I charged through a clean out of my space this week and it spiraled me into reflection: why do I have so many things I haven't used or read yet, and is it a pain point for why I feel so stressed out? Is that why I feel like I can't relax? How did I fall so far behind on the things I enjoy? Why don't I make time for them anymore?

More importantly: If I did make time for them, and I could catch up on my hobbies, what positive repercussions would that have on my daily life? Would I be able to relax without the constant pressure of needing to do something? Would my money management be better because I would only be purchasing things I would be using in that moment and not things that I anticipate needing or wanting that are going to sit for months?

What would happen if I dedicated the next six months of this challenge to catching up?

One of my goals is to scrapbook every year of my life starting with when I turned 30, and I'm going to be 33 in October and haven't finished my 30th scrapbook yet. My goal is to be caught up by my birthday in October, so I can go into my 33rd year ready to scrapbook while things happen. This is going to help me declutter some crafting supplies, shop smarter when it comes to scrapbook materials, and not constantly feel like I should be spending my downtime doing something, offering the realistic chance to relax.

Planning this out, it's one scrapbook each month: my 30th in July, my 31st in August, and my 32nd in September. I have a plan for a few larger scrapbooks, also: one for before I turned 30, one for concerts I have been to, one for my trip to France in high school that I have a billion pictures from, and potentially a fourth just for travel prior to turning 30. If we add those in once I catch up on my annual books and I can do one each month through January, I can still finish them by the time this challenge is up on January 19th, 2027.

Aside from scrapbooking, my personal TBR is out of hand: I have 52 books that I have purchased and have not read yet. It feels like a bit of a money pit where I am buying books and letting them sit, and I want to be more intentional with what I buy for my bookshelf. I've created a StoryGraph challenge for myself where I read through my TBR.

I have logged all of my books and as I physically read them, I am moving them from the shelf in my bedroom to an exterior shelf and stamping them with a cute embosser my mom bought me for my birthday one year. It helps physically clear my shelf off while digitally tracking it to keep myself on track. 

My goal is to have my TBR read through by the end of this year via audiobook, physical book, and digital copies.

This has also caused me to really look at my personal library and decipher what I want to read and what I bought because I felt I needed to read it. Do I actually want to read the Wicked novel? Or did I buy it in the midst of the phenomenon to cite the source material? (Which I totally missed anyways!)

This year of changing my life is all about me: self-discovery, enjoyment, and calming the inflammation on issues that stress me out. We'll talk more about what I am learning and progress I've made next week in my halfway post, but "catching up" felt like such a mental breakthrough and I'm looking forward to the next six months. <3