August Report Card

I'm sorry this is a day late, y'all! I seriously didn't have the energy to do this on the last day of August! (Again, we're linking up with Kelli over at She Learns As She Goes to bring you our resolution report card!)

Put $300 in Savings

I only managed to put in $275 this month! ($75 for the first three weeks, then $50 the last week.) I got pretty close, but considering that my hours got cut considerably at the end of the month, I think I did very well on this!

Grade: A

Get All My College Stuff Organized

This resolution was very much defeated! I managed to make a list and get everything organized two days before heading off to college! I even got all my clothes hung up or packed into my suitcase. Everything fits perfectly into my room, and I don't think I forgot anything at all!

If you're looking for things to read about my college experience and stuff, try clicking on the "College" or "Dorm" subject tags in the sidebar. Everything I've written about the two subjects can be found there! (And of course, there are some overlapping posts, too. There are more tagged "college," but all the ones tagged "dorm" are also tagged "college.")

Grade: A+

Go Through My Clothes

Eh...I haven't really been able to go through my clothes. I think I'm going to have an opportunity sometime in September, though, so we'll see what happens.

I did figure out what to take to college (all of my slim-fitting shirts, fandom and others) and what to leave here (VBS shirts and everything that's unisex and bulky, like free shirts given out at football games and whatnot). 

Grade: F

Finish 1+ Seasons of Doctor Who

I managed to finish all of Season 3, and I got to "Turn Left" in Season 4. I couldn't bring myself to watch it, though, because I know that it's getting close to David's regeneration. And I think I'm going to cry when that happens. Reer!

If you still want to make your own TARDIS...

You can find the printable version of this here. I printed mine out on cardstock so it would be stiffer and wouldn't collapse as easy. It's a bit difficult to get the light on the top (my dad had to do it), so I would recommend having an X-ACTO knife handy. Or some kind of little blade to do the slits. (It's a bit difficult.)

Grade: A+

Read Four Books

Meh... I think I finished...two? Not quite sure. I didn't keep track, because I was busy and whatnot with college prep and work. Sorry, y'all!

Grade: C

***

OVERALL GRADE: B

That's really not that bad, all things considered!

How did you do for the month of August (even though Kelli didn't work with us at all)? Did you complete all of your resolutions, or did you have a few hanging chads, as I did? What are you going to work on for next month?

Check back later for my September Resolutions post!

August Resolutions

Again, we're linking up with Kelli over at She Learns As She Goes to bring you our monthly resolutions!

Put $300 in Savings

I'm only saying $300 this month because I only have four weeks to get a paycheck this month, plus I'm going to be going to college and having to buy textbooks and whatnot later on this month. If I'm able to save $75 a week, that'd be fantastic. If not...Well, I hope to at least get pretty close!

Get All My College Stuff Organized

This may or may not be a hard one. At the moment, all my college stuff is sitting in the office. At some point this month, though, I'm going to have to go through all of it and see what I'll be taking to college and what I'll be leaving behind. Otherwise, it's just going to sit there, and by the time move-in day comes around, I'm going to be running around like a psychopath of some sort, attempting to figure out where everything is. 

I also need to figure out what clothes I'm going to take with me, as well as what books I'm going to take. I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have to read, but taking The Complete Sherlock Holmes and Gone With the Wind just seems like a good idea.

Go Through My Clothes

I probably have a lot of things in my closet that I can't wear any more. I need to go through them and pull out the things that I either don't wear or can't wear, and put them in the office so mom can put them in a sack to be donated. I have a TON of t-shirts, and I'm sure I could go about three months without wearing the same one twice. I don't have a lot of pants, however, so maybe it balances out? Maybe? I'm not quite sure.

I do have to make sure that I do this this month, though, because I'm not going to have time once college starts. Once August 26th rolls around, my weekends are going to be filled with work and studying.

Finish 1+ Seasons of Doctor Who

It's been a while since I've watched Doctor Who. I stopped watching it after "Doomsday," because I literally couldn't handle the feels. That was back in March. (Bad idea, actually.) I'm itching to get back into it, and I want to be able to finish the seasons on Netflix before the next season comes out - I mean, the 50th Anniversary program in November. BECAUSE SERIOUSLY. DOCTOR WHO. AND DAVID TENNANT'S COMING BACK.

