Personal April 2024 Journal – I’m starting April off sick, but here’s to hoping for good weather, a healed toe, and an awesome visit from my bestie this month!

April 3rd 2024

Work:

Not much to report on for work lately. I was on a cruise, then I had a week of work which was mostly just catching up and working on one specific project. This week, I’ve been sick so I’ve accomplished nothing for work.
I do have an update from my last post though. I had my first ever request for a raise meeting. It was scary. I was so nervous I was legit sweating. Thankfully, the meeting went well. I didn’t get the raise, but my boss didn’t say “no” either. I just have to wait and see what happens. I think I presented myself and my reason for requesting well so I feel good about it no matter what happens. I am glad to have gotten that off my chest.

Personal:

Well, we had a great trip, came back, had a good first week back to work, and then we got sick. I’ve been home most of this week recovering from what may be a sinus infection, not really sure. I’m congested, getting sinus pressure migraines, and my eyes keep watering to the point of literal tears randomly throughout the day.

I’m thankful I have the leave available to me to stay home and recover this week.

I mentioned Jay and I were watching Queen of the South, which we’ve now finished. It was great and I highly recommend it. I recently started and finished another show called “Wrong Side of the Tracks” which I really liked, but the ending was SOOO abrupt. I hate when shows do that! It feels like they just gave up and wrapped it up. None-the-less, I really liked that one too.

Now we’re on to watching Wellmania.

Update on the yard: The grass is coming along slowly, but it is coming along! Now that we’re starting to get a little bit of grass, I’ve realized there are run off issues on the side of the patio so I have to work on fixing that.

Also, yardwork-wise, I have to burn or otherwise get rid of some wood before I can continue making progress on moving all the dirt from the dirt pile I mentioned we created while putting in the patio. I’ll figure that out sometime soon.

Other news: I’m staying strong with my Duolingo lessons and was doing well with my workouts until I got sick. I am hoping to jump right back in when I start feeling better. I still can’t go 100% because my toe is not completely healed, but it’s getting better too. I was able to bend my big toe for the first time since I broke it this week.

🐕🐕 The Dogs 🐕🐕:

I was really nervous leaving the boys with a sitter while we were on the cruise, but everything went really well. The girl who came to watch the boys was a lifesaver as she not only took great care of the dogs, but she was at the house while the construction was going on and she was communicating with my mom and Jay’s grandma while we were unreachable. It was a lot, but I’m super thankful for her and the boys were happy and well taken care of. We used Rover.com to book the sitter and it saved us a lot of money in comparison to boarding at a local shelter.

Since we returned, I haven’t been doing much training with Boone. I’ve been busy catching up, and then I got sick. I plan on making a training schedule for him soon, which will help me stick to it and stay on track.

Both dogs are due for their next round of shots here soon, so my goal for this month is to find their records, and make sure they get the vaccinations they need.

📖 Book Club/Reading 📖:

I finished reading “That Sounds Fun” by Annie Downs and wrote my review on Goodreads if you want to check it out. It was a cute, short little read, but it’s not nearing the top of my ‘recommend to others’ list.

I started a new book on the cruise called “People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry. I have read two other books by Emily Henry and I didn’t like either one so I was really skeptical about this one. However, it was fitting for the timing and I actually thought it was pretty cute! I’m glad I didn’t give up on her books completely. Review coming soon!

✈️ Travel ✈️:

The cruise was perfect! Jay and I both had a really great time. We had fun doing all the things on board, attending music performances, spending money in the casino, lounging by the pool, and so much more. I just wrote a blog post about it if you want to read more!

The best part was that we were unplugged, no internet, no phone calls, no texts… just us, the sun, and happiness.

Due to the recent plumbing issue in the home and the cruise, I probably won’t be traveling too much here in the near future, but as mentioned above, my best friend is coming to visit soon so we’ll probably do a little exploring when she arrives.

April 10th 2024

Work:

Not much to report on for work lately. This week everything that can go wrong has and I’m making no progress on projects, only digging holes.

That’s all on that.

Personal:

On Monday I went to the dentist which I have been waiting for since my tooth stud fell off. I generally love going to the dentist for cleanings because my teeth feel so good afterwards. The appointment was probably the fastest one I’ve ever had which I have no complaints about. No cavities and she was able to scrape off the remaining glue from the stone I had on my tooth.

