Hope for your financial life and beyond

Labor Day Edition – Celebrate Yourself (Plus An August Goals Update)

Labor DayI’ve never quite understood Labor Day as a child. All I really cared about was that we received a day off from school. But what were we supposed to do on that day – more labor? Why do we need a day specifically telling us to work? What are we doing the other 364 days of the year? Resting?

The U.S. Department of Labor states that Labor Day “is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.” The first Labor Days were marked by parades, speeches by prominent leaders and community festivals to entertain workers and their families. Many of those activities have disappeared as the holiday has evolved over the years.

In fact, I can’t remember ever having been to a large scale Labor Day activity. Maybe a small family event at some point. Most of my Labor Days have been spent doing work around the house (which I will be doing today – final summer trim on the bushes and a pressure washing of the front porch).

So as you enjoy the holiday, don’t forget to pay tribute “to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.”

In other words – celebrate yourself today.

Quote source: U.S. Dept. of Labor

August Goals Update:

 

Goal #1: Read through the entire New Testament of the Bible and the book of Proverbs by May 31st. Finished.

New Goal #1A (for the second half of 2013): Read one book a month.

Fail. I started my next book, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. However, with the beginning of school, I saw a decrease in amount of free time for reading. Any time I did have went into writing for Luke1428 and staying connected as much as possible to in the blog world. I love to read, so I have to reexamine my activities to allow time for this.

Goal #2: Pay off our mortgage debt by the end of the year. Postponed. You can read about why here.

Goal #3: To support Mrs. Luke1428 as she obtains her CPA license and MBA by December, 2013

CPA license has been achieved! You can read about our cool celebration here.

She is several weeks into her LAST TWO CLASSES to finish the MBA portion of this goal. We can really see the finish line at this point and it’s becoming exciting.

Goal #4: To run a half-marathon in under 2 hours, a full marathon in under 4 hours and run 1,000 miles for the year. I finished part one of this goal on March 17th with a time of 1:46 minutes.

I competed in the Area 13.1 half-marathon in Roswell, GA this past month as part of my training regiment for the October marathon in Baltimore. I finished the half in 1:52 minutes, which was 10 minutes faster than my time last year at the same race.

My run totals for August were down, only accumulating 103 miles. I had to take a week off to allow a nagging foot injury I had been running through to heal a bit. I also cut my runs back to four a week instead of five to allow for some extra rest days. The good news is that I’m not missing the long runs, which are necessary to stretch your body out so it can run the 26.2-mile marathon length.

I did get September off to a great start yesterday with a 17 mile morning run.

For the year I have run a total of 678 miles. As long as my body holds up I think 1,000 miles is definitely in reach.

Goal #5: Redo the Luke1428 blog design by August, 2013. Finished.

New Goals #5A (for blog in the second half of 2013):

Lower my Alexa ranking below 150,000. Finished. That didn’t take long. I currently am at 114,000.

Guest post at least once per month. Fail. I had a hard enough time writing for myself with the beginning of school. That, coupled with the tragic events that occurred at our school which many of you have read about and shared, made it difficult to get any extra writing done.

Submit an article to a carnival twice a month. Completed. Kicking myself for not doing this sooner.

Comment on a Yakezie article or in the forums once a week. Partially completed. I may have missed this past week but was consistent until then.

Goal #6: Join a local running club by March. Finished.

Finally, here are some of the funny search terms that have led people to Luke1428 in the past 30 days:

“teen toes” – they have them, I’ve checked

“the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the juice” – ?

“how to handle large money” – “Your gonna need a bigger boat”…uh, I mean wallet

“toilet overflows from second floor to downstairs kitchen” – that’s a crappy situation

“can’t slam dunk anymore” – be glad you once could

“who got rich this week” – the lawyers who brokered the NFL concussion settlement

“God made men visually oriented” – I can see that

Get some rest today. Play with your kids. Relax with friends. Enjoy the holiday!

What are your plans for today?

Image at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Comments

  1. Great job on your goals! I’ve just recently started submitting my articles to carnivals, they’re great! Hope you had a great weekend!

  2. Alexa Mason says

    I tried to read Outliers once but for some reason I just never got into it. I’ve read a lot of great reviews on it and it was interesting just no as good as what I thought it would be. Congrats on all of your goals! I really need to work reading the Bible into my goals somewhere.

    • I’m really curious about what makes the elite elite. From what I’ve read so far, it seems like there are very quantifiable and practical reasons why they are the best in their field.

  3. Kim@Eyesonthedollar says

    Congrats on the goals. We took a camping trip for part of the weekend and I spent yesterday at the pool with a couple of 6 year olds. It went great until my daughter’s friend got stung by a wasp. That’s a great way to ruin a playdate!

    • Ouch…that can be scary, especially if they are allergic. My son once got stung in the mouth at a baseball game and that was really tense for a bit. Fortunately we had paramedics there watching over him for about 30 minutes.

  4. Amazing job with your goals Brian! Oh, just a 17 mile run to start off my day…no big thang! 🙂 I have yet to take part in a blog carnival. I’d be curious as to how it’s helped you out or what you got from it? For some reason that part of blogging just totally slips my mind.

    • Honestly, I’m at the point now where I just want the training to be over. But I have two more 20 mile training runs in front of me in the next couple of weeks to stretch my distance out some more. The blog carnival thing is interesting. I’m going to write another blogging tips post soon and will talk about that. It seems like a great way to build up links to your site by getting mentioned on other blogs. I only started a couple of weeks ago and have seen some referring views coming from those carnivals.

  5. We had a pretty good time for this Labor day with a long weekend. We spent good time with our family and relaxed a bit. Our kids enjoyed a lot this time

  6. Guest posting is something that gets put very low on my priority list. I did do one in August, but I have only done two or three since starting my site. I think focusing content on your own site is a better approach.

  7. Impressive running stats! Re the book do you try to have a book on you at all times? I find that you often have idle slots of 10 minutes here and there and having the book handy can help you make your goal. Let me know if you would like to guest post 🙂 I am traveling for the next couple of months so looking for guest posters!

  8. In my home town they have 1 big event each year, and it’s a Labor Day parade. The whole town shuts down and it feels like a public carnival. It’s a great way to spend Labor Day with the kids!

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