August 2016: Goal Update

August was a great month, too! Loving this summer; really looking forward to autumn, though.

• Work toward Rule 4 (Age Your Money) as the final Rule to embrace.
• Age of Money=moved to averaging around 4-5 days. Even made it up to 6/7 days for a bit again! I have been working toward embracing my true expenses and that has been challenging. Just trying to keep moving forward and not backsliding! 
• Do a daily devotional 
• Completed daily!
• Exercise 2 x per week minimum
• Met this goal again! Exercising pretty much 4-5 times per week and averaged 9,033 steps per day for August. Still on track to get to a million steps by mid-September and earn a day off :)  Lots of swimming, water aerobics and some walking (maybe a little bit of running, too). Trying to make sure I have a plan for when it gets cold so I can maintain this pace. 
• Read for pleasure: Average one book per month
• This month, I read Waking the Dead by John Eldridge. It was an interesting read. I particularly like the comparisons to literature and film characters. This month, I'm not sure what I'll read. I just got notification that Modern Romance is available to check out from the library, so that might be the winner. I'm on pace to read two books per month, so I might just have to read two >.<
• Go on a date with Jason: At least one time per month
• Had a really fun date day--picked out a new matress that is king sized (our queen was my bed when I was still in college and had been taken apart and put back together so many times, I'm not sure how it was still standing!) and had dinner at Qdoba and then went home and watched a movie. It was really good to spend a few hours just the two of us. This coming month is our tenth anniversary, so we will definitely have a date night to celebrate!
• Have a "no screen" weekend
• Still feel the strong need for this, but have not made any progress. 
• Clean and organize basement:Toy room and storage room
• This one is complete :) We created some chore charts and have been sticking to them for four weeks now! Have some charts ready for back to school as well to make sure that things don't get lost in the shuffle. 
• Travel somewhere in Northern Michigan
• Goal complete. In October I'll be travelling up to Gaylord for work as well as travelling to Northern Wisconsin (pretty much the same as Northern Michigan, right??). 
• Travel to Denver, Indiana and Washington, D.C.
• This one is officially complete. Adding New Orleans (NEVER BEEN!!!) in September. 
• Try out 12 new dinner recipes
• Tried four new recipes this month, they were all really yummy:
• Mac & Cheese
• Chicken Fettucine Alfredo
• Chicken Parmesean
• Sweet & Sour Chicken
• Also made pancakes from scratch!
• Try out 12 new dessert/cookie recipes
• This month, I made:
• Six-layer bars
• Do not use credit or obtain any additional debt
• So, about that...

Thanks for reading and keeping me accountable to my goals! Can't believe we already have eight months down this year!