I also agreed to do two dog visits on Monday for a family that left town to watch the solar eclipse and I got to hang out with two, older, Australian Shepherds that were so sweet.

[PICTURES COMING SOON]

Other than that, I’ve been staying on top of my Duolingo lessons and gym sessions this week so that feels great.

Oh, and we also had a repair guy come out to fix the holes created during our plumbing issue and unfortunately he said the walls are still pretty wet so he didn’t want to seal them up just yet so we’re waiting on that to dry before we can move on to getting a wall put back on in the back room of our house.

🐕🐕 The Dogs 🐕🐕

They’re living life. Nothing new to report.

📖 Book Club/Reading 📖

I’ve wrapped up Rich Dad Poor Dad and wrote a review for it on goodreads. There was a lot of hype leading up to reading this book. It literally sat on my to-be-read stack for YEARS, but I thought it was just okay. It was focused on changing your mindset about money and risk and ensuring you aren’t just working and living paycheck to paycheck, but saving and investing your money. All of that is great advice, but it didn’t really go into HOW to invest your money. He just kept saying you should become financially literate and focus on improving your financial literacy to get to that point… which I think is why I just said the book was okay.

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover is available for me at the library so I’ll probably start that one this weekend.

I also go the Division of Student Affrairs book of the month book read which is Start With Why by Simon Sinek, which has also been on my to-be-read for a long time so I’m excited to dive into that one.

✈️ Travel ✈️

As I said last week, due to the recent plumbing issue and the cruise, I probably won’t be traveling too much here in the near future, but as mentioned above, my best friend is coming to visit soon so we’ll probably do a little exploring when she arrives!

April 17th 2024

Work:

Not much to report on for work lately. Since last Wednesday, everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. So I’m just trying to stay afloat honestly.

That’s all on that.

Personal:

Not-so-fun fact – I got my first-ever parking ticket this past week for parking too close to a city trash can… I didn’t know that was a thing on NON-TRASH days so that sucked. The ticket was $65, which I think is excessive. That added WASTED expense really ruined my mood this week.
However, I feel a little blessed to be able to make that extra money this past weekend by house & dog sitting. I got to spend the weekend watching Kaiser, who was super easy to hang out with. All he wanted to do all day was play fetch.

I initially set up my Rover.com account so that I could make some extra cash for future trips. My take-off wasn’t as quick as I wanted it to be, so that didn’t work out for me. However, I have another rover sit this coming weekend and I can put that money in my ‘next trip’ fund. This weekend, I’m heading to a house nearby just to check in on a big boy named Dunkel.

🐕🐕 The Dogs 🐕🐕

My buds are doing great. They’re happy about the nice weather lately. Days outside are the best.

I recently purchased some vitamin chews for Boone because he’s been eating a lot of grass and then throwing up, which I read could be due to digestive issues so I’m going to see if they work for me. If they do, I’ll link them on my Amazon dog products page!

📖 Book Club/Reading 📖

While I was house-sitting this weekend and spending hours playing fetch with Kaiser in the backyard, I listened to Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover. I finished the whole book! It was also okay – I’ve been reading a lot of “okay” books lately. I’m working on my review, per usual on Goodreads if you’re interested in reading it. There was a lot of build-up in this book that wasn’t capturing my full attention, but the end of the book was really great. I think she summed everything up, captured real emotion, and didn’t just END the book in a quick wrap-up. I liked it, but I don’t know that I’d put it on my recommended list.

I haven’t started the Division of Student Affairs book club book yet – Start with Why- but I need to get on that this week in order to finish it before the group discussion. Since they bought the book for me, I promised to read it by the deadline so I can participate in the group discussion coming up in a few weeks.

✈️ Travel ✈️

Not really travel per se, but I did get out this week and hike at a local park which was much needed and appreciated. I haven’t been out hiking since I broke my toe 6 weeks ago because I’ve been scared to put too much pressure on it or stub my toe while out and about and make it worse.
Nonetheless, I had a great hike. It was short, almost exactly 2 miles, but it was nice to get out on an evening and explore. I posted on Instagram about it on Monday!

