April

I have high hopes for April. By the end of this month, I will have one more assignment due (a one-question essay final) until graduation. It feels surreal. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For my professors to tell me I didn’t learn enough to graduate with this degree. It happened before, so I’m on pins and needles, hoping it won’t happen for a second time.

April marks a month of preparing for life after college, taking my health seriously (I mean it, this time!), and organizing my life from the inside out. It’s sure to be a busy month, but I can’t wait to dig in to all it has in store for me!

For once, I managed to accomplish all the goals I set last month. I didn’t make them too hard, as I was dealing with shingles and trying to figure out why I ended up with them so my goals were to heal and cope with stress, as well as preparing to read my short story aloud. I did heal, even though there were days it felt like my blisters were never going to go away. And I have taken some steps to help with my stress levels: to-do lists, making school a priority, knowing when I need to relax, and taking long walks when I feel overwhelmed. So far, so good. As for my short story? Well, you all know how that went!

For April, though, I have some very specific goals to accomplish:

• Complete the IronGirl 5K. I’m still not sure how I’m going to feel on race day, knowing I should be running the half-marathon. But every time I think of the race, it feels so good to know I just need to accomplish 3.1 miles, not 13.1. Ideally, I’d like to PR but my running hasn’t been up to par these last few weeks so I’m just hoping to run a good majority of it.
  
  
• Keep school the priority. I have two exams, a slew of blogs and quizzes, a portfolio website, and a short story standing between me and graduation. I want to give my full focus and attention to school and finishing strong and luckily, the workload isn’t too insane. As long as I keep on top of everything, it should be a smooth month, school-wise.
  
  
• Clean up my resume and begin applying to jobs. I had to submit a resume for my capstone course and it was pretty rough, to say the least. Luckily, some awesome resume rock stars looked it over and gave me lots of pointers. Since then, I haven’t done much with it but I do want to spruce it up to make it more presentable. Also, happening this month: applying to jobs. I’m excited to see what’s out there, but not fooling myself that I’m going to find something quickly. I’m prepared to search for 3 months before I’ll let discouragement set in.
  
  
• Start meal planning and limit trips to the grocery store. My mom and I are terrible at meal planning. We usually end up at the store 4-5 times a week because we only buy for a few days. In the past, we have tried to become better at planning our meals throughout the week but we always fall off the horse. We end up spending 3x as much in groceries because we’re poor planners. Plus, this gives us an opportunity to try out new recipes as we usually just resort to the same stuff every week. (Any good websites for meal planning?)
  
  
• Take Dutch on longer walks. Since we live in an apartment, Dutch gets a short little walk a few times a day. But even at age 9, he’s an active little guy and I know how much he enjoys our longer walks - even if they do make him incredibly tired for the rest of the day. I want to get better at taking him on longer walks throughout the week, at least 1-2 miles, because I want him to stay active and it makes him so happy.

 

What are you most excited about in April?