I found it helpful last year to keep myself accountable on my annual goals but doing a periodic check-in. So let's see how I'm doing with my 2020 goals.
1. Trail Walks - I wanted to do 20 trail walks for the year. I honestly thought it was 15 before I went back and re-read my post, oops. We did 1 in January, and then I really stunk it up for a little while, especially at the start of quarantine. But our spring has been really solid and we are at 8! So not quite halfway, but I'm excited. And for full disclosure, I've expanded this to basically be nature adventures, so our recent span of river trips are counting ha.
2. Book Goals - I set some individual goals related to my reading, but I also set a Goodreads Goal of 100 books for the year. As of the end of June, I'm at 49! So right on track, yay.
- Book Pile - I also set a goal to read or get rid of physical books that I have because I've had some for years. I'm happy to say I've done both. I read 3 books from my pile, am currently reading a 4th {that I've had for probably a decade!}, and donated quite a few. HOWEVER, I got quite a few more given to me {although I have read 2 of those as well}, so I'm not sure that my pile is SMALLER, but it's definitely more current??
- POC Books - I set a goal of 24 books by authors of color, and as of the end of June, I'm at 10. I also stated I wanted to read more books with characters of color with the kids, and with everything going on in the world, this has become a huge priority for me, and I'm going to share in a separate post the books I've bought for the kids.
- Books about Race - I also specifically wanted to continue to focus on my learning about race/racism and incorporate this with the kids. I've read 6 books so far related to race or racism. Trent has read at least 2 or 3, and as I mentioned Wednesday, I've got a few new ones to read with Trent and Drew.
- Classics - I set a goal to read 2 classics this year, and the book I've had in my book pile for a decade that I'm currently reading is a classic, so I'm getting there on this one too.
3. DiTL Quarterly Posts - 2 for 2 on this one! If you want, you can check out January here and April here.
4. Knitting or Sewing Class - I wanted to get Drew signed up for either a sewing or knitting class. This obviously died with quarantine. BUT she did get a finger knitting book for Christmas, so we really need to bust that out and start working on that! I wonder if I could find something online too...???
5. Photo Books - So my goal here was to decide whether I wanted to make photo books or not and eventually work backwards to making books for basically the past 15 years. I have pretty much decided I want to do them...and did a few months for 2019 and haven't kept going, ha. I'd like to get 2018, 2019 and 2020 done this year and set a goal going forward to do 2 extra books a year. So yeah, I'm really far behind on this!
6. Antiracism Work - Well, if this isn't just the most timely goal there ever was. I'm going to do an entire accountability post about this in the coming weeks. What I've been doing, what I'd still like to be doing, and I'm hoping y'all will share anything you've been doing and we can support each other!
7. Trent - Fruits and Veggies - My goal for the year was to end it with Trent consistently eating 2 fruits and 2 vegetables a day. At the start of the year, he was eating apples, carrots, and bananas almost every day, so we were doing okay, but I was really wanting some more variety for him and hitting 4 EVERY day. He has been such a trooper and has tried sweet potatoes, green beans {fresh and frozen}, cucumbers, and bell peppers for vegetables, and all but the sweet potatoes were a big fat fail - he threw up the green beans both times, ha. He will eat sweet potatoes, but they aren't something he's eating daily. He will also eat a little bit of raw spinach if there's a bribe involved but nowhere near a serving. For fruits, he's added green grapes, pears, and pineapple, yay! He doesn't love them, but he's willing to eat them and said pineapple tasted good. The downside here is he still isn't consistently eating enough each day. So I would like us to hopefully find 1 more vegetable that he'll eat and then get to where he's eating 4 servings every day - a lot of days it's still just 1 or 2 servings. But we're getting there!! We also just talked this week about experimenting with smoothies to get more spinach but not go crazy trying to pack stuff in there. He's onboard with working on this - especially because we talk about the health benefits of what he's trying - so I'm optimistic about this one!
Man, overall I think I'm doing pretty good here! Obviously not perfect, but I've never scored a 100 for goals ha. How do you feel about any goals or resolutions that you have?
Happy halfway through 2020! I go back and forth from thinking this year has flown by to thinking how is it already July? This year has been the weirdest ever. But one thing that has stayed the same - my love of reading! I read 7 books this month, and I'm pretty impressed with my mix of topics - 2 memoirs, 2 educational books, and 3 more traditional fiction. My total for the year is 49, so I'm really trucking along on my way to 100!
