Virgo Season

I would make a legitimate goals post, but considering the circumstances, it's kind of not worth it lol.

I've just started coming out of a sudden slump that was more frustrating than expected. It wasn't until a couple days ago that I remembered it's Virgo season. I'm always on a high during Leo season, but once August starts to fade away, my mood takes a sharp dip and is very slow to recover. Out of all of my annual mood fluctuations, this one has been the most consistent . . . and somehow, I still forgot after this many years, ha!

Safe to say I'm feeling a lot less frustrated and a whole lot more motivated than I was even a week ago. And do you know what more motivation means??? More time for questionable graphic design!

I had a lesson on Blackjack a couple days ago, which I promise to write about. It gave me a lot more clarity and focus moving forward with him. The last month has been a little on and off for everyone, so his fitness isn't 100% yet. The rain has been more persistent and the heat a little higher this year compared to last year. I'm hopeful that things will start cooling and drying off soon.

There's a chance that I will go to a show. It all depends on how the pandemic continues to unfold and how my finances continue to unfold. I'm going to very, very, very gently dream about jumping around 2'-6" this season. Very gently. Just . . . barely even thinking about it.

There have been discussions amongst my trainer and my co leaser about getting a more apples to apples replacement for Lucie. It's looking like I'll be staying in Florida for more time than initially expected, and that alone piques my interest in leasing something straight off the track. I've kept my eye out for something nice over the past few months. We're in no rush.

Life is interesting right now. At worst, I'm having an incredibly hard time with the Breonna Taylor ruling. It genuinely feels like the world has no place for the humanity of Black women, and that's difficult to process. There's nothing that anyone can really do about that. It's just been an adjustment.

I also don't have the best work/life balance right now. I'm working 24 hours per week in Fort Lauderdale, plus 10 +/- hours per week as a teaching assistant. That's on top of my regular course load, which somehow feels a lot more unsurmountable than previous semesters. And that's including undergrad. I literally have 3.5 hours of free time per week. And that time usually becomes my catch up time for pre-thesis. I'm doing . . . okay in regards to that, but the quality of my work has definitely decreased as a result of limited time. It isn't my healthiest semester, but I'm just getting to the midterm point, and this will all be done before my birthday.

On the bright side, I have found my absolute favorite planner EVER. I refuse to spend more than $10 on a planner and usually have to be scrappy in order to find the cutest and cheapest one possible at Target. Well, they certainly did not disappoint this year.

Look at it. Look at it in all its glory. It came with a bunch of pages of stickers and sticky notes, which I have yet to dig into. I love this thing. It's cute, trendy, hefty (like, super thick cardboard covers), and it has really fun goal setting at the start of every month. Really encourages me to re-evaluate on a regular basis. I love it!

I guess there's no real goals in this category for now besides getting to the end of this semester. And maybe therapy.

Oof.

I never make blog goals.

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. I do make goals for the blog, but I never record them, and as such it is difficult to hold myself accountable. Can't be disappointed in my goals if I never force myself to accomplish them, right?

First goal for the blog is to, uhhh, actually reply to comments. I don't know how much it matters to other people, but I appreciate a response to my comments, therefore I feel I should offer the same. I have slipped recently partially because of the several sad posts about Lucie which were intermixed with op-eds about racism. Trust me when I say that I read and enjoy every comment, and especially on topics where I'm at a loss for words, y'all have always offered a lot of helpful viewpoints.

Speaking of viewpoints, I do have a couple of interviews to conduct in the following months. It's unlikely that anything will be accomplished before the semester is over, but stay tuned!

Okay, there's actually A LOT that has been on my mind about this platform.

• Dig into urban equestrian architecture and design some proposals to make my portfolio look nicer challenge the definition of the barn
• Potentially become a contributor to baib.
• Burn out my curiosity with Wish.com (and Aliexpress by extension) and begin sharing items from more affordable companies
• Get back into fashion! I am literally at my peak in terms of self confidence. It's time to push the envelope. It's also time to get more innovative with my own fashion and find brands/individuals that are doing the same. There are so many ways that we need to move forward as an industry.
• Improve my vlogs, like, by a lot. Somehow the quality of my videos diminished after moving here, despite having a lot more material to work with. I promise to revisit how I put those together so all three viewers can get the most out of their watch time.
• Photograph at horse events. Pandemic really hit me on this one. Florida is still a nightmare when it comes to this disease, but I figure if I can be left in a corner to take my photos then go home untouched, this could work.

Alright, that's all I can think of for now. Let's see how this last quarter goes!