April Recap & May Goals.

A view of the Columbia River Gorge from Rowena Crest, taken during my parents' visit

I'm sneaking this post in at the last minute before the first week of May is over! I decided to switch up the format of my monthly goals and reflections, for no particular reason other than I wasn't feeling particularly inspired by my previous format. Here I'm using Nicole's end-of-month review template, available to her email subscribers; I've long enjoyed her emails but I have to give a shoutout to my blog friend Kristen for the inspiration to turn the monthly review template into a blog post—I hadn't thought of that! I like that it builds in a little more reflection and positivity than my previous method of simply checking to see whether I achieved my goals or not.

The two things I’m most proud of from April are:
1. I made some progress on putting together a new portfolio website. It's nowhere near done yet, but I put some work into assessing my goals for the site, listing what exactly I want to showcase in my portfolio, and how I want to organize the information. Also, since my HTML skills aren't very advanced, I looked for a few templates that could fit my needs with a few tweaks.
2. I made strides in regards to my health-focused goals of waking up earlier and continuing my PT/stretch routine. I was far from perfect, as expected, but there was progress. Conveniently, my favorite yoga Youtuber Adriene came out with a Yoga for Sciatica video this month that was a nice starting point and did help ease some of the pain.

The two things I’m most grateful for from April are:
1. I got to spend time with my mom and step-dad when they came for a visit in the first half of April! I went a little crazy trying to cram a lot into four days, but I just really wanted to show them our new city and state and why we like it here so much. I'm pretty sure they enjoyed their visit. 
2. Mark and I took two awesome hikes, the first in an area I had not yet explored along the Clackamas River. It was one of the prettiest and varied hikes that I've done so far, though it was also one of the longest I've done at 7-ish miles. The second hike we took was Horsetail Falls to Triple Falls in the Columbia River Gorge. The coolest part of this one was where the trail carved into the cliffside, allowing you to walk behind the waterfall. I'm super grateful that we had a safe hike; literally the day after we were there a woman fell to her death while she was trying to save her young son who tripped and fell off the trail. I can't even imagine, and my heart goes out to her family. 

The lesson I learned and am carrying forward with me from April is:
Change can feel so slow, and that can be frustrating on a day-to-day basis, but those little steps DO add up.


My intention for May is: 
First and foremost is to connect. I have some social events coming up with people I don't really know, and I want to focus on being present and to connect with the women around me instead of letting social anxiety take over. Secondly, I'd also like to embrace the now and get out of the habit of putting things off until "later"—which too frequently turns into never.  

One thing I aim to do every day in May is: 
Floss my teeth. I unfortunately do not have dental insurance, and I've recently started to get paranoid about something going wrong. I want to put a little more effort into my dental routine in hopes that I can prevent future troubles. 

Because I am brave, here are two new/scary things I will do in May:
1. Go to the two Meetups I have scheduled.
2. Attend at least one Unitarian Universalist service (this is scary for me given my prior experience with organized religion, and not knowing anyone). 

The one book I definitely want to read in May is: 
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini, which is for a bookclub I'm attending next weekend. Aside from that, I also like to start American Housewife: Stories by Helen Ellis. 

Something I want to experiment with in May is: 
What it might look like for me to return to video-making if I didn't talk exclusively about books. It's time for me to decide whether I'm going to continue making YouTube videos or leave that project behind, and I feel like I have to expand beyond the book niche if I'm going to remain interested in it.

Just for fun, I will: 
Take at least two hikes. Visit the farmer's market. Go to a winery (I'm cheating by including that because we did that already on May 1st ;) 

As an act of intentional kindness, I will: 
Reach out to my family a little bit more. I can be terrible about staying in touch and returning voicemails and the like, and being so far away now I really have to put in a little more effort into showing people that they're important to me. I sometimes forget that it's good for me and my well-being, too.