August Goals Wrap Up And September

Well it's September. Which means we have been sheltering in place for 5 and half months with no end in slight. In August my kid started transitional kindergarten. Our whole school district is remote, and that's pretty difficult for small children. So its been a bit of rough transition. Also the the Bay Area has been full of smoke for half the month and I really hate it. So I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted and I've been variously stressed out and or depressed all month.

1) Finish top for me
I don't fully understand why sewing for myself stresses me out so much but it does -- I ended up shelving this project mid-month to focus of quilts which are much less stressful

2)Do one of: Sew blocks into quilt top, or quilt finished quilt top with dragons
I sewed the quilt top! The air has been full of icky smoke so I haven't taken proper pictures -- put I will try and do so soon and post a link here.

3)Finish draft of the fic
I did it! The structure stuff was giving me a lot of trouble (its an epistolary fic with letters between four people) but I think it worked ok in the end. The whole thing is about 20K! I even have title for it Can't Stop Thinking of That Far Road

4)Read Five Online SFF shorts
Completed

5) Write two posts talking about what I've been observing in the built and natural environment around me
A Walk in Muir Woods
These Times
(I've started tagging these posts observations -- but I hope to come up with better name for this series)

6) Write two letters to state or local officials
This maybe technically counts -- I used a online form to contact both of my senators. That counts as a lest one letter anyways. Big thanks to solo for helping me with this!

Well 4.5 out of six isn't terrible. Onward to September!

1)Finish Editing Can't Stop Thinking of That Far Road
This is bit tricky since it it depends on getting beta comments from other people who all have lots going on. But still I'd really like to get it out in to the world finally.

2)Read Five Online SFF shorts
This has been working so I'm keeping it.

3) Write two posts talking about what I've been observing in the built and natural environment around me
This has also been working, and I have enjoyed writing these posts a lot, so keeping this going too.

4)Write one critical essay
It's been a while since I wrote a longer critical piece and now that I've finished a draft of my fic I would really like to try getting back to it

5) Write a letter to state or local officials (Two for a stretch goal)
Well much as feel like failure for not being able to do as little as write two letters a month, I've got to admit that evidence is that I can only write one. So I'm scaling back this goal for September.

6) Do some of a)work on that top for me, b)start sewing some long shelve shirts for the kid for winter or c) baste the magic parade/dragon quilt.
It would maybe be better to have more specif goals but this is what I've got at the moment.

7)Do something to observe the High Holly Days
I'm not as observant a Jew as I want to be, but I try to a lest do something for the major holidays. This might be something not very devout, but I hope to at least bake some bread.

Hope you all had less stressful Augusts than I did! I hope things are more relaxed this month for all of us.