Long time no see, once again! How many times have I started off a blog post exactly like this?? I’ll have to go back and count, because I’m sure it’s a high number. Anyways, here I am, back again, suddenly feeling motivated to write and create just at the turn of the season. I didn’t realize I had left this blog so stagnant this year. My last post was back in March! I actually meant to make a bullet journal post back in May–I made a header image for it and everything, but it never left my drafts, and now I guess it’s rather irrelevant.

Since March, so much has happened and so much has changed! Firstly, I finally left my teaching job last month! I made a video about it back when I made the decision to NOT renew my contract, so I’ll embed it below rather than rehashing everything in this post, though I’d like to make a few posts talking about my teaching experience in the future.

Since quitting, life has been oddly slow and fast at the same time. I have tons of free time and yet I still feel like the days are rushing past me. I talked about this feeling in a few previous blog posts and I thought that leaving my job would help alleviate that tense, hurried panic that sweeps over me when I feel like I haven’t accomplished enough in a day, but now that I’m “free” I’m still very preoccupied with the passage of time. Is this just what it feels like to be aware of one’s own mortality? I am turning 30 this November so the timing for this existential crisis seems about right. One thing that has helped is getting vaccinated. I feel a little less afraid of dying by Covid and a little more willing to go out into the world and socialize (within reason). But making friends at this age in the middle of a pandemic is proving to be much harder than anticipated. I’ll have to keep working on that.

Another big change for me has been dabbling in digital bullet journaling. My past two bullet journal setups on my channel have both been digital, and I’ll be sharing my digital setup for October in the coming week, too.

It’s been really fun to experiment with different layouts, styles, and graphics. The freedom to erase, redo, resize, and redesign anything and everything has been really exciting. But as it always seems to go, I’ve started getting that hankering for pen and paper again. So I’m currently working on setting up a long-term collections bullet journal. This way I can continue to enjoy the flexibility of digital while still using an analog system for organizing my routines, projects, and notes. Once that’s set up to my satisfaction, I’ll definitely be sharing my collections here on this blog and on my YouTube channel. I don’t know if I’ll continue planning digitally (in fact, I’m considering getting a real actual planner for 2022! Who am I??), but I’m glad I have it as an option.

I’ve also been reassessing my goals and my progress for this year. I’m still trying to catch up on all of the goals I slacked off on during the spring and summer (Korean language study, weight-loss, content creation, etc), but I’m not willing to give up on Q4. 3 months is a long time! Especially for an unemployed, childless housewife like me! I’m going to really try to give it my best effort all the way until the new year. Because I just really hate not being able to check off boxes on my to-do list. I’m a completionist at heart. Actually, I might be a completionist by compulsion… In any case, I think I’ll make a separate blog post kind of detailing my goals progress so far and how I plan to continue working on them for the rest of the year, so look out for that soon as well.

One goal that I’m trying to take more seriously is my health and fitness. I even made a video about my health/weight story so be sure to check it out below:

It was difficult to be so honest and vulnerable but I think it was a necessary step. I haven’t made much progress since I posted this video (I might have even gained weight…) but I’m going to try to keep a positive mindset and keep going with this journey. I tend to get easily derailed from my mission, so I added some helpful collections to that new bullet journal I mentioned that will help keep me on track from now on. I think I’ll even do an exercise challenge for the month of October and document my progress as I go.

Overall, I’m really excited for this fall season. I feel like I am finally starting to figure out this new housewife lifestyle, and I’m ready to start being more active on this blog, my YouTube channel, and become a better version of myself as I continue to make progress toward my goals. And of course, I’m excited for all the usual festivities~ the changing of the leaves, decorating for Halloween, watching scary movies, roasting pumpkin seeds, baking bread, drinking lots of apple cider, etc. I have a good feeling about this fall.

Hope you are all doing well! Happy Autumn!