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Whew! That last challenge was a real doozy, but I made it! I am now officially graduated from my MA program 🥳 and just got back into town late last night (the ceremony was several states away from home since it was an online program). It's the last two-ish weeks of the classes I teach and my doctor cleared me to do gentle workouts (with a few "extra" restrictions since we're getting ready to do IVF). I'm finally over that mountain I've been slowly climbing for a long time now - in the case of the MA, 3 years! - and have found myself wondering...what now? What do I do with all this time I've suddenly "found"? What goes in those sections of my daily journal entry anymore? What happens next after the big goal has been achieved? This is something I've often found myself struggling with after big events like this, so I'm not wildly surprised. Still, there is a little bit to finish off here but I've found the best way for me to move forward when I feel like this is to relax a little bit but think up some new goals to set or I end up becoming one of those people who putter around doing nothing and then wonder how in the world they wasted an entire day/week/month/summer, so it's time to start dreaming up the next steps! Quest One: Fitness Okay so here are the rules according to my doctors: 1) start very slow and add time/frequency only if my body is responding well 2) walking or light jogging is okay except during egg retrieval week - no sprints or hard pacing (I believe walking is okay during egg retrieval week but not jogging, I will double check that) 3) No quick changes of body position, especially twisting - slow changes are okay as long as I don't feel any pain 4) Yoga is okay, but no inversion stuff (which could be a challenge, but I hate downward dog anyway so at least there's that?) 5) Be careful of my heart rate - try to keep it under 160, but it's running fast right now anyway, so I have to be extra cautious here 6) Try my best not to work out for more than 30 minutes at a time So with all of that said, my goal is to start with workouts 1x a week that are less than 30 minutes. I'm going to focus on walking and careful yoga with some light jogging - think like C25K but an extra slow, short version. Quest Two: Nutrition I'm still trying to gain weight, as well as improve my nutrient stores in preparation for pregnancy. I got this app called Sidekick that has a bunch of recipe "packs" that are supposed to allow for variety in healthy meals while minimizing food waste. My goal is going to be to cook recipes, probably from this app, 1x or 2x a week that still focus on protein while also including foods (mainly produce) I don't usually eat. This might be a single ingredient or a whole bunch, but the idea is that I get a wider variety of nutrients if I eat a wider variety of foods. Also I love to cook but haven't had time or energy during the last year or so of grad school crunch, so this is a way to get me back into a hobby I enjoy while also meeting a health goal! My weigh-in this morning was at 131.8 but I'm pretty sure that's only because I spent the last 5 days eating mostly takeout and sitting on my butt driving for hours on end. Quest Three: School Well, just because I graduated doesn't mean I'm done! I have the school that I teach in, but I also already have my eye on the next graduate program I want to do - my MA in Romance Languages (which will end up being dual degrees in Spanish and French). I promised my husband I'd take at least a year off before applying to the new program, but some prep in the meanwhile will help me a LOT once I get in! Goals for work: 1) send in dual-credit form to get that process started (I'm trying to get a local university to offer dual credit to my advanced students) 2) finish French 1, Unit 7 curriculum so that's prepped and ready to go in August 3) make the list of realia for my co-worker's son to try to gather for my French classes during his short trip to Paris this summer Goals for the second grad program: 1) find and read a French or Spanish chapter book - I own several of these, I just have to find them and pick one Quest Four: Personal Because if I don't make it a quest, I will get too obsessed with work or random social media nonsense to take up all my time. Either way, goals for my home and family tend to get pushed off, so this is the perfect time to bring them closer to the forefront! Goals: 1) work on my son's quilt - finish through row 15 (I'm currently barely beginning row 12) 2) reach out to a realtor so we can start looking at houses in the neighborhoods we want to move to sometime in the next two years 3) declutter the master bedroom/closet partly for home showing purposes but also because it's a mess. This includes my closet, the floor in front of the closet, the overflowing hamper (which will require a good amount of laundry!), the top of the chest at the foot of our bed (though I can start putting things into said chest, as it's currently empty), and weirdly enough the lamp next to my closet, which has some shelves built into it which tend to collect random hats, scarves, etc. This is not nearly enough to make the house ready to show, but it's a good start especially because I would love to paint our bedroom in June!