August 2024 goals

Our kids don’t go back to school until the end of the month (September, actually, for Shep), so even as I’m looking ahead to back-to-school rhythms and routines, we’re still very much in the thick of summer over here. Doctor’s appointments and after-dinner pool visits, reseting chore charts and staying up late to watch the Olympics, shopping for school supplies and all-you-can-eat popsicles from the freezer — two seasons live side-by-side in August, and I’m savoring them both. 

If you, too, are straddling seasons, I pulled up a few posts that might be of help for us both:

Our favorite family read alouds
My takeaways from Habits of the Household
Simplifying kids’ artwork
Our kids after-school jobs
And my series on Christians in public school (start here)

And now onto the goals…

On my calendar:
— An ice cream and game night with the ladies at our church
— An afternoon shadowing our vet for June. Our vet invited her to tag along for a few hours at our cat’s last appointment, and she’s very excited to take her up on the offer!
— Shep’s first day of kindergarten!!

What I’m loving right now:
— This feels like it needs to be an annual summertime reminder: if you’re smaller-chested, I CANNOT recommend these enough. I had seen them recommended for years but never took the plunge because they seemed vaguely complicated, but nothing could be farther from the truth. They’ve made wearing sleeveless and skinny-strap dresses an absolute breeze and are FAR better than a strapless bra, IMHO! Go for it!!
— This folding chair was one of John’s birthday gifts. It is FAR smaller than the folding camping chairs we’re used to taking to soccer games — the carry bag is only about a foot long