July 2016 in Review

July went by quickly for me as I was preparing for my research trip to Spain during the first part of the month and then on said research trip during the second half of the month. Where am I at goal-wise? Let me quickly recount.

Goal 1 part A to run my 3rd marathon and to PR while doing it has been accomplished. Goal 1 Part B to run 800 miles during the process of training for this and my fall race is still a work in progress. In July I ran 68.95 miles, which brings me to 404.51 miles for the year. Right now I'm still off the mark for part B of the goal, but we'll see how the next couple of months go.

My second major goal for the year was to make significant progress on other research projects. July has been very research focused as I have been in the archives for 2.5 weeks now and prior to that I was doing quite a bit of transcribing of things I have digitized or copied already and taking notes on secondary literature reading. I'm still trying to see the shape of these forests in the midst of many trees, but I think one major project and potentially two smaller (article-sized ones) have begun to emerge from the stacks of manuscripts I've been working my way through. I will definitely need to come back to the archives in Simancas and possibly those in Toledo and Madrid before I will be able to get too deeply into the writing of my second sole-authored book. Can I say I've made progress? Definitely. Will this be a project finished in the next few months? No. In the meantime, over the next week or so, I'll also need to put my feet to the fire and make progress on an upcoming conference presentation.

Selfie on the way back to the train station in Toledo from using the archives

Archivo General de Simancas -- yes this archive is in a fortified stronghold!

Goal 3 focused on establishing a mindful practice of gratitude and optimism. I will preface these remarks by saying that I have spent far too much time the past few weeks reading comments on news sites and feeling absolutely vile afterward. I really need to be more disciplined about just reading the stories and not the comments. Aside from that and having to explain what's going on right now in American politics to a number of Spanish friends, I've had a lot to be thankful for. I've been seeing old friends here and making some new ones. I've been getting to do one of my favorite things about my chosen profession five days a week. I used my app 21 days in July. I do miss my spouse, but I am so grateful for our relationship.

In the Royal Botanical Gardens

Cuenca: I took this picture right before I had to deal with my skirt nearly blowing up over my head

Finally, I wanted to write some non-academic things this year. Over the past month, I made embarrassingly little progress on the short story I started in June. It's been challenging to carve out time to write in other genres when I'm trying to take full advantage of my time in Spain to work in the archives. The switch has not been flipping easily after a full day of reading early modern manuscripts. In my free time, I've been wanting to see friends, go to museums, visit new places, run, stroll, read a novel on the train or in the park, etc. Hopefully, I'll have more interesting news or at least some suggestion of progress to report in this category next month.

What's something you really enjoyed in July? What are you looking forward to in August? Have you ever had a Marilyn Monroe moment while crossing a bridge?