Goals 2020 -- August Recap

It probably goes without saying -- since I haven't blogged much this month and blogging was one of my goals -- that August was a total bust in terms of goals.

The biggest issue, in my opinion, is work.  I have been super busy and stressed out about it, and it basically ruined my month.

The other factor, in my opinion, is that I need to reconfigure my schedule.  When I first started working from home, I was pretty good about shutting myself in the office during working hours, and focusing my out-of-office hours on the projects that I wanted to accomplish.  Over time, the boundary has been blurred, leading to (in my opinion) less productivity in both arenas.

So, if it's okay with everyone, I will just take a mulligan for August and carry on with my same goals in September.

St. Louis Railway Routes

Can you believe St. Louis used to look like this?

Movies -- A Recap -- Part VII

S and I have continued our quarantine movie viewing, watching far more than we probably should:

The Night Clerk is an odd little movie, about a young autistic man who works as an overnight clerk at a hotel.  In an effort to improve his interpersonal skills, he sets up cameras in some of the hotel rooms so he can study people's behavior.  When he witnesses a murder, things go awry.

Baby Mama is probably exactly what you might expect from a Tina Fey and Amy Poehler movie.  It's cute, and a little bit funny, at least enough to keep me entertained for 90 minutes or so.

Da 5 Bloods had potential, and some great scenes, but in my opinion it was just way too overdone.  Sometimes I just don't appreciate being beaten over the head with the point.  It was just a bit too much.

Pretty much the opposite of Da 5 Bloods was Nobody Knows I'm Here.  It's slow and quiet.  Remember Hurley from Lost?  Yeah, I forgot about him too.  But he's the nearly-silent star of Nobody Knows I'm Here, a film about a reclusive child star who was scarred by his early life experiences.  It's sweet, but not quite as sweet as the Netflix synopsis makes it sound.

I was surprised by how moving Beautiful Boy was.  I didn't expect Steve Carell to be able to carry the emotional weight of such of heavy story, but I was pleasantly surprised (once I got over the trauma from the film) by how well he pulled it off.  And I love Maura Tierney in just about anything.  It was an all-around winner, if movies about upper-middle-class addiction are your thing.  (I didn't read either book -- if anyone did, I'd be interested in comments!)

One weekend, we dedicated ourselves to watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy -- yes, the extended version.  It actually took us until Monday night to get through the end of the Return of the King, but if you can spare the time, watching them back to back is a wonderfully immersive experience.

Goals 2020 -- August Edition

I am carrying over two goals from last month: the budget and the cell phone.

In addition to those, I will:

1. Begin following said budget.
2. Address two areas of my garden which need addressing -- sowing wildflower seeds, and replanting my pumpkin vine, which I started in a pot but needs a bigger home now.
3. Blog.
4. Finish my second reading of The Great Gatsby.

How do these fit in with my goal of Clearing My Mind, Simplifying My Life? Same as last month (and I guess, at heart, almost every month so far this year).  These are just things that I want to get done, and they weigh on my mind if I don't do them.