Catching up with August in September

I think I forgot to pack my goals when we moved. 
That's my joke these days.

The thing about moving is it breaks up your routine. You can move across town, across a state, across the country, or to a different country. Each move is different but they all have one thing in common.

Whether you move yourself in 18 trips with your Ford Escort, move yourself in 3 trips with a rental van or truck, hire a local moving company to pack and move all your stuff, donate everything to charity and start afresh in the new location, one thing is universal: 

All of your routines are disrupted.

Vacation disrupts routines as well, but you can return to the same routines when you return. Your coffee-maker sits in the same spot on the counter when you get home. Your gym is still the same number of minutes away. All your toiletries hang out on the same ledge in the shower.

No matter where you move to, everything you own needs a new home. You need to find new things to do at different times of the day. You no longer purchase your groceries at the same place, maybe. You have to adjust your commute time.

Right now, I can't wrap my head around any day in advance. Clean something, eat something, write something, read something. That's about as precise as my goals get these days. So let me use this as a monthly wrap up. 
IN AUGUST...

The House: 
I'm still trying to unpack more things, but until we purchase another piece of furniture, that's hard to do. A shelving unit will allow me to move all the books and decor items out of the wardrobes where they take up space, letting me put more clothes in there. A dresser will let us get clothes into their permanent homes. A vanity will let me move my makeup from the downstairs coffee table to a more discreet home in the bedroom.

Any one of those three items will give me a leg up on getting the suitcases out of the bedroom and into the 3rd-floor storage area. Good news is, we plan to be here a long time so we can take our time. This goal is plodding along slowly.

Fitness: 
I had fitness goals once. Even in Da Nang, most days I'd try to ensure I met a step goal. I now have the joy of doing yoga on the south balcony as the sun rises. Today I pushed myself to a longer workout and was dripping by the end. From basic yoga. So exercise is slipping, but not dead yet. Isa-Lee Wolf at Bit2Read talked about starting Daily Burn, so I checked them out on YouTube. That is a possible evening workout for me, while Brett teaches. This goal is aired out daily, if only for me to poke at it and check for breathing. I have high hopes of rejuvenating it during September.

Cooking:
We looked for a house with a decent kitchen so we could start cooking again. We have the kitchen, why not cook? I figured that one out: I do not like haggling, and buying food to cook means haggling. Plus I don't know what I'm buying. So... that goal is rather crumpled in a corner, probably crying for having been neglected for so long.

Work:
My goal of starting a business? Well, I got the logo, etc., but after looking into the legal fees to license and actually start a business here, that goal has been neatly tucked into a drawer. I get it out and look at it every now and then and brush off its snappy, tailored suit, but it can chill until we have the kind of disposable income for me to lay out $5,000 in legal fees. Ouch.

I am still doing audio recording for a friend in Beijing. So that counts as work.

Creating:
Writing is the only goal that I still work on. I'm doing pretty well with that. Hopefully, I'll start actually getting published sometime in the next year. Or something. Actually, my former boss in Beijing worked for a Chinese publisher. She has agreed to read it - or part of it - and see if it would translate for a Chinese audience. This goal is alive and well and shows great possibility. That's the great thing about creativity, isn't it? There is always "great possibility"!

How are you doing? I know in the US it's Labor Day weekend, so enjoy your cookouts. Here in Vietnam, September 2 is National Day - the day they declared independence from France, I believe - so I might end up partying, too! 

For me, I hope to catch up in September. What about you?