The other day John and I were talking about what we’ll miss most, physically, about this home, our first home, and my answer was our front porch.

It’s unusually deep, perched well above street level and tucked behind a mature tree. Shady and private enough to work from on even the hottest summer days, it also played host to dinner parties, friend hangs, and tables set for Articles Club. On its sturdy boards we carved pumpkins, played in the sand box, read chapter books aloud, ate lunch, set up the chess board, spit cherry pits over the railing, waited on siblings to return from play dates and grandparents to arrive from the airport. The string lights were magic; the wreaths hanging on the gates each December, a source of deep personal satisfaction. And I can still feel exactly what it was like to sit cross-legged under the spinning fan, cooing at baby June as she learned to roll on a soft blanket. We’d head out there after work and daycare and just chat — for an hour, easy.

That porch was an aerie, a world unto itself in the most ordinary of places. While the glorious view below will not always be ours, the sweetness will be.

On my calendar:
— Seeing The Sound of Music with June! After a few false starts for her “experiential” 2024 Christmas gift, this is where we landed. We are both so excited for a night at the theater together.
— Our fall family mountain trip, this year to Boone. We’ve had more trips than usual to WNC in the last few months but you won’t catch me complaining. These mountain weekends are always some of the sweetest of the year for our family.
— A weekend in New England! I’m flying to a dear friend’s baby shower and for the first time in a very, very long time (maybe since before having kids?), I will be traveling solo to Connecticut. I’ll be staying at my parents’ home but even they won’t be there, as they are traveling, too! Needless to say my brain is working overtime as to how I should enjoy this unique opportunity…

What I’m loving right now:
— John and I recently finished the second (and, presumably) final season of Andor and loved it. You do not have to be a Star Wars fan to enjoy it, though it helps if you love a political thriller. The world-building (Chandrila!) is particularly incredible.
— Freya India’s work always makes me want to highlight, forward, shout YES at my laptop in an empty room, and this recent piece is no exception. “Marketing your memories also desecrates them. You hand over your hope, your hurt, your life to be consumed, reducing it to reality TV. Your precious memories are my mindless entertainment. Your trauma becomes my background noise. Your life-shattering divorce my slop. Your children my characters; your pain my distraction; your feelings my filler episodes. I will swipe past your birth video when I get bored. I will downvote your divorce if it isn’t entertaining enough. Your life is what I clean my kitchen to, what I kill time with. And if you fail to entertain me, fine, I will scroll for another life to consume.”
— I am not a particularly good auditory learner (raising my hand as a consummate note taker in college!). After searching for a sermon solution, I chose this ESV study Bible to bring to and from church. While it’s only the New Testament, I love having generous amounts of space to jot notes. (And the Lulie Wallace cover doesn’t hurt!)

As a reminder, you can find allll the things I’ve loved over the last few years neatly organized right here!

What you’re loving right now:

This is where I highlight a few items here that have been popular in the last month with fellow readers, based on my analytics. Here’s hoping this will help you find something you’ll love!

— My clean perfume. I generally only wear it for date night and other special events; spritzing it on is an anticipatory mood booster. (I gathered my other daily skincare and clean beauty faves recently!)
— My clean deodorant! Bonus points for the prettiest metal holder.
— The new eucalyptus + rosemary cleaning spray I’ve been using. Kind of reminiscent of the Thymes Fraser Fir candle but non-Christmas-y enough for year-round use.
— The Eby Relief bra. I’m tickled so many of you are trying one of these! I hope you love them as much as I have!
— The tiniest white noise machine – perfect for traveling.

Last month on The Connected Family:
— How to raise independent and confident kids | My favorite takeaways from The Self-Driven Child
— How to keep kids safer on school-issued devices | Simple steps for average parents
— It is a gift to be observed | The need to model a healthy relationship with technology for our kids can feel like a burden. But it is also a profound gift.
— The no. 1 rule for device use at home | Courtesy of a U.S. Assistant Attorney General

What I read in September:
— 14 Talks by Age 14 | I picked this one up on a whim after appreciating a quote from the author in an article. In each chapter, she discusses things to consider, conversation killers, and sample dialogues for topics like independence, changing friendships, fairness, criticism, hard work, money, and reputations. While I reject some of her assumptions about tweens/teens and family life, I do concede that she has more experience than me to draw on and found much of the book insightful and eye-opening.
— The Day the World Came to Town | I purposefully timed my reading of this to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11. I did not anticipate it coinciding with a jarring new low in our country’s polarization and political violence. It was a tough backdrop to such a hopeful and guileless book, animated as it is by the common-sense kindness of an average town. I am glad I read it. I wish it felt more recognizable today.
— Peace Like a River | Absolute perfection. The writing – there is hardly a throwaway sentence in the book. The characters – so real, so sympathetic, so finely-drawn. If you have not yet read this book, please do so immediately. Easily one of my top-five favorite novels of all time.

My reading list for 2025! I’m 12 / 24 so far.

Revisiting my September goals:
Prepare our home to go on the market
Pack and transport everything we don’t want in our home for listing/showings
Book help and figure out details for the first few tasks we want done in the new home (Some of them, yes!)
Edit June in June (Not quite done but I did make progress! About halfway there!)
Film Sheptember
Make apple cider scones for the first day of fall
Sort and tag for the consignment sale
Experiment with drafting Substack Notes for the week, each week, in advance

October goals:
— Gather our family Halloween costumes (2 / 5 so far)
— Help my Dad get his Storyworth off to print
— Finish editing June in June
— Edit Sheptember
— Make Halloween ghosts with Shep (kind of like this!)
— Make a plan for my solo weekend in New England
— Choose a Christmas recital song and begin to practice
— Send care packages to our college gals
— Choose and order our Christmas cards (I want to get these off early because of the move!)

As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2025 PowerSheets goals!

Friends, I would love to hear: If you had a solo weekend in one of your favorite and very familiar places, what would you do? Take yourself out to a meal? Go for a hike? Read a book? See a friend? Shop? (I hope to do all of the above, ha!) Let’s have some fun planning a dreamy solo getaway in the comments.

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