Did you survive April Fool’s Day? Leave a comment below if you got pranked or pranked somebody… Haha I hate this holiday; I don’t know how to prank nor do I like being pranked.

Anyway…

Let’s get into the goals for this month. I have BIG NEWS (and I promise it’s real)…

RUN WITHOUT PUKING UP BLOOD OR A LUNG: To be honest, I can’t even remember if I ran or not this month. I know I ate. A lot. Of bad stuff. I considered putting ‘eat healthy’ as one of my monthly goals but then decided warming up some cookies in the microwave sounded better. Yesterday I also thought Doritos sounded better, so, you know.

Willy and I did go for lots of walks, though!! That counts for something, but it might not help with the whole saving Ashlee from diabetes. Help.

LEARN LOTS THROUGH MORGAN’S NEW E-COURSE: I’m so proud of her because she got an internship in New York City!! Unfortunately, she did have to postpone her course, so that didn’t happen this month. I don’t know when she’ll re-release it, but at least it will happen one of these days!

SPARKLES BY ASHLEE YOUTUBE CHANNEL: I don’t think being a vlogger is my calling haha. I go into little phases where I want to do it, but then I’m like what kind of idea is this. I really need my focus on writing right now instead of trying to do five million different things.

PRINT PHOTOS: Shoot. Thanks to Google Photos, I backed up everything and deleted all of my videos off my phone because it’s not like I can print those. That freed up like three gigabytes! But I still need to print the photos. Thanks Walmart for not letting us do that. Maybe this month you’ll change your mind.

“5 FEARS” PORTION OF FAITH NOTEBOOK: Done! I think it will be a great resource in the future, and now I need to determine what to put in the journal next.

ATTEND ANOTHER HOCKEY GAME: We might be a day late on this. Literally a day. We have tickets, so hopefully we can go soon.

Bad news: There’s not much of hockey left. 🙁

Good news: I hope the Wild win the cup this year!!! We’re looking good right now…the Blackhawks haven’t been able to beat us once this year hahahaha!!!

And somehow this always changes during the Playoffs. Pray it doesn’t this year; they’ve won the cup enough times.

GO SHOPPING: I got a bunch of new tops this year including a new pair of running shoes, which I am very thankful for. Next we need shorts, and then we’re done.

CLEAN THE SHELF: Okay one of these months I will get it done… :’)

BlOG EVERYDAY: Whoops, no. For awhile in the winter I would look at my list of like three blog post ideas and bang my head against a wall because I couldn’t think of anything new to save my life, but now I just stare at my list of 40+ blog post ideas and think how am I going to write all of these…

COMPLETELY FINISH MY BOOK: YES YES YES!!!

People, I FINISHED TOTALLY EDTING my almost 60k word novel! I’m so thankful God helped and pretty anxious and eager for what’s next (keep reading to find out)!

NEW BOOK IDEA: I’m very slow when it comes to recording my ideas. I’ll get there eventually.

April Goals

Cut back on snacks and run when the temperature is above 50.

Last night (minus the two warmed up cookies I had) I didn’t eat much else. I did have peanut butter on a plate. That stuff is really good. I also need to quit being lazy and go out and run when it is above fifty. I had a very bad experience the last time I ran…

Write 10 new blog posts.

I have 41 ideas for blog posts that need to be written. Plus a collaboration post. I am going to have no functional hands and or fingers when I am older.

Short stories.

This goal is totally in your hands. That’s right, YOURS. You get to decide the fate of how these short stories go! I’ve been praying about whether God wants me to share some short stories online or not, and I will continue praying.

However, you can help me with this goal by clicking the pink button below and filling out only TWO questions that are SHORT! Thank you!!

Walmart, PLEASE let me print my photos!

We’re going to try this again. Please pray it works; my phone will probably literally break otherwise. One night it kept freezing up, and all of my apps refused to work until I deleted some pictures. They weren’t very nice about it.

Move my prayer log to the faith notebook.

I am not even halfway done with my prayer log. There are folders upon folders of things I need to pray for, and now I decide I want to write all of the prayers down?!! Yep. It will take me forever, but I’m going to do this. I’ll probably do this in a new notebook, too, because it will take a lot of paper.

Attend one last hockey game before the end of the season.

Tears. This one is pretty much done because we have tickets.

Go short shopping.

I hate short shopping. A) There are shorts that go down way more than I like them to and shorts that make me look like a word I probably shouldn’t say. Finding the balance…is pretty much nonexistent. So we’ll see how this goes. And B) I grow out of them in a year anyway. Oh well, who can pass up shopping? I’m not talking to you, guys.

Do I dare put it on here…

I will maybe possibly hopefully with some sort of miracle clean that shelf this month… Maybe possibly hopefully with some sort of miracle… PRAYERS NEEDED….

Create a “Mission” page for my blog.

I love to procrastinate when it comes to creating blog pages. I really love writing, but it’s super easy to procrastinate. Like, I love creating images and designs. I love designing my blog. What I hate is writing the content. But I love it, too. I know, you’re probably lost. That’s okay. I want to make a page, though, that informs you about #thesparkledjourney along with that journey so far.

Make the official summaries for my finished book.

Oh, did you miss something?!?! For the haters who totally skipped the beginning of my post where I recap last month’s goals, I TOTALLY FINISHED MY BOOK. And I am dead serious when I say I am going to try and publish it. And not self publishing, TRADITIONAL publishing. But first I have to make four different summaries:

1) ONE sentence that sums up the entire book without spoilers. I find this the trickiest, but it’s necessary. It will also save me so much time when people ask, “What is your book about?” Is it just me, or do you hate it when people ask what the book you’re reading is about? I’m just like, here, read the back.

2) A short summary that is only 3-6 sentences at most. That would be if I were to write a paragraph about it.

3) A back cover summary (or the basic 2-3 paragraph summary). Of all of them, I feel like this will be the hardest. It’s pretty easy to get broad and sum up my book in a few sentences. It’s also easy to get narrow and tell you exactly what happens. It’s finding the right balance of both of those that is hard.

4) A summary that tells you everything, like a book report. This would include spoilers. It’s what would go in my query letter.

There’s your lesson on summaries, writers. You’re welcome. Pray for me, non writers. Thank you.

Finish writing my ideas.

Because I’m slooow. But we’ll get there. God is with me, and He has a plan.

If you haven’t already, please like my blog Facebook page with all the blog post updates. You’re going to want to know if I eat healthy or not or if I clean that shelf, right? Oh shut up, I know you want to know that.

What are your goals for April? Leave a comment below!!