This is 39 (Month 1, Check-In 2)

Keeping myself accountable to my goals is so incredibly helpful in ensuring I accomplish them. I know that's a totally Captain Obvious statement. But for me, the goal setting and reporting back on them is making a huge difference.

For example, yesterday morning, knowing that I had two days left to accomplish some of my monthly goals, I found myself at a 7:00 a.m. yoga class and by 10:00 a.m., I was volunteering to help set up Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless. If these things were not on my This Is 39 goal list, I would not have done it.

The yoga class went well. (I mean apart from that moment at 7:02 a.m. when my alarm went off. Nothing like a dog barking alarm ringtone to disrupt the freaking energy in the room!) I can't remember the last time I attended one in person, but with one month left on my Equinox membership, I knew I'd be going there. I did things in that yoga class I'd never done before. And while there were some things I couldn't do perfectly, just the act of showing up and participating certainly made me feel better. I love yoga, but it's not something I make the time for often. So adding it to my monthly goal list is my way of hoping I start to incorporate it into my life more regularly. I know it'll make a difference in my overall well-being.

While some of my volunteering needs to be politically minded (I'm still getting used to the fact that politics is something I care about since I went the first 38 years without putting any energy towards it), I knew Thanksgiving would give me the perfect opportunity to give back and chose to do it with Westside Thanksgiving. I've wanted to do this for years, but of course never got around to it. I was there for a couple of hours and what made it even better was that I got to do it with my friend Carrie and her two children. I loved sharing the experience with them and we're already looking forward to ways in which we can volunteer together again in the future. While it was a little disorganized and included a little too much standing around for my liking, it felt really good to give back and help set-up the space for Thanksgiving dinner.

Another goal I crossed off my list since my first update of the month is my monthly hike. Before my final event of the year in San Diego and with my friend Tara and the wombmate, we went for a hike on another gorgeous Southern California day. While it wasn't a new hike, it was just what we needed. And, we almost died! Not really, but we did come across a freaking rattlesnake! Katie heard the suspicious noise and smartly took off, while Tara and I looked down only to see the thing slithering away. Needless to say, we picked up the pace and were Freaked Out!

One goal I want to call special attention to is my effort in organizing and backing-up my photos. I started out with over 22,000 in my iPhoto library. It's the blessing and the curse of having an iPhone which so easily captures all the moments of your life- even the ones you'll never go back and look at. My insanely large photo library is also the result of my seven months and eleven days of documenting the life of Clancy and four trips to Ireland. I've set aside a bit of time and a critical eye and am happy to say that my iPhoto library currently sits at 9,681 photos. This means I've deleted over 12,000 photos so far! I will be very happy once I have this beast under control and now that I've gone through so many photos, I absolutely know this is in sight!

While I already talked about my eye cream goal during my previous blog post, I have to give a shoutout to my friend Wags who brought me back some eye cream from Korea! While I have some eye cream already, I'm finding myself gravitate towards places like Sephora and Ulta to see what other products are out there to minimize the signs of aging and wrinkles (who am I?) so this was an incredibly sweet and thoughtful gift from Wags.

There's nothing else I need to call special attention to as far as my goals go. I'm tracking it on my tracker and absolutely have a good handle on what I've set out to do. I'm still enjoying the focus and the ways in which I'm stepping out of my routine and comfort zone. And I can't wait to see what I get up to in month two!

Thanks for following along.

xom