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance - I've seen this book mentioned numerous times and finally decided to try it out. J.D. writes his memoir as the grandson of 'hillbillies' - his grandparents moved from the Appalachia mountains in Kentucky to Ohio to escape the poverty around them. I thought this was going to be more like Educated, but while J.D. talks about the craziness of his childhood {not knowing his father, his mother's issues with drugs and multiple marriages} and how, with the love of his grandparents, was able to breakout of a cycle of poverty and violence and make it all the way through Yale Law, this book also covers a lot about the problems in the 'hillbilly' culture where his roots start. I found it really engrossing but also really educational - it was interesting to read at the same time as Black Lives Matter was really hitting a fever pitch and comparing and contrasting a lot of the problems we seem to see a lot of these days. Highly recommend!
Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness - I don't watch Queer Eye, but somewhere along the way I've seen Jonathan Van Ness and thought he seemed like such a fun person - confident in who he was, funny, kind, self-deprecating - and really wanted to check out his memoir, and I'm so glad I did. He had a very tumultuous childhood growing up flamboyantly gay {if not out} in an area of the US where that was NOT ok - he shared about being sexually abused as a child and how that impacted his life, his addictions, his HIV + diagnosis, how he overcame that all and learned to love himself all while making me laugh and just really love him! He seems like such a great guy, and I really enjoyed his book and the lessons he learned along the way.
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle - Dannie wakes up from a dream that she knows is real, and it shows her life in 5 years and it's completely different than where she is in her life {like she's living with a man who is not her fiance in a different apartment}, and she can't shake it. Little by little the story reveals those 5 years, and it was a GREAT story. I was expecting this to be more like a Sliding Doors type story, which I LOVE, but it wasn't exactly - little by little the pieces unfold - we meet the guy, we see the apartment - but nothing adds up... I almost cheated and read the ending because I was so curious how it was all going to play out, but I'm glad I didn't. This didn't come together any possible way I could have imagined, so it was a really unique read that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams - This was a precious read, and I ate it up. Nadia sees a post in the Missed Connection section of the newspaper and she thinks it's about her - from a guy, Daniel, who sees her at the subway station every day. So she responds, and he responds... I loved every minute of this - loved the characters, loved the connections of the storylines, just loved it. Right up my alley!
Biased by Jennifer L. Eberhart - This blew my mind. This book really bit into the science between implicit bias, and it was such a great read. I had ear-marked it from some anti-racism activists, and I'm so glad I read it. I learned so much from it and think it's something everyone should read!
The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis - This is the second Fiona Davis book I read, and so far her books have a similar format to Kate Morton - alternating storyline between the past and present with a mystery in the past. Darby lived in the Barbizon Hotel in the early 1950s training to be a secretary. Over 60 years later, Rose, a reporter who lives in the converted hotel, sees Darby and hears a tale of an encounter between Darby and a maid that left the maid dead and Darby scarred for life. What happened all those years ago? I thought this started out slowly, but it really picked up steam in the second half, and I flew through it. There were several twists and turns - some predictable, some not, and I was really happy with how it all came together.
American Prison by Shane Bauer - Another mind-blowingly educational book that is written by an investigative journalist who went undercover as a CO in a private prison. Shane gives the history of the prison system from inception to the privatized model we see now, and it is a horrific piece of our history about exploiting the human body {and often the human black body} for profit. It was so smartly written and so educational, it was phenomenal.
See? Overall a great month of books!
Now, let's talk about what I'm reading with the kids. Trent and I haven't read anything together fully since May, but he did read Trevor Noah's Born a Crime with me - although he got to where he read the second half by himself - I was too slow. I bought the following 2 books to read with him and possibly Drew. I'm so excited!
Drew and I are out of Baby Sitters Club books right now - she got a set of #1-6 for Christmas, and we finished #6 a few weeks ago. I ordered Lightning Girl from my cousin, who is an Usborne book consultant, and Drew is loving it. There's a sequel, so I know we'll be getting that. I really hope we can get to a Half Price Books before too much longer {not doing much in-person shopping these days and HPB charges $3.99 shipping PER ITEM since they can come from any store in the country} to pick up some more.
And to round out the end of my monthly reads...time to crown my favorite of the month. Seriously 3 or 4 could have been favorites, but I had to go with Our Stop because it was just my kind of story. Yes, it's cheesy, but it's so sweet and the characters are great, and the story is so enjoyable. Sometimes your heart just needs something light and fluffy {but NOT Hallmark fluffy}, and this hit the spot!
I'm in the middle of something really enjoyable...and a classic I'm not really loving, so July is already off to an interesting start! I hope you've got something great to read over the long weekend. Happy reading!