I even made my own little TARDIS!

You can find the printable version of this here. I printed mine out on cardstock so it would be stiffer and wouldn't collapse as easy. It's a bit difficult to get the light on the top (my dad had to do it), so I would recommend having an X-ACTO knife handy. Or some kind of little blade to do the slits. (It's a bit difficult.)

Read Four Books

I was able to blow this out of the water last month (well, actually, I at least doubled it...), so hopefully I'm able to do the same this month! I have the rest of the Septimus Heap series on my reading list, along with The Enchantress, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, and Gone With the Wind. Not too sure if I'll be able to finish the last two...

***

What are your resolutions for this month? Have any tips for mine? (Do you think I went a bit easy this month?)

Have a great month, y'all, and I can't wait to see what your resolutions are!

July Report Card

Well, July went by fast. Let's see how this month stacks up...

Put $300 into Savings

July 2: Earned: $138.58. Saved: $75.00.
July 9: Earned: $163.38. Saved: $75.00.
July 16: Earned: $195.16. Saved: $100.00.
July 23: Earned: $xxx.xx. Saved: $75.00
July 31: Earned: $159.87. Saved: $75.00

Total Saved: $400. This may only be because I had five weeks to work with this month instead of four, like usual.

It's a lot easier to save $75 than I thought it was. This is going to be a very easy resolution to keep. Maybe I can continue doing $300 a month instead of $200. (At least during the summer, May, June, July, and part of August. Maybe December. It all depends on my work schedule, after all.)

Grade: A+

Keep My Room Clean

My room is...decent. I did have to go through and do a clean-up the other day, but for right now, it's all right. I still have a really messy corner, though - the corner where I plug in all my electronics. I sit them on top of my trunk. Unfortunately, that's where I also pile a lot of crap. So I've got to sit down and sift through that next month, and see what I need to throw away and what I need to reorganize.

Grade: B-

Read Four Books

I'm working my way through the books! So far, I've completed:
The Alchemyst, by Michael Scott
The Magician, by Michael Scott
The Sorceress, by Michael Scott
The Necromancer, by Michael Scott
The Warlock, by Michael Scott
Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by Lynn Truss
Magyk, by Angie Sage
Flyte, by Angie Sage

And I'm working on reading:
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

But I managed to read eight books this month! I really don't know where I found the time to do so, but I'm not complaining!

Grade: A+

WALK

The only walking I've been doing is pacing at work and walking the mall with my sister. I've really got to pick up on this. I'm probably just going to scratch this off of my resolutions list, because I know I'll never get it done.

Grade: F

Write!

I've been writing on receipt paper whenever I work café, because it's usually a slow day when I work. I haven't just been able to sit down and write, even though I know I really should be doing that. I guess I'm procrastinating again, because I think I might be stuck in another "writer's block" rut. How do I have them talk when they're traveling? Am I putting in too many extraneous details? What's going on?

Grade: C

Graphics...?

I've reopened my review site on Neopets, but I haven't done anything graphic-related. In hindsight, this was a very bad resolution to put up. I knew I wouldn't do anything graphic-related, but apparently, I didn't care. 

Grade: F

***

Overall Grade: C+

I promise, next month's resolutions will be much better. I did well this month (even though I failed two resolutions), but I know I can do better next time.

Come back tomorrow to check in with me as I tell you what I want to accomplish in August!

Mid-July Resolution Checkup

Let's see how we're getting along with the resolutions, shall we?

Put $300 into Savings

July 2: Earned: $138.58. Saved: $75.00.
July 9: Earned: $163.38. Saved: $75.00.

It's a lot easier to save $75 than I thought it was. This is going to be a very easy resolution to keep. Maybe I can continue doing $300 a month instead of $200. (At least during the summer, May, June, July, and part of August. Maybe December. It all depends on my work schedule, after all.)

Keep My Room Clean

Um....My floor is clean, but not my closet. And now my chair is full of stuff, too. Ugh.

