April Updates

I had a good April. It's always such a lovely month. I enjoy watching the flowers pop through the earth and for color to be re-introduced into my world. I love the cessation (hopefully) of snow and enjoy the rain as long as there are a few days of sunshine in between storms. Even if it does snow, at least I know that it won't last long and the snow will melt quickly, if it sticks at all.

I didn't have the best of months as far as goals went, quite frankly, but I'm still pleased with how my month turned out. Here's the rundown:

School. Is over! My last day of classes was Thursday, April 12, since I only had Tuesday/Thursday classes. The final for my Auditing class was actually the weekend before that, so after class on the 12th I was done with that class. I took my remaining two finals on Friday the 13th (scary?!) so was completely done with school by 10:30 that morning. It felt great! It feels even better now that I know that I earned straight As for the semester. Woohoo! I worked 4 hours a day the following week with Friday the 20th being my last official day until Fall semester. I have agreed to work a few days here and there up until June to cover my coworker's vacation days, which will be nice. I'll get a little extra income, will get out of the house, and can read for 6 hours because I imagine it's going to be pretty slow. In other school news, I received a letter on April 30th announcing that I have been accepted into the Masters of Accounting program! I'm not overly surprised because I get good grades and had a good test score, but it's still nice to get the confirmation and can now move forward with registering for classes. Yay!

Summer Trip. We accomplished the two big things I wanted to get done with regards to our trip. We booked our shore excursions and we applied for passports. My passport didn't actually expire until next year, but with getting married, I needed to get it updated. Steve has never needed a passport, so he had to get a brand new one. We finally were able to get into the post office (by appointment only) and get everything turned in. I'm actually quite pleased with my passport picture. I figure that anything now would be tons better than my old one! I'm also really pleased about the shore excursions we have picked out. I really didn't want to sit in a tour bus/truck/train for hours on end to look at pretty scenery. That's all okay for a bit but gets old quickly. We're going to go on a zip line over a forest, go to a salmon bake, tour a salmon hatchery, river raft, and a couple other things I can't recall at the moment. It's a good mix of active and not-so-active. I'm really excited.

Journaling. Fell apart this month. I'm totally out of the habit. It's sad because there were a lot of things that I would have liked to record, silly things that don't mean a lot but that I'd like to remember. Like the time I was so tired and jokingly asked Steve to carry me into the bedroom. He picked me up and carried me all over the downstairs turning off lights, shutting blinds, locking doors before finally depositing me on the bed. It was so silly and fun and I was laughing the entire time. It's moments like this that I want to capture and that don't get captured if I don't write daily or close to it. So, I'm recommitting to this goal. Now that I'm not in school and not working, I may try switching the time I write to the mornings instead of at night. We'll see what works.


Exercise. I'm bummed that I didn't meet my goal of exercising 100 miles in April; however, I know I still exercised every day, sometimes twice a day or more, so it's not as bad as it could be. Seriously, having a dog and not having a yard is good for my health! That's why my mileage is down - I walked most of the month and only rode my bike a couple times. It was either too chilly to ride my outside bike or I ended up going for the evening stroll with Steve and Sadie instead of riding my inside bike. No matter, I know I got in a lot of exercise, so I'm okay. This month, I'm going to get back into a routine of riding my bike every morning. The past two weeks have been crazy (plumber, painting, etc) but starting tomorrow I'm going to ride my bike every week day. That should really help out my mileage numbers. AND I really enjoy it.

April exercise totals: 1775 minutes (29.5 hours), 82.5 miles - mostly walking

Second dog. Isn't going to happen. In a way, I'm disappointed because I was really excited about getting another greyhound. However, I'm very proud of myself for recognizing that I couldn't do it and accepting it instead of feeling guilty and doing it anyway. And being miserable. It was hard for me to admit that I wasn't happy with a second dog (it totally wasn't the dog, it was me), but now we know that two big dogs isn't a good idea for us. Other people do it easily, not me. And you know what? I'm okay with that. I'm really enjoying having Sadie and that's good enough.


Summer To-Do List. Since I'm not in school and not working, I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish this summer. In April, I accomplished three things - I planted a garden (with Steve), put together a puzzle, and painted the sitting room. Technically, I didn't finish painting until today, but I started on April 30th, so I'm counting it for both months. :) Some of the items are really easy, quick things and others may take more time, but all of them are things I've wanted to do for a long time so am happy to have some time to work on them.

Other. We took a trip to Cedar City for Easter and had a great time seeing my family. Wish Jason would have been able to be there, though. I finally managed to hook up with my cousin, Cassie, and heard all about her trip to Peru. It's always fun to hang out with her. And, I heard wonderful news about one of my best friends getting engaged! I'm so excited for her!

The highlight of the month was my one-year anniversary of being married to my wonderful husband, Steve. In a way, I can't believe we've been married for a whole year. In a way, I can't believe that I haven't been married to him all my life. He's my best friend.

Yep. It was a good month. I love this time of year.

Hope everyone has a wonderful May!!