On January 1st, I posted my list of resolutions for 2020 here. Time for my mid-year update.

As everyone already knows, this has been the strangest year EVER. When COVID first hit, I thought I would have to throw all of my resolutions out of the window [and I did for most of them], but as time has gone on, I’ve realized that some may require some tweaking and some may have to be postponed until next year, others I can still accomplish.

I love going back to review my goals and check my progress. It is a review of all the dreams I had for this year and a reminder to keep working toward them, even if there is a world-wide pandemic trying to derail them.

[And its fun along the way to provide a bunch of motivational quotes!]

New Skill: learn Spanish Estudio Espanol de Duolingo todos los dias. I study Spanish on Duolingo every day. I currently have a 170 [ciento setenta] day streak going, which I fully intend to continue [seguir] until I complete the entire Spanish course [curso de espanol]. Despite being a free app and probably not as rigorous as other options, yo aprendi mucho espanol de seis meses de duolingo.

Health: run a marathon, swim regularly, improve flexibility

• Marathon: I won’t be running a marathon since all races are on hold indefinitely [I could do a virtual run, but they are not very motivating for me] but I am still running regularly and building up my miles.
• Swimming: I couldn’t swim since my gym [and all public pools] have been closed. Hopefully they will reopen and I can swim again. This is definitely something to work on in the second half of the year.
• Flexibility: On the bright side, I’ve been able to do a lot more yoga and stretching and my flexibility has already improved.

Personal: go back to school for nursing, pursue kidney donation, volunteer regularly Check, Check, and check. Well, sorta.

• Nursing school: I have applied to my community college in order to get started on my pre-requisites for a nursing program. I don’t know how I will pay for it, but I am confident that it will all work out. We have a commitment to give 50% of our extra money away, so going back to school is last on our priority list, but I should be able to at least take a class or two each semester.
• Kidney donation: In February, I submitted my living kidney donor health questionnaire and was “pre-approved,” but now I am waiting on some issues with the recipient. Now that transplants are once again happening, I hope that I will hear from them soon.
• Volunteering: I have [finally] signed up to volunteer at the local food bank once a week for the month of July. So long as I am able, I hope to continue volunteering and maybe even adding an additional volunteer position with an organization that supports underprivileged kids.

Blog: improve blog design and function, organize and categorize posts I am still working on this. I am not blog-savvy so this is tough for me to sit and dedicate my time to, but I do have a redesign in mind, including a logo that I created myself. I will try to get this done in the second half of the year.

Family: establish family mealtime routine and guidelines, take international trip with Brett Well, the international trip is definitely out, but all this extra family time has allowed us to create a simple and functional mealtime routine AND begin teaching our kids mealtime manners. I was planning to write about this area of simplifying this past month, but I felt the urgent need to address the racism issues I wrote about.

Minimalism: minimalist game in January, remove 30 unused items per month, log all [non-consumable] purchases Check, check, and check. I am still logging purchases and removing stuff from my home. Next week I will post my June Shopping Audit.

Environmentalism: buy milk in glass, switch to safety razor, wooden dish brushes, straw broom We have been buying milk in glass bottles [other than a brief COVID freakout/stock-up] this year and – SURPRISE! – we haven’t gone broke. I haven’t switched to safety razors, wooden dish brushes, or a straw broom yet because what we have right now still functions perfectly and I don’t think I will continue to use what we have until it needs to be replace and then I will choose a more environmentally friendly option.

Humanitarianism: donate more money this year, sponsor another child, commission quilts for donation We have definitely donated more money this year – mostly because we gave away half of our government relief check and half of my unemployment checks. We also began sponsoring a third child [I plan to write about child sponsorship in the future] and doubled our monthly donation to the organization Charity:Water. In past years, we have purchased quilts from a friend of mine to donate to the organization Quilts Beyond Borders, however, this year she has struggled with health problems and so we made a monetary donation instead.

And that’s it! Not too bad!

Looking forward to a productive [and less crazy] second half of the year!

🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

Karis