Read Four Books

I'm working my way through the books! So far, I've completed:
The Alchemyst, by Michael Scott
The Magician, by Michael Scott

And I'm working on reading:
The Sorceress, by Michael Scott
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

WALK

The only walking I've been doing is pacing and work and walking the mall with my sister. I've really got to pick up on this.

Write!

I haven't been able to work on this much.

Graphics...?

I've been working on reopening my review site on Neopets. Of course, before I do that, I have to have a nice layout. Tina's doing the layout, but hopefully I'll be able to make a decent button! Who knows?

July Resolutions

Last month's resolutions turned out much better than expected, and I'm so grateful for that. May's resolutions didn't go so well, but I was able to make up some ground in June.

Now, what's left for July?

Put $300 into Savings

This may be a bit of a difficult challenge, considering that I'd previously been saving close to $50 a week for the past month and a half. (Before that, it was all but $20 of my paycheck, due to the fact that I had something to save for...but then it vanished violently.) So this month, I'm going to force myself to save $300. It shouldn't be too hard, I don't think! That's only $75 a week. Considering my paychecks seem to be around $120 - $150 every week... Easy!

Keep My Room Clean

"But wait," you ask, "didn't you clean your room last month?" Yes, yes I did. The challenge for this month is to KEEP it clean. I'm not so good at keeping things organized, so I'm hoping to be able to do so this month! 

Cleaning my closet is a part of this!

Read Four Books

Again, this is a very, very low number for me, but between work and other distractions, I've got to be able to find time to read for myself. I love reading, and I miss it. I used to be able to power through one book a day, when I was in high school. (I spent all my downtime in class reading.) I haven't read nearly as much since I started college, and it sucks. We're starting low again.

WALK

I've been meaning to do this for MONTHS now, ever since Freshman Year ended, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm always too tired at the end of my working day, or it's always too hot outside. Well, I have shorts now, and I'm going to go out and walk, even if it kills me. It's going to have to be late at night, but maybe walking will clear out my head some. (I'm still having nightmares about Charlie. Nightmares, daymares, things that drive me to my knees in agony. But will walking around a neighborhood that we used to walk around REALLY help me?)

I've gained nearly six pounds since coming home from college. I guess it's all the laziness combined with actual food, but I need to keep it off. I can't afford to gain weight, because it all goes straight to my middle. (Plus, I have high cholesterol.) My Kinesiology/Health teacher last semester told us that the middle/belly was the worst place for females to have extra weight. It could cause serious health issues.

Write!

Again, a no-brainer. If I'm going to finish this novel before I graduate college, I've got to keep writing. I've got a start, now I've got to finish this. (Actually, I already have the end sorta written. It'll probably change by the time I really get there, but for now, I've got an idea, and I'm sticking to it.) My starting word count is 23,252. (Maybe I can participate in July's NaNo writing thing? Jenn told me about it.

I also want to write a few more short stories! :) I miss writing one-shots. I'm also itching to do a sequel to my Coffee story. 

Graphics...?

You see, once upon a time, I used to be really good at graphic design and coding. THIS page shows my coding skills AND my graphic skills. I made the layout as well as all the graphics on it. THIS page shows my graphic skills (it was a premade layout, but I made all the graphics across the site). I want to get my graphic program (GIMP, if you want to know) back up and running. I would like to create fancy banners and whatnot for some of my blog posts, especially the Monthly Resolutions posts. I miss it. I'm going to have to transfer brushes and fonts over from my other computer, but I'm hoping I can do it! My goal is to have graphics completed for at least my Resolution posts, through September's. (Maybe I can do it?) I would also like to have a main image, instead of just text, up at the top of my blog. I wonder if I still remember how to do this...

Well! This should be an exciting month, don't you think? I do hope I'm able to compete every goal this month, just like last month!

Who's ready to do this with me? :) Linking up with Kelli at She Learns as She Goes!

June Report Card

WOW -- what a month this has been! Heartbreak, sabotage, long working hours, reading, cleaning... I don't even know where to start! Let's do a quick run-down of my resolutions, and how I ended up :) I think this month went really, really well! (Linking up with Kelli at She Learns as She Goes!)

