Tonight, Reid asked if I wanted to watch This is Us, which of course I did because it’s our favorite “on live TV now” show to watch together, and then we realized not only did we have last Tuesday’s show to watch, but it was also on tonight and recording on his parents’ DVR. So, I asked if he wanted to have a double feature, to which he said maybe, because it’s been a long time since he played Rocket League (Xbox), and we only ended up watching the one episode from last week, but, in that episode, they actually said the phrase “double feature” (talking about two graduations). Then, while we were watching, Lincoln and Dash both started playing tug-of-war with Reid, so it was a dog double feature too!
Going along with the same theme, I thought I’d do a blog double feature tonight, and talk about two subjects in one post: a catch-up on what’s been happening most recently, and also an aside on goals.
First up, a Disclaimer and update
Apologies that I didn’t get three posts out last week. I missed the last two of the week because Reid and I were in California, and as of Wednesday, were spending time with a group of friends we went to Yosemite with and stayed in an awesome Airbnb in Yosemite Valley with no cell service and no wifi.
Honestly, it was total bliss to disconnect.
For someone like me, who spends about 99.9% of my time overthinking everything even without the daily draw of social media and the all-the-time connected state that a phone brings, the chance to have an excuse to do nothing but cozy up and read on a comfy couch next to a fire while looking out big expansive windows at a winter wonderland was pretty much heaven. (See the pictures of our three-story cabin featured, and I’ll post more after everyone compiles their weekend pics via our shared Dropbox.)
So I took full advantage of the lack of service and once my phone died at the end of our drive to Yosemite on Thursday, I didn’t even plug it in to charge until the PM hours of Saturday.
Also, one of the books I chose to read during this offline time was Rachel Hollis’ newest, Girl, Stop Apologizing. So in the spirit of taking away lessons from that read, I actually recount my earlier apologies. Sorry, not sorry that I didn’t get 3 posts out last week, but I was on vacation and also taking a mental break to do some soul-seeking and goal-setting looking ahead to the rest of the weeks and months in 2019.
Goals
I have done a ton of webinar-watching, freebie-perusing, email-list-signing-up, and otherwise blogging biz research over the past year. It’s pretty much been one of my downfalls, doing too much reading and overthinking, and never actually doing. One of the things the ever-present “they” talk about is “finding your niche”, and that’s something I’ve struggled with in trying to decide a direction for what I want my blog to be. Although I guess at this point if I had to pick something, I’d choose the self-development lane.
One of the things I’ve thought about doing is a daily play-by-play of my stream-of-consciousness type thoughts throughout the days as I take a specified period of time to try and adopt new habits. For example, doing a series like, “this is Danielle trying daily meditation for two weeks,” and “this is Danielle trying to do yoga every day for a month.” And just keep a record of how my thoughts and feelings and actions shift and change throughout that time period. Not sure how that would play out, but just throwing some of the ideas that come to me out there, and then at least maybe my trial-and-error with all the self-development advice out there nowadays could help others gain insight on what may be worth their time to devote a habit-building month
Also bouncing off some other takeaways from the book, I want to set a goal not necessarily requiring a rigid weekly schedule, but an overall goal for my blog for 2019. I was doing some calculations and realized there were 43 weeks left in the year when I started out upon my intention to do 3 posts each week, and when you multiply 43 weeks by 3 posts a week you get… 129. This may seem like just any other number to the vast majority of people, but I have always found significance in the number 29 popping up in my life ever since it became my and Reid’s dating anniversary (7/29), so I’m going to choose to say that this is no coincidence, and make my biggest goal for 2019 to have 129 posts by the end of this year.
