Challenge Update 2: Good Goth Keeping, Summer Reading, Better Health

It is that time again: a quick challenge update to usher in the month of June.

Fernard Toussaint

Good Goth Keeping

Rather than focus on these in order, I'll post as complete a list as I have complied and annotate each of them.

1. Assess your physical baggage and the psychological will follow.

My room is progressing slowly. In the past month I've:

~ Put away all my winter cloths and switched fully to my summer wardrobe

~ Organized my tea shelf and drank some of the remaining tea. 

~ Cleaned off the back of my closet door (ie, hung winter coats in the closet)

~ Put far more new projects in the project bin than taken them out. (Hopefully this will inverse itself this month. At last: two free weekends!)

Conclusion: I'm slowly working my way though the clutter. It's pleasant to be in my room now and I am keeping it pretty clean and organized. 

Goals: Clean out the bottom of my closet to rescue the desperately needed AC unit. Work through more projects in my project bin. Keep the room clean.

2. Write something everyday

This will be my biggest goal this next month. My pile of unanswered correspondence is piling up on my desk and in my email. I didn't realize the psychic strain it had on me until two days ago I sat down and ran through a few emails that had been hanging about my head. Once they were finished, I felt so free and light. 

This month, I will write a little bit on a letter every day until I can cut through my stack of correspondence. 

3. Self-forgiveness

I'll discuss this in the Summer Reading.

4. Read your label.

This is being mulled over. Expect a post on labels at some point.

5. Ask for Help

I actually have been using this tip a bit in the past month. Without going into the details, Eco is completely correct. Asking for help, frankly, helps. People are far more willing to lend aid than I believed. If I could add one thing to this idea it is:

Don't think that your problems don't deserve being helped. 

6. Go and do something

I'm lucky enough to be in a place in my life where I am doing everything I want to be. 

7. Sleep, Eat, Rest

Check, check, check!

Thomas Wilmer Dewing "Before the Mirror"

Summer Reading Challenge

And here is where the forgiveness portion comes in. 

Technically, I have been reading far in excess of 30 hours a week. However, nearly all of that reading has been of the school variety. Which means a greater number of all those lovely books I checked out from the library are still sitting by my bed begging to be read. 

In an attempt to inspire myself to read more, I joined beeminder (this will be a blog post in itself) and promptly failed little more than two weeks later.

Rather than beat myself up about this though, I let it go and forgave myself.  I am not reading as much as I hoped to be, c'est la vie. I've still found some very good authors. I've been busy and school has been difficult. It is Ok if I don't stay directly on a self appointed goal. 

It was a very freeing experience.

Annie Rosie Laing "A Helesburg Breakfast"

 An Aristocrat's Health

This is a new challenge, inspired by Underground for Tea's Goth on a Diet goal and a chance for me to discuss my views on health, fitness and more. The actual Challenge will be to lose five pounds by October. Less through any strict diet and more through portion control, eating healthier and, most importantly, getting up and exercising more.

How are other people's challenges going?