Put $200 into Savings

I've been working A LOT lately! I worked a 27 hour week [June 4], a 29 hour week [June 11], a 24 hour week [June 18], and another 27 hour week [June 25]. It has been a piece of cake to put away $50 a week towards my savings account. Maybe next month, depending on how things are going, I can start putting $75 a week into savings!! (That would really boost my savings account!!)

Paycheck #1: $126.76. Saved: $50.00. [June 4]
Paycheck #2: $168.38. Saved: $50.00. [June 11]
Paycheck #3: $145.89. Saved: $50.00. [June 18]
Paycheck #4: $159.87. Saved: $75.00. [June 25]

Total Earned: $600.90 Total Saved: $225.00.
So, I finished the resolution, but I only saved about 1/4 of what I made. (Although I didn't spend that much; most of it's still sitting in my piggy bank. ... I should probably round up all my loose change and deposit it. Sigh.)

Grade: A+

Keep My Room Clean

Room Status: MY ROOM IS CLEAN. I mean, it's really clean. I even wrote a whole blog post on this a few days ago, remember? And so far, I've been able to KEEP my room clean, which is an amazing feat in and of itself. I'm not a very organized person, although  I really do try. I have all these ideas for organization, and I attempt to keep everything in its proper place, but it really takes a ton of effort, and some days I'm just so worn out from working at TreeTop that I have no patience for this.

Bathroom Status: Surprisingly, my bathroom's the easier of the two to keep clean. As long as I put away my clothes that I stack on top of my organizer-thing, either on hangers or in my hamper, my bathroom looks rather tidy. I've even managed to KEEP it tidy, even though my cat's doing her best to wreck it. (She likes to chase her brother through the bathroom, and they LOVE trying to get under the sink and explore. Not that there's anything to EXPLORE under there!)

Grade: A+

Clean Out My Closet & Dresser

Closet Status: How do I clean my room, you ask? I shove everything into my closet. Not. Cool. When I cleaned my room, I actually PUT STUFF AWAY. I threw out three gigantic bags of trash. Now, the only thing left to do is CLEAN MY CLOSET. I didn't get around to doing this THIS month, but it'll certainly be one of the things to tackle next month!

Dresser Status: When I cleaned out my room the other day, I also cleaned out three of the drawers in my dresser. Two were crammed full of junk, while the third just had a box of old diaries in it. (I had to shove those in the top of my closet.) I managed to get EVERYTHING clean, though, and now there's only one drawer of junk in my dresser. (If I wanted to, I suppose I could clean out that drawer, too, but I don't have anything to put in it. I want to leave it as a junk drawer for now.)

Grade: C+

Help Save Over $200 in Coupons

So far, this is what I've been able to tally up. The "Other" category includes BOGO deals, store reward card deals, and rebates (if any).

You'll notice that the first week has over a hundred dollars spent. That's not an outlier; normally we spend upwards of $200 per week at these stores. Thankfully, since we've gotten so many good deals lately, we have a lot of things stored up (you could call it "hoarded," if you wanted to be vulgar; my mother calls it "stockpiled"), so we don't have to buy anything but things like fruit and vegetables and meat. We have cereal coming out our ears, and ice cream by the truckload. So it's nice not having to spend a ton of money each week. And we still manage to save about as much as we spend!

Week #1: Spent: $126.79 Coupons: $41.89 Other: $41.58 Total Saved: $83.47 [June 4]

Week #2: Spent: $68.87 Coupons: $7.90 Other: $54.16 Total: $63.41 [June 11]

Week #3: Spent: $41.83 Coupons: $4.34 Other: $29.84 Total: $34.18 [June 18]

Week #4: Spent: $52.12 Coupons: $67.67 Other: $45.70 Total: $113.37 [June 25]

**The June 25th Totals are ONLY for our CVS run. The Publix receipt has gone missing. I do apologize for this. (We didn't go to Winn-Dixie that week.) PLUS, Since this was a CVS-run, we got $15 BACK. So, essentially, we got over $80 worth of stuff at CVS for a measly $6.57. How awesome is THAT?! (The total before he started taking off coupons and stuff was around $81.)

