I’ve discovered more local fruit that I can forage! It’s raspberry season now and there are a lot of plums that are ripe. I believe that I have a mini plum tree in my own front yard! I also know of a location of a very productive plum tree and they are almost perfectly ripe! My housemate has a dehydrator that I played around with to dry out pineapple, apple, banana, orange, raspberry, and plum, as well as make some fruit leather. I can’t wait for the apples and pears to ripen so I can dry out a whole batch of them. I wonder how long they will last in my jars? Is there something I can do to make them last longer? I’ve also found some already ripened blackberries and have frozen a bunch and juiced some more. I’ve been making my own blackberry vinaigrette with them. The juice I made was a complete mess, but the juice is thick and delicious! If I can juice the blackberries in a larger volume and de-seed it, I can freeze it to use later in the year. Maybe I’ll make blackberry ice cubes?

I’m uncertain, but are these golden raspberries?

Do you have any other ideas I should consider to reduce my waste?

My goals this month were to bike at least 25 miles, take 4 dance classes, and do 4 strength training workouts. I met all three of these goals!

I went to exactly 5 pole classes, biked a total of 50.3 miles, and did 4 strength training sessions. Go me!

My goal in August is to follow the Blogilates Glutes challenge. I also want to throw in the abs challenge again.

Turkish language progress:

I now have 1,274 Anki cards. I’ve done 5,898 reviews. I have spent 6:07:28 reviewing with an average of 56 reviews per day. My grade is 72% C. I stopped adding so many new vocabulary words and want to focus on phrase building and grammar. I’m trying to find a course or tutor but it’s difficult as Turkish isn’t taught in all the schools around here. Any recommendations for a language learning program? I downloaded a few more apps to try out, like Mondly. I should be spending more time daily on my language learning but am having trouble figuring out what to study and how to study it without a strict follow-along type course such as my Rosetta Stone lessons. Speaking of Rosetta Stone, I’m now ready to start Unit 9! There are only 12 units in my Rosetta Stone but that seems silly. Shouldn’t there be more? I will have to find out if the course continues beyond what my app has downloaded.

My main goal for the year was to save as much money as possible! I’m doing this by earning more money, spending less money, and investing the money that I do have. Here is my monthly budget spreadsheet:

After watching the millennial money on CNBC and the Graham Stephan Show React videos like this one, I decided to make a chart of my average monthly spending (an aggregate over the last 6 months):

My writing goals!! Sigh. Remember how fired up I was about accomplishing some of my writing goals? Well, I didn’t do a single thing towards accomplishing them in July. I still just don’t want to and I guess my focus really is elsewhere. When I have free time, I’d rather be outside, work out, take a pole class, watch a movie, or read a book. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick it back up in November with NaNoWriMo. I’ll still check in on my writing, but I won’t have high expectations for now.

What are your goals and how are you meeting them this month?

Here is my January goal check in blog post!

Here is my February goal check in blog post!

Here is my March goal check in blog post!

Here is my April goal check in blog post!

Here is my May goal check in blog post!

Here is my June goal check in blog post!

I found a wonderful boxed cinnamon roll mix that was fabulous!

I’ve been making more GF avocado toasts! I just take two plain rice cakes and spread with fresh avocado. I like to top them with a pinch of sea salt and pepper.

This year I finally made it out to the Seattle Street Food festival and had the best corn of my life and the worst donuts (Hot Revolution Donuts) of my life. We also tried out some dumplings from Kathmandu MoMoCha that were good.