Monthly Check-In: March 2013

enjoying the 65F weather at the park

Looking back at it, this month was crazy! We had Keith's family visit, Keith's birthday, my mom visit, and my mom's birthday. I decided that graduate school wasn't the path for me to take in this journey called life. Since realizing how easy it is to fix your clothes (by patching some denim holes) I've been going crazy with the sewing machine! Keith has been watching a lot of March Madness, so I've taken that time to fix up pieces in my wardrobe that needs some love; yesterday I took in the sides of a boxy sweater. Really, if there's a theme for the last two weeks, it would be "working with my hands" because, in addition to sewing, I've pulled out my bottle cutter and have been working and brainstorming projects left and right. I definitely have a bit of spring fever as the temps reached 65F (!!!!) on Saturday; I'm yearning to get some plants for our apartment. I'm still job-hunting, but I'm also brainstorming some creative ways to put my dollars in my bank account (super secret creative endeavor).

Here's the goals that I set for myself this month (read last month's check-in in full here): 

• An apartment project: I'd like to sew either the table cloths for the coffee tables or the seat cushions
• Take more pictures!
• Try a new restaurant in Hoboken
• Visit the Ground Zero memorial, which is also on my East Coast Dream List
• Exercise twice a week 
• Edited to add: stick to my budget! 

Overall, I was pretty successful at sticking to my goals this month. We tried several new restaurants, mostly because our families were here. We found a great (Syracuse!) bar with killer wraps, a thai restaurant with great red curry (my favorite), and finally checked out the deli down the street (and ended up with great fresh salami). With Keith's family, we visited the Ground Zero memorial, which was more emotional than I expected it to be. I stuck to my budget in every area except shopping... my ultimate weakness! I'll be writing a longer post this week about how budgeting has been going. I definitely took more pictures this month. I managed to exercise twice a week for two weeks.... and then didn't. I also didn't do an apartment sewing project this week. The only love our apartment got this month was a little furniture rearrange. We're buying curtains in increments (budgeting my spending!) and we're about halfway there, so those should (finally) get put up this month.

Seriously, very into bottle cutting lately.

All of that said, here's my goals for April 2013:

• get those curtains up (I'm serious this time!) and tablecloths for the coffee tables.
• keep working on my super secret creative endeavor
• continue sewing and making over my clothes. I really hope that by making ill-fitting items already in my wardrobe better that it will help decrease my shopping habit.
• work out twice a week
• visit the High Line park in NYC
• stick to my budget, 100%
• get a haircut, because I've really been putting that off for too long.

Okay, since it's April 1st, I have to ask: did anyone play a prank this year? I told Keith that I would make pasta with tomato sauce, then spike it with a ton of Siracha as a prank. Luckily he's safe because I hate surprises and wasting food.