Total Coupons: $121.80

Total Other: $172.63

Total Saved: $294.43
Total Spent: $289.61

Grade: A+

I'm counting this as an "A+" because I DID save over $200. I saved an amazing amount of that in coupons, too. It counts. And I feel ACCOMPLISHED. We saved MORE than we spent in June! (Just counting Publix, Winn-Dixie, and CVS, because we don't use coupons at Wal-Mart.) How awesome is that?!

Writing

I've really started working on my novel recently, which is FANTASTIC. My friend Kellie published hers (remember?), so now I've got to get mine out. She's going to proofread it for me, like I did for her, so I've got to find some place to print it out. I've gotten the introduction completed (it only took about forty pages for that), so now the real action can begin. And let me tell you, I'm excited. I'm so excited. Y'all will ALL buy a copy when I've published it, right? (Kindle version, print version, whatever?) I would seriously appreciate it.

I'm now up to 46 pages and 23,252 words. Hard to believe I was stuttering around 10,000 words just last month! (I'd been stuck at that point for months!!) Now, though, I might've hit another roadblock. We're going to see how far I can get next month! :)

Grade: A+

CONCLUSION: B+

I think I did really well on this month's resolutions! :) It's certainly better than last month's, to be certain!! The only thing that dragged me down was the fact that I never got around to cleaning out my closet (boo!). I'm excited that I was able to improve so much this month, and do things that I've been putting off for ages.

Who's ready for next month? How'd you do this month? :)

Cleaning, Part One - My Room

If y'all can remember all the way back to the beginning of the month (or maybe just to the middle), you'll recall that one of my resolutions for this month was to clean up my room and my closet.

I was off work today, and my mother was going to have my sister and me clean the downstairs, because, apparently, it's filthy. (I can't tell. Then again, maybe we're just so used to the filth by now...) Anyway, I said, "I was going to clean my room," so she decided that we'd clean the upstairs today. (We cleaned the basement on Monday, my only other off-day this week.) We cleaned the office first, as a group effort, then Sarah and I went to our respective rooms and started cleaning.

I had no idea where to start.

Yeah, it's an absolute disaster. Thankfully, you can't see my bathroom from here.

I decided to start by cleaning out one of my dresser drawers so that I could fit some more clothes into the dresser itself. My dresser has seven drawers, but I've only ever used three of them for clothes. The other four are full of random crap. So I cleaned out three of those drawers, put my oversized shirts (VBS shirts, community events, etc.) into one drawer, my "nice" shirts into another, my sweatpants and shorts into yet another, and my jeans into one more drawer. The final two drawers I organized into my underwear/sock drawer and my tanktop/bra drawer. (Sorry for any guys reading this.) It didn't take quite as long as I thought, but it still took around two and a half hours, total. (I took breaks in-between. Hopped from one mess to the other.)

Mid-drawer organization.

After I'd finished with my clothes (I had everything put away into its respective drawer, and had taken out all the stuff that was too small/too big/didn't fit right), I went downstairs to have some lunch. I like food, and today I had a corn dog. Then I went back upstairs, and decided to tackle my bathroom, as a change of pace.

I swept first, and then got down and scrubbed the bathtub and toilet and organized my little hamper-thing. Then I turned my attention to my sink.

The iPad's just there for my music.

It's like an explosion happened. I clean it about once every two weeks, but it ALWAYS ends up looking like this again. This time, I'm going to take special care to keep it nice and clean. After about ten minutes, it looked like this:

Everything's nicely organized.

I hope I can keep it looking like this for more than just a few days. It shouldn't be too hard, because I got rid of a lot of unnecessary things that were just clogging up sink space.

Then I returned to my room.

Getting there...

I still had to pick up all the stuff on my floor, and then clean off my bed so that I could put my sheets back on. It was a challenge, but I finally managed to do it. I vacuumed and then pulled the chair out so that I could do my curtains. (I got about two whole cats' worth of fur off those curtains o.o And it was so hot. The sun was coming straight in the window, and the vacuum was overheating from all the fur.) Thankfully, my mother helped me with my curtains.

I started cleaning at 10:30 or so this morning. I finally finished at 4:37 this afternoon. That's six (not-so-solid) hours of cleaning right there. I'm exhausted. I haven't even taken a shower or put on different clothes yet. I may skip the shower and just put on different pajamas. It's a bit too late in the day to even think about looking nice -.- Not like my family's going to care, anyways.

