Hello and happy February! I hope you had a good Valentine’s Day. Dave and I celebrated late…and didn’t exactly get each other traditional Valentine’s gifts.

This is another installation of Gold Stars + Demerits, just like Gretchen Rubin does on her awesome podcast. Check out my first post if you have no idea what I’m talking about.

Gold Stars

-I got my taxes done!

(ps follow on snapchat: semihealthnut!)

Wayy early. And I kind of spent most of it on new professional-ish clothes that I can wear when I do my practicums at schools (starting this week!) and home décor. Dave would probably tell you we have enough decorations now, but I always seem to find more things we MUST have. Maybe that should go under demerits?

-Reading a lot!

Okay this is mostly because I have a children’s lit class, but I’ve been going above and beyond because I’m remembering how much I LOVE reading. (think I’m gonna make a good teacher?)

-We got a wedding venue booked for the reception!

That was worrying me for awhile since I really wanted the venue. As far as where we are actually getting married on the other hand…that one is still up for debate. By all parties involved. And no, I don’t mean just the bride and groom HA! #weddingplanningfun

-I started my half-marathon training.

half marathon training

It hasn’t been perfect, but I have run a few times which is more than I did the past 4 months!

-Finally got my grandma’s old treadmill set up in the basement.

This means I can accomplish some of said training when it’s cold and snowy and rainy out! It is approximately one thousand years old, but I was able to walk on it a bit, so hopefully it will hold up.

-Probably the most exciting thing recently that’s been on my brain is being nominated (is that the word?) for President of NE STEM 4U.

You know, that organization I joined in August and was all nervous to teach lessons…somehow I’m going to be running the thing. I am half terrified and half super excited because it’s an amazing organization and I have tons of ideas.

We can’t take pictures of the students’ faces at the schools, so I wish I had a cute photo to share, but just picture college students teaching elementary and middle school students awesome science stuff. 🙂

Demerits

-Playing Sims all. the. time.

Sims is a video game (in case ya didn’t know) I don’t know what it is, but every few months, I get addicted. I had a rule (like 2-3 years ago) that I wouldn’t play during the school year or when I was studying for something (like the NASM), but this time around I told myself, “I’ll just play on the weekends.” That slowly progressed to the past two weeks where I’ve played at least two or three times a week.

It’s fine to have a way to relax and unwind, but sometimes video games have a sneaky way of making you feel like you are getting things accomplished when you really REALLY are not. I think that’s the difference between doing that and watching Netflix. Of course you can overdo anything, but I just think it would be better if I got serious about limiting my time, or even just quitting for a bit altogether. There are plenty of other ways to relax, after all.

-Something else I need to work on is being calm during house projects.

I get a little…pinchy (Dave’s word for cranky Amanda) when there are house projects going on that leave an area of the house messy for more than a few days. I literally can’t imagine doing a full blown remodel of a kitchen or something with my anxiety. And this is when I have already tried to prepare myself and occupy myself with other things and take deep breaths. I know. I need to work on it. If you have any advice, please do share below! (ps telling me to “calm down” doesn’t work. ask Mr. Dave lol.)

Any interest in a post about all of the updates we’ve done on the house? Maybe I should do something when we hit our one year mark…which is only in a couple of months! Eek!mjnnnnnncx

#goldstarsanddemerits

You guys can join along in sharing gold stars or things you need to work on with this hashtag on Twitter and Instagram!

In other news…

I think I’m going to start doing a post once a month or so with goals for myself. It helps a lot putting goals out onto the internet because then I feel like I really should try to do them because I imagine all of my readers sitting around, impatiently waiting to find out if I’ve accomplished everything I’d hoped.

I saw a blogger put a list of things she wanted to do that year on the sidebar and every time she did the thing, she records it on Instagram and links it as sort of a check mark on the item. Cool, right??

I am thinking of names for the new segment…I was thinking happy planning. After the happy planner I bought!

So tell me…

What are some of YOUR gold stars and demerits this past month?

Linking up to: Thinking Out Loud