It’s July already and we are now on the back nine of the year. The first part of the year has flown by in a haze of work, projects, and failed trips, but July is our opportunity to turn it all around.
June was a busy month for us with wrapping up our long kitchen renovation project, trying to lock down our Italy trip, and getting work situated for our annual July summer vacation. As we transitioned into July, we got a little bit of down time to recharge the batteries and get powered up for the second half of the year.
Revisiting June 2019 Goals
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Finish our cabinets
We did it! We finished painting our kitchen cabinets which wraps up our kitchen renovation project. While it was an unnecessarily long winded project, we are happy with the new look.
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Exercise once a day
Yeah…we definitely did not exercise every day as planned, but we did have some good workouts that boosted our moods. We will continue trying to get exercise into our daily routine.
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Set up our deck
I can’t believe we didn’t get our deck set up before the end of June. We still have a few months to enjoy it before it starts to cool down, so it’s definitely getting done in July.
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House Purge
We were able to purge a decent amount from our closets. It always feels good to get rid of unused items. It means we get to buy more stuff right?!
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Start practicing Italian
This was a massive fail. We didn’t start learning any Italian for our trip, but that doesn’t mean we won’t. There is still time to learn the basics and some fancy phrases, like “l’avventura della libertà” (The Freedom Adventure)
July 2019 Goals
Clean & set up our deck:
Since we failed to do this in June, it makes it on to the July list. In addition to putting out our cushions and replacing the plants, we will be doing a large clean up on it. When the contractors were cutting titles for our kitchen, they trashed our deck leaving it stained white. We will be scrubbing the stains away and touching up where needed.
Finalize Italy plans:
We have been working to get all of our travel plans solidified for our Italy trip. With our trip being so close, we are going to get everything finalized.
Have a low expense month:
The last few months have been a little expensive with not having a kitchen and preparing for our summer vacation. We will be reining in our discretionary spending and trimming some of those unwanted expenses.
Get invested:
It has been a few months since I opened a brokerage account with Ally and I still have not invested in any stocks. I have been finding it difficult to get up to speed on the research and make investments when I already spend 10-12 hours working during the week. The market is usually closed before I go to work and is closed by my end of day. I am going to plan for some long lunches to be able to make purchases while the market is open.
Mini to-do lists:
Liann and I find that to-do lists are a great way to stay on task and make sure things get done. However, with some of the time-consuming projects we have had lately, we have noticed a ton of little things slipping through the cracks. We are going to create a to-do list of mini tasks to knock out this month.
With big projects coming to a close, we are excited to be planning for some future trips. Second half of the year, here we come!