Isn't it gorgeous?

My bathroom's clean, too!

Now all I have to do is wait for my rugs to come out of the washing machine, so I can put them back on my bathroom floor. It's been a long day. I think I'm going to go find myself something chocolate! 

This was probably a very boring post for most of you, but I wanted to share my accomplishment! I'm amazed I was able to get everything done, and while my dresser's not quite as clean as I'd like it to be, and I've got some stuff at the foot of my bed that I need to tidy up as well (it's not pictured here at all, because it's like a mini-disaster area itself), I'm counting this resolution as D.O.N.E. Now I can sit back and relax a little bit.

I just hope I'm able to keep it this clean for a long, long time. I hate cleaning, so if I'm able to keep it looking nice, I shouldn't have to clean big-time for a while yet.

Have a great day, y'all! (Or what's left of it, anyways!)

Mid-June Resolution Check

Geez, is it June 15th already? Where's the time gone? I guess it's time for you guys to view my progress, and for me to really think about the progress that I've made!

Put $200 into Savings

Considering how much I've been working lately, I don't think it should come as a surprise that I've been able to put $50 per week into savings so far :) Hopefully, that'll continue as the month goes on!

Paycheck #1: $126.76. Saved: $50.00. [June 4]
Paycheck #2: $168.38. Saved: $50.00. [June 11]
Paycheck #3: $---.--. Saved: $---.--. [June 18]
Paycheck #4: $---.--. Saved: $---.--. [June 25]

Keep My Room Clean

Room Status: I have this annoyingly bad habit of stacking things RIGHT BESIDE MY BED. I like having everything near me, kinda like a dragon hoards its treasure. I may have to keep this little folding chair near my bed as a nightstand, because a normal nightstand won't fit there. Reeeer. It's still a mess, but it's a little less of a mess than when I started. I need to take a day or two this week to SORT THINGS OUT.

Bathroom Status: Surprisingly, my bathroom's the easier of the two to keep clean. As long as I put away my clothes that I stack on top of my organizer-thing, either on hangers or in my hamper, my bathroom looks rather tidy. Unfortunately, my bathroom's probably the farthest thing from tidy right now o.o Oops.

Clean Out My Closet & Dresser

Closet Status: How do I clean my room, you ask? I shove everything into my closet. Not. Cool.

Dresser Status: There are THREE DRAWERS full of JUNK in my dresser. THREE. Those are three drawers that I could be using to store CLOTHES. Looks like I'm going to need a VERY BIG garbage bag, and a strong will. (I'm a hoarder. I hoard stuff. I really really need to stop keeping every little ticket stub and sticker I come across, not to mention papers from...Tenth grade? Ugh. Let's get a bag and clean this thing out. 

Help Save Over $200 in Coupons

So far, this is what I've been able to tally up. The "Other" category includes BOGO deals, store reward card deals, and rebates (if any).

Week #1: Spent: $126.79 Coupons: $41.89 Other: $41.58 Total Saved: $83.47 [June 4]

Week #2: Spent: $68.87 Coupons: $7.90 Other: $54.16 Total: $63.41 [June 11]

Week #3: Coupons: Other: Total: [June 18]

Week #4: Coupons: Other: Total: [June 25]

Total Coupons:

Total Other:

Total Saved:

Writing

I've managed to write an extra 7,000 words this month!! I'm now up to 21,000 words in my story! (It helps that I get to write a ton while I'm working café during the week. Plus, since I've started carrying notebook paper around in my purse, I'm able to write even more. Whenever the mood strikes me, pretty much!

***

So. While I've managed to keep on track with my coupons, writing, and savings account, the actual working part of this month hasn't happened yet. I only have fifteen days left in June to finish everything!! Looks like my off-days won't be spent writing and staring at the television any more... I've got to get that dresser cleaned OUT, because my clothes are starting to stack up everywhere. Here we go! Roll up your sleeves, add some elbow grease, and let's get this thing done!

How are y'all doing on your resolutions? Is there something huge that you haven't done yet, just like me? Let's talk about it!