My best friend will be coming next week to visit and I can’t wait to see her. I had a full list of things to do while she was here, but it looks like it may be rainy and gross the whole time so that may squash quite literally 80% of my plans… we’ll see what happens.

April 24th 2024

Work:

I’ve been very distracted at work lately. After having a horrendous week 2 weeks ago, I’ve withdrawn a little and I haven’t bounced back. I don’t have any deadline this week though so I feel like that’s okay. As long as I come back next week ALIVE and Ready to Go.

I am still big stressed all day, every day about the same project that has been assigned to me since last September and every time I think we’re making progress, we aren’t and it’s heavy on me. I truly think once this project is off my plate I am going to start thriving in my role because I can take on new projects that I’m actually interested in and can help with.

On Tuesday I invited about 16 people from our department and others I’ve worked with in the past to a lunch at Chimy’s across the street from my office building and surprisingly a LOT of people showed up! It was a great time and I think people really enjoyed getting out together and not discussing work. That was my one lunch rule, no work.

Personal:

My big win for the week was this email notification! I know my blog has been super slow going since its inception, but I am learning literally all the time on ways to improve my writing, topic selection, website organization and so much more.
Knowing I’ve ranked on Google AND people clicked on those links is huge for me. I have 10 million goals still and I have a lot of website updates to make, but at least I have an action plan and I’m working toward it. I enjoy writing and sharing my travel stories, advice, and products with my readers.

I got out last weekend and spent some time volunteering at a local 5k fundraising event and enjoyed that opportunity quite a bit. One of my small goals for this year was to spend at least 15 hours volunteering in my community and I haven’t done much so far, so it was good to get a start on that. Volunteering always makes me feel good. When the event is over, I leave, and I just feel lighter. I wrote a blog post about the benefits of volunteering and I believe in those whole-heartedly.

🐕🐕 The Dogs 🐕🐕

This past weekend I got to hang out with Dunkel again (a rover dog sit) and he’s so easy! He’s a big dog who just eats, drinks, goes the bathroom, and then wants to be petted for as long as you’ll pet him. I found his brush and spent about 40 minutes brushing him this weekend, which warranted about 10 brushes full of hair! (it’s that time of the year!) and he was so happy.

My dogs are doing great. They’re also shedding quite a bit because it’s almost summer, but other than that, they’re happy and healthy! Both of them loved the new vitamin chews I purchased so I added them to my Amazon dog products list for you! It’s still too soon to see if they’re working, and I don’t know that I’ll ever actually be able to tell, but for now, I’m happy with the ingredients, and flavor options. My dogs are happy. 🐕

I posted a while back about trying to leash train Boone and I received multiple suggestions to use a gentle leader leash. We bought one in the past and Boone HATED it. He immediately freaked out, scratched at his head/face, and just wasn’t having it. Yes, we followed the slow introduction steps and didn’t just put it on him.

That being said, since so many people suggested it, I decided to try again. Somehow I managed to break the clip the day I decided to try again, so I’ve purchased another one and I’m hoping it will work out for us. 🙌🏼 I’ll keep you posted.

It just came to my attention recently that he hasn’t had any accidents in the house in over 3 months! My boy is growing up.

📖 Book Club/Reading 📖

Last week I attended my first-ever silent book club and I loved it. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was great. I arrived at a local brewery, met up with the group, we had 30 minutes of talking and then we just sat there and read our own books until we felt like leaving! We did introductions in the 30 minutes that just consisted of our first name and the book we’re currently reading so that we could connect with others if we wanted to. It was comfortable, had low expectations, and supported local businesses. I’m all about it.
I’m currently reading ‘Start with Why’, which I mentioned last week is the Division of Student Affairs book club book of the month. So far I’m about 40 pages in and don’t have much to say about it. We’ll see what I say next week.

✈️ Travel ✈️

My best friend arrives in Houston tomorrow and I am so excited to go pick her up and spend the weekend with her. We’ll stay in Houston tomorrow, plan totally up to the weather, and then we’ll come back here Friday night.

We’re going to get tooth gems put on Friday which I’m really excited about. Mine has been gone for about 2 months and I miss it a bunch! I’m also excited she is going to get one too. They’re just so cute <3

Saturday we’ll be going to a crawfish boil and Sunday hopefully we’ll make some progress on beautifying my front porch area!

Come back in May!