Challenges

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Sorry I’ve Been Busy, I Joined a Choir!

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Over the summer, I started going to church (I actually found it by googling “chuch for agnostics” and learning about Unitarian Universalism) and I ended up joining the choir. We’ve had weekly rehearsals and I’ve noticed my mood is always noticeably improved afterwards. I’ve been meaning to write about it for some time, but I found myself enjoying being swept up in another creative expression hobby and letting my (published) writing go more by the wayside the last few weeks. On top of that, our holiday concert is coming up and we’ve been ramping up rehearsal time.

We’ve been working on holiday songs for the December choir concert since September so I’ve joked that I’ve been microdosing on the holidays for a while now. Since my church has members of a number of different faiths, we have a selection of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Yule songs. It’s very similar to the holiday concerts I did in public school choir, though Yule songs are a first for me, I think!

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One-Task-A-Day Decluttering Game

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This Month's focus has been decluttering and I'm so excited to see folks who follow me on Instagram getting inspired and motivated by my one-task-a-day approach!

When I decided to tackle decluttering as my February Focus, I knew my house was in need of some cleaning and I didn't want to wait until Spring. February seemed like a great month to get going — we're over the holidays and now just trudging along until Spring. We've been in our house for so long and, I'll be honest, it's been incredibly hard to motivate myself to clean during the pandemic. I'm already so exhausted from working, childcare and the regular maintenance of the house that doing anything more is like pulling teeth for me.

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Mid-Month Check-In — January Focus: Cooking at Home Challenge

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Oof! I didn’t think cooking 7 meals a week would be as tough as it’s turned out to be, but after two weeks, I can say that this challenge has proven to be the hardest I’ve done for blogging purposes. October’s Rocky Horror Roller Show was a challenge that took a lot of time, but I have to say, I loved every second of it. Same with November’s Writing focus. (December’s focus of Relax and Reflect was, obviously, the easiest 😂)

Cooking, though … I really hate cooking, as it turns out.

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January Focus: Cooking at Home Challenge

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Every January, I’m tempted to hop on board the health and wellness marketing train along with others starting their New Year’s Resolutions. I can’t help it. It’s like how after being out of school for 13 years, I still want to buy new pencils and notebooks every September. I’m trying to be more conscious of consumerism and how marketing contributes to these waves of interests, but sometimes I like to get swept up in it.

This January, even though I initially wanted to put some focus on my health and re-evaluate some things, instead I decided to focus on something that actually benefited us as a family. My husband, Mark, and I have been letting the pandemic be our excuse for ordering out and getting drive-thru a lot more in the last two years. But with prices rising and our growing boredom with the usual places around us, I had the idea to challenge both me and Mark to cook at home more.