June Resolutions

Here we go! Off into the Great Blue Yonder, heading into the month known as TORTURE in Alabama. Seriously; it's going to get extremely hot, and I'm going to get extremely irritable at times. I hate the heat. I'd much rather deal with the cold. (To put it this way, there's only so much you can take off in the summer, & still be appropriate/feasible. In the winter, you can keep piling things on, as much as you want.)

So, to distract me from this absolutely terrible Alabama weather, I'm putting up my June Resolutions, joining in with Kelli (of Blimey Cow fame) at She Learns As She Goes.

Ready?

Set...

Go!

Put $200 into Savings

Now, this seems like a really high number, but I promise you - it's not. That'll probably cover one textbook come Fall Semester. Plus, if I manage to put $200 a month into savings, I'll start building up my savings account.

I'm thinking that saving $50 from each paycheck will be QUITE feasible. If I think I can handle it, I'll put more in the bank. Of course, I'll also have to have cash in my wallet and money in my checking account (for gas). I really don't like using the debit card, though, because it's harder for me to keep track of how much I have. (I'm so forgetful, & I procrastinate on checkbook balancing.)

You see, my Kinesiology teacher told us a story about her friend who put $200 a month into the bank, every month for thirty years. She had over $2,000,000 in the bank at the end of those thirty years. She never touched the money. She never even saw the money - it was all directly deposited, and she never had access to it. I'm sure it was tempting at times to dip into her savings and cover things that she needed at the MOMENT, but she resisted the temptation. I'm hoping to have a nice bundle of cash for myself at the end of every year, and it'll hopefully keep growing!! (200 x 12 = 2400, after all. Plus add interest. I could have an amazing sum of money in the bank at the end of the year, as long as I don't touch it!!)

Keep My Room Clean

To be absolutely honest, my room is a disaster area. I clean it really well one week, and I think, "All right. I'm going to keep it like this for as long as possible! It shouldn't be that hard!" Then three days later, I'm staring into the black abyss and thinking, "How on earth did I let this happen again?"

Since my room consists of both my room AND my bathroom, I'm going to attempt to keep both clean. And, to go along with this...

Clean Out My Closet & Dresser

My closet is also a black hole, sucking things in so I'll never find them again. My dresser has exploded from all the clothes I (attempted) to shove back into it after freshman year ended. I need to go through every piece of clothing, see if it still fits, and then organize both areas. If I can get my closet organized enough, I'll be able to fit some storage boxes (or my freebie stuff!!) on the floor. Right now, you can't even see the floor. It's really bad.

Help Save Over $200 in Coupons

This is a very...interesting resolution, right? You see, my father's job is ending in August, so we're all attempting to save as much as we can right now. Recently, I got into couponing & shopping for discounts/freebies. (Check out my successful shopping trip and how to get free stuff posts for more on these two things.) I go shopping with my mother every Tuesday. It's now my goal to shop the ads and find the coupons necessary to save over $200 a month in just coupons alone. Maybe up to $500 in savings total, including the BOGOs and Reward Card Discounts & whatnot. I think we're doing rather well so far, but I'd like to see HOW MUCH BETTER we can get :3

Keep Writin'

It's a new month, and a great time to start finishing my novel! My friend Kellie's about ready to ship hers out to Amazon Kindle Publishing, and hers will probably be published by the end of the month, if not sooner. I want to publish a novel before I finish college, and I may do that through Kindle Publishing if I can't find a publishing house that's willing to take me. (Little, Brown, & Co.? Scholastic? Harper Collins? ANYBODY HAVE A PUBLISHING HOUSE THAT'S WILLING TO HELP ME?!)

May Report Card

All right! It's time for the May Report Card, where I tell y'all how well I kept up with my resolutions over the month! This entire blog series is inspired by Kellie over at She Learns as She Goes. Thanks to everyone for reading!

Save $400 towards BCT Graduation

I think I did really well with this one!

Paycheck #1: $104.73. Saved: $70.00. [April 31]
Paycheck #2: $94.58. Saved: $74.58. [May 7]
Paycheck #3: $160.76. Saved: $130.00. [May 14]

Paycheck #4: $86.92. Saved: $66.00. [May 21]

Paycheck #5: $155.83. Saved: $50.02. [May 28]

Total Earned: $602.82. Total Saved: $390.60.

Grade: A+

I'm not going to need this goal any more. Oh, well. But I saved a ton of money, right? I was only $10 short of my goal. If I had still needed this goal, the money I deposited on the 29th would have been about $100 instead of only $50, thus sealing the deal and leaving me with $440 or so in the bank. So, technically, I did finish this resolution. I just won't be spending it in the way I want to.

Read Four Books

I managed to read six books this month, meeting my quota and surpassing it by two. Still, it's nowhere NEAR what I used to be able to read in a month, but then again, I was working my tail off this month, both at TreeTop and at my house.

Nobody Noticed the Cat [Anne McCaffrey]
Inside the Magic Kingdom: Seven Keys to Disney's Success [Tom Connellan]
Inkheart [Cornelia Funke]
Inkspell [Cornelia Funke]
Inkdeath [Cornelia Funke]
So You Created a Wormhole: The Time Traveler's Guide to Time Traveling [Phil Hornshaw & Nick Hurwitch]

Grade: A+

The Tin Flute

Um... Can I say "guilty" on this one? Maybe I put up my expectations too high. Or maybe I didn't remember that I'd be getting my wisdom teeth removed halfway through the month, which means I can't play a wind instrument for quite a while, for fear of getting a dry socket. (Ouch!) Maybe I'll try this one again in July, because June'll be too busy for this, too!

Grade: F

Walking

Most of my walking, unfortunately, was done at work. But hey, when you're pacing back and forth in the café all day, running to get drinks; when you're dashing between prizes and children at the prize center; when you're pacing at Water Wars just so you'd have something to do; when you're roaming around as Utility... Those steps really add up quickly! (I guess I should start wearing my Pokéwalker more often, so I can keep track of all the steps I take!!)

However, my mom & I were supposed to go walking after supper every night. That hasn't happened yet, but hopefully I'll be able to do better next month.

Now if you'll excuse me, my feet are killing me.

Grade: C

Writing

Meh...Last month really was the better month for writing. I finished two short stories last month - one for my English class, and one for my own entertainment. They turned out much better than I expected.

As for my novels, however... I haven't gotten much farther than what I started with. Ugh. It's so difficult, figuring out ways to let things come together. It's like a completely-white jigsaw puzzle. I can see where the pieces are supposed to go, or at least where I think they're supposed to go, but I have absolutely no idea how to get them to fit into those positions. It's going to take a lot more writing on my part.

I did get the entirety of my first few chapters typed up, although I wrote those a few months ago. I think I'll have to go back and edit them before I can move along, though: just to make sure everything fits together properly and whatnot.

I've managed to get more than 5,000 words added to my original story, though (remember my Books & Their Titles post from a few days ago?), upping the word count from 10,588 to 15,096. I need to finish this story, print it out, and hand it to my sister to read. I think she'd enjoy reading it. Or maybe I could send it to Kellie. I read her book, after all, and made annotations about it (with sticky notes!). Maybe she'd be willing to do the same for me. I really need some help with this story. Of course, I need to finish it first, before I let anyone read it. It'll be a rough draft of a rough draft of a rough draft, but at least it'll be done. It's going to need a lot of help to get to where it needs to be.

Grade: B

Overall Grade: C+

I still think it's better than I thought I would do, to be honest. And hey, People of the Internet! You're supposed to be the ones encouraging me, too! (And I'll encourage y'all right back.) But seeing just how badly I failed this month makes me realize that I've got a long way to go. I'm still going to try to improve myself in any way I can before Sophomore Year starts in the fall. I've just got to keep trying harder.

I do believe these Monthly Resolutions posts will become a regular thing! (That adds three extra blog posts a month to my blog, and I need all the help that I can get at some points in time!)

How did y'all do on your resolutions? Did you pass? Did you fail? Did you 'derail,' like I did with a few things? Tell me about it in the comments! Discuss things with me! Let me know what you're going to do differently next month! And do you have any ideas as to how to keep myself on track? Thank you! Look forward to tomorrow's June Resolutions post!