2018 GHDR Review 5ish

This is my fourth but should be fifth official checkin for my 2018 GHDR as I am following Dave Seah’s masterful plan.

The past month has been an unmitigated disaster for planning and development in most of my goal areas…and it turns out that I did not do a review the month before. Wow. In my defense, I’m not sure that I had internet on June 6, since we left Japan a couple of days later.

We have officially arrived in Washington. We stayed in hotels for a week, visited family, and then finally came to stay in our house. A month after getting here, we are still sleeping on air mattresses, and we have one borrowed card table. Life is nuts. Through this chaos, I’ve managed to make progress in all areas of business and engage with the communities that matter to me online (except my Discord friends from DSCafe, who I miss).

I’m really hoping to get settled in soon into some kind of a routine.

Reminder of my 2018 Goals

My resolutions for the year broadly fall into categories: [H]Health, [F]Friends and family, [I]Intention, [M]Money, and [E]Engagement.

• I resolve to eat food that makes my body happy [H]
• I resolve to regularly go to the gym with friends [H,F]
• I resolve to run or walk intentionally at least 4 times per week[H]
• I resolve to do one thing with friends or family every month [F]
• I resolve to conduct a weekly review session where I summarize what I’ve done and how I’ve felt about it and where it is taking me [I]
• I resolve to conduct a monthly review of my progress on these goals [I]
• I resolve to make some kind of income and track it each month [M]
• I resolve to stay engaged and contribute to the communities that I have found [E]

and in February, I added

• I resolve to do one thing with each member of my family individually every month [F]

What I did the last two months

I had a terrible goal month in June, May was better. I tried to stay updated for part of our upheaval, but eventually, tracking just completely fell away.

• [H]ealth: I made it to the gym once…ONCE in May and no times in June. Since I’ve moved, going to the gym is leaving my tracker, but I need to find a way to exercise. We now are far from sidewalks, and folks drive way too fast on our road. I will come up with a plan. I’ve been doing okay on food.
• [F]riends and family: So many fun activities with friends in May and early June before we left Japan. It was truly great. Since then, we have had more family time than I ever could have hoped, and I think things are going well here. Two things that really stand out happened in the last week before we left Japan. I was able to make fake food like in the Japanese storefronts (with Chuck and Nadine), and I got to make pottery with local plants with the girls. The food was not really a keeper, but the pottery might be. How exciting.
• [I]Intention: Let’s just call this a fail. Reflections were sparse at best.
• [M]Money: More activity with Gifts Done, and I managed to do a little work for Open Collective. This is okay.
• [E]Engagement: I did some engagement - not quite enough. I was a little active in the Moms Can Code group; I participated in Instagram challenges; and I engaged with folks on twitter. I still find it impossible to stay up to date with everyone who I find interesting, and I still find that maintaining a consistent posting pace is draining.

Insights

Moving is completely crazy for life planning and development. While we have done so, so much, it feels like we are going nowhere. I like routine and calm. We will get there. Here is some of the crazy that was not really tracked:

• Home remodel - We tore up all of the carpet, removed the three kinds of floor in the kitchen, and installed new flooring in nearly the whole house.
• Kids and Code - I’m working with Moms Can Code to be a local community leader to train other moms to be confident in encouraging their kids with code.
• Social Majik - I finished the first version of an iOS app that makes social media posting easier. Along the way, I’ve learned how to make iMessage stickers and In App Purchases…among a million other things.
• Cupcake eye issues - so, when we got to the US, her eye started looking so much worse. We got her into the vet and ran a whole bunch of tests, and we have been giving her eye drops and inflammation drugs for a few weeks now. She looks much better.

Looking forward

We should be getting our furniture and some semblance of normal this month. I am going to set a few goals, but I’m keeping it limited to allow for the unexpected.