July arrived yesterday but I was too busy rambling about my awesome day of shadowing to talk about my mini-resolution for the month. June's resolution to be healthier was neither a complete bust nor a raging success. I did succeed in being more active - Danny and I went on walks around the neighborhood most nights after dinner - and I started to track my daily calorie intake on My Fitness Pal (actually sticking to my set calorie goal each day has been variable...) which made me more aware and careful of what I put in my mouth. I'm still a major work in progress but I feel like I've been taking steps in the right direction, so that's a positive.
As usual, I have procrastinated brainstorming for the up-coming month's resolution and come to you with couple of measly, poorly thought out ideas. One of these ideas is to create (and stick to) a budget for myself. You may remember my March(?) resolution to save money in various specific ways, so I realize that this concept isn't exactly new to my personal resolution scene. But I think actually creating a budget would be an exercise that, if successful, would be an amazing "experience" to have under my belt. (For those of you gaping at the screen wondering why I don't have a budget - I don't just spend money willy-nilly. But I never actually have tracked where my money is going, and that in itself might help me save.) So basically I'd create a spreadsheet and start tracking and classifying my purchases and target the "problem areas" (I'm looking at you, Chipotle).
Another thought has been to spoil my relationship and plan out some more structured dates to places that I want to see. The drawbacks with this are: cost (although DC does have a lot of sweet free stuff) and time (Danny is usually super busy on the weekends and even four days a month - one each weekend - might be a bit steep to ask.) My modification on this was to plan more stuff with friends, but that's always based on availability and such and would be tricky to map out as easily as, say, a budget.
And the last thought is volunteering my time to some good cause. Since I only work four days a week, I have one extra day a week that I could (hypothetically) "donate" to a charitable organization. My problems with this are that it takes time to learn the ropes at those places and I leave for Canada in what, seven weeks?(!) AND I've been hatching a plot to do more lab animal shadowing on my off days. So that's tricky.
Now that I've essentially brainstormed outloud, I think the budget idea is the best one for me to tackle this month. Time to dust off Excel (just kidding - I use it every day at work!) and get cracking.
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