…that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it! And really, it’s the truth.

One of those other priorities is my husband’s job. He’s self-employed, and most of what he does is take care of the two apartment buildings we own. DH has always either been self-employed, or worked for small businesses, so has never had a 401k or anything like that. Those apartments are his retirement fund – and what’s currently paying for our daughter’s education. We were paying a real estate agent to do the basic property management for us, but recently decided we’d be better off doing this ourselves. So even though DH’s business has been established for several years, I’ve had to take on a bunch of start-up tasks – things we didn’t need when we had another company doing property management. This includes things like designing and ordering FOR RENT signs and business cards, setting up new forms, designing and placing ads, purchasing a domain name and setting up a quickie one-page website. None of this is difficult for me, as I’m a professional graphic designer, but it all takes time. And since we currently have several vacancies in one of our buildings, it needed to be done ASAP.

Then I spent a good bit of time with friends this week. Sure, I could have blown off some of those friends, but the thing is, I have some other goals that aren’t part of my stated ROW80 goals. One of those is to be more present in real life, and to make friends a priority. That doesn’t mean I’ll drop my writing any time someone wants to go out for a beer, but I do make plans with friends now (which I’d gotten out of the habit of doing), and when I do, I keep them. When someone asks me to do something social, I don’t just default to “no” (something I had gotten into the habit of doing) especially if that someone is my husband.

Yesterday, I could have finished up my ROW80 goals. Could have gotten in one more workout, done some decluttering, written that last 1500 words to hit my goal of 4,000, and maybe even tackled some estate planning. Instead, I went to Cincinnati to see longtime (as opposed to “old” :D) friend Jim Winter and shoot the breeze with him about writing. Great fun, and I made two new friends!

After I got home, DH and I went to the Italian Festival with three friends I’ve been joining for trivia once a week. This is something I’d normally shun, as I’m not fond of crowds, but the food was good, as was the company, and I managed to tolerate the rest.

Which brings me back to my ROW80 goals. I’m not going to worry about the decluttering or the estate planning book this week, as I need to do more work for the apartment business. The other two goals will remain the same:

• Writing: 4000 words
• Fitness: 4x

What about you – have you had other priorities sneak in on your ROW80 or other goals lately? Know anyone in the Dayton area who might want a clean, well-maintained, one-bedroom apartment? Whether or not you’re doing ROW80, how have you been progressing toward whatever goals you might have? Please share – I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.