I took last week off from work and made a little bit of progress on my decluttering, but there's much more to go.  I'm hoping to do some on weekends over the next month and may hire professional help during July to increase my progress.  But that depends partly on other expenses.  I had an unexpected car repair bill of nearly $1,400 this past week, and I still have another $1,100 of repairs (rear differential bushings) that are required before my car can pass its safety inspection, which is due in October.  I'll take care of it over the summer before I drive any distance.  

I also noted that my portfolio (retirement and taxable investment accounts) at long last hit the million dollar mark this month.  I updated my sidebar, as this has long been a goal.  I'm hoping to get these accounts up to somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 million before I retire.

I'm still struggling with fatigue, but I've only been on the new supplements I started for less than 3 weeks, so I'll give those time to kick in before testing and seeing if there are any improvements.  For the next go-round, I'll order one of those direct-to-consumer panels that allow you to test over 100 biomarkers, including many that are not often included in the annual lab panels ordered by your physician.  There are several such services now:  Function Health, Superpower, Empirical Health, Inside Tracker, Vital Labs, etc.  I haven't decided which I'll use.  

Despite the fatigue, I've managed to pick up the exercise routine.  I signed up for a 5k training program at the beginning of the month.  I find that I often miss the mid-week runs, but I have been managing to run 2-3 miles at a time on the weekends.

Also, I bought a rebounder (mini-trampoline), and this is helping increase my step count a lot.  I had owned one in the past but got rid of it after a friend injured herself on one.  My old one had springs and did not have a handlebar.  The new one has bungees and will have a handlebar.  The handlebar was a separate-order item and was not in stock when I ordered the rebounder, but I've been using a 5-foot piece of PVC pipe so I have something to hang on to for balance if needed in the meantime, and the handlebar should arrive this coming week.  There's evidence that rebounding can help not only with cardiovascular fitness and can increase VO2 max but also is helpful for improving balance, mobility, and even strength.  There are also studies with diabetics and pre-diabetics showing improvement in blood glucose and even a study with children with cystic fibrosis showing benefits for peak expiratory flow. And the best part is that there is a very low barrier to using it.  It's in my living room and it's easy to put on a song and just bounce for a couple of minutes while the coffee is brewing or after dinner, in addition to doing longer sessions.  I don't have to go anywhere or change my clothes, so it's an easy win.  I spent a few hours doing research before choosing one to order and ended up spending a bit more than I'd first planned, but the one I ordered has a lifetime warranty on the frame, 4 years on the bungee cords, and the tension is adjustable, which isn't true of many such devices.

Also while I was on break last week, I reached out to one of my second cousins and learned that he has two sisters, who actually live fairly close (1 hour & 20 minutes, though in different directions) to me.  I grew up with my grandfather, but they didn't grow up with theirs, so it was fun to be able to share a classic family photo, stories, and even films--my grandfather was into photography, so we have videos of his family from 1929 to about 1936 or so. The photo is from about 1906. My grandfather is the youngest child in the photo.

My great-grandfather and great-grandmother were born in what the old census data lists as "Poland, Austria" in 1861 and 1867 respectively.  They had 3 children in the old country (standing in the center) before coming to the US in 1890 (him) and 1893 (her and the 3 children).  They then had six more children--the youngest hadn't yet been born as of this photograph.  I dug around in the census data to figure out who was whom--a bit of a challenge since most of the children ended up changing their names to be more americanized--for example, Rivke became Rebecca.  

Happy May!  I'm hoping we get a nice stretch of spring-like weather where it is warm but not hot.  We've had a smattering of warm days, even a couple of hot ones in April where it hit 90, but the past couple of weeks, it's still been highs in the 50s and 60s for the most part.

Tax season of course is over, but working in financial planning as I do, my work calendar gets busier during tax season but is governed more by the schedules of the two advisors that I do the planning work for.  They don't coordinate with each other (and won't; I've mentioned it at every annual review, but the general answer is that's just how things are--and the annual Financial Advisor Well-Being survey also shows that lack of control over one's own time is the major dissatisfaction for those who hold positions similar to mine.

In any case, the couple of weeks before 4/15 always involve an additional administrative burden of sending K-1s (tax information reporting forms for partnerships) out to clients and their CPAs, and the last two weeks had me preparing for 9 different meetings (6 would be the expected workload for this time frame).  I've had a few nights of working to 9, 10, or even 11 pm, and on weekends have found myself in bed at 6:30 to 7:30, typically for a rest, then awake for a couple of hours to watch something on Netflix or Youtube before falling back asleep.

I did schedule myself for some blood tests last Saturday and found that some of my values are out of whack, in particular, ferritin and vitamin D.  I found some "iron strips" made of cellulose that you put on your tongue to melt, which bypass the digestive system and are reported to help boost levels more quickly.  [Ferritin is the storage version of iron; notably, my hemoglobin levels have been nornal.]  I'm waiting for those to arrive by post.  I'm hoping that supplementing will make me feel less drained.  I took last Friday off and even with a 3-day weekend, I really just managed to get the normal grocery, gas ($54 bucks for a tank despite the 30 cents/ gallon discount--I live a mile from work so I only need to get gas about once a month, so the sticker shock of the war effect hadn't hit until now), laundry, and yardwork done.   The next two weeks are lighter in work load (2 meetings this coming week and 1 so far for the week after that--so it does average out to the expected 3 per week over the long haul).  I'm hoping that that plus adding in some supplements will help me feel more energetic, since right now I don't have the margin to do anything other than the essential.

This leaves me behind on my goals.  The financial goals go along ok (mortgage is down to $17,500, assets (house, car, portfolio) are up to $1.25 million).  I've not been doing a good job of tracking expenses on a daily basis as I had hoped, but using Empower's Personal Wealth (formerly Personal Capital)  does a good job of helping me track after the fact.  I can see that most months, I'm bringing in about $6k in income (net of taxes, health insurance contribution, and retirement savings) and spending about $4.5k, with a big additional bump in non-retirement-plan savings in January, the month that my annual bonus came through.  The "cash stash" money market that I started at the beginning of the year to build up sinking funds and emergency savings hit $10k this week.  So all's well on the financial side.

My health goals I've let go, sort of.  I have managed to do some runs, 1-3 a week, though usually just 1-1.5 miles.  I started a new 5k training program this morning (virtual "race" day is 5/30).  I completed 2.11 miles in the 55 minutes, so hopefully with more consistency in training, I'll get back to being able to do the 3.11 (5k) in that time, which i was able to do at the beginning of the year.  I've giving myself grace on adding in the resistance training until I'm feeling more energetic.

And the decluttering goal has mostly been a no-go so far--I've done a little bit, but nothing with any consistency.  Again, I'm giving myself grace until my blood test levels look more normal, and real progress on this goal was never going to happen during tax season in any case.

My best friend sings in a choir and their spring concert is tonight at 8 pm.  (There was no way I was going to make it last night at 8 pm).  I have a phone call appointment with a friend at 5 and will try to take a nap either before or after in hopes that I can rouse myself enough to make it to the concert.