silly for half a day.

I took a 3-session course in basic self-defense with Girl Army. (I would have loved to attend the Impact Bay Area intensive weekend, but it costs about 10 times as much, and we can't swing it right now.) Some of the material was review, but it's been a while since I've been in an uncomfortable street situation, and I thought I could use a brush-up and reminder to keep aware and focused when wandering around.

Crossed off 3 things on my 101 List