As always, let’s start with the numbers …

• Physical Comics Read: 15 (54/89)
• Digital Comics Read: 7 (418/435)
• Trades/Graphic Novels Read: 2 (0/0)
• Books Read: 3 (80/93)
• Movies Watched: 0 (207/209)
• TV Shows Watched: 0 (52/52)
• TV Seasons Watched: 0 (96/96)
• Podcast Episodes to Listen to: 83

The month was busy. In fact, so busy that this weekend is the first “weekend” I have had since before Easter and even then, there’s a list of stuff to do and most of the weekends ahead have something planned. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but there always come a point during the “I’m busy” season where you wind up taking the same sort of “look around” like you do when a hurricane or tornado has come through and you’re assessing damage.

Another side effect of this is falling off of routines and letting a few bad habits creep back in. I swear this is all connected to depression, but I’ll get into that at another time. Just know that the intentions set are still set even if I wasn’t the best at following them this month. Still, in the interest of intention #5 …

Intention #1: Buy Nothing Old. So I totally broke this last weekend when I was visiting my family on Long Island and my sister and brother-in-law took me to High Fidelity Records in Amityville. The place was … overwhelming because of the stacks upon stacks of records. I kept myself to five records, which I guess is restraint. Honestly, the place was laid out like a hoarder’s den and looking for records was basically like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I also came across so much that I could have walked out of there with 20 records (if I was willing to pony up the money).

Intention #2: Set a “Shortbox Limit” for My Comics.  What’s bugging me right now is that I have two brown-paper grocery bags filled with comics and books to get rid of. The books are going to be donated, but the comics are a stickier situation. They’re all fairly new but I’m not really interested in keeping them around anymore and I’m not sure that putting them up on eBay is even going to bring me anything. Some I’m definitely going to see if I can get into the #comicbookcircleoflife. But I feel bad throwing comics into the recycling bin that aren’t beat up and old. Which I do with magazines and catalogues on a regular basis.

Intention #3: Focus on Experiences. I guess if you want to choose an “Experience” for this month, it was visiting VCU, which is where my kid is going to go for college this fall? It’s crazy that I’m at this point when I have such vivid memories of the beginning of college. Birthday season is coming up (seriously … there are six birthdays in my family between mid-June and early August; nine if you count cousins), so that’s going to be come more conscious.

Intention #4: Consciously Reduce.  I shredded a bunch of stuff yesterday and put it into recycling. Then, I literally found out this morning that my recycling people don’t want us to put shredded paper into the recycling. Something to do with the way the fibers are processed? We started shredding stuff years ago because of worries over identity theft, so I’ve been making this mistake for years. Yay.

Intention #5: Keep Myself Honest.  The honesty can be brutal sometimes. I looked at my “stats” for April when it came to spending money, using my credit card, and what I consumed and it was a little alarming how easily I can fall back into doing those things. I need to remind myself that the path to credit card debt wasn’t paved with major purchases; it was small things that added up. I’ve since taken the card out of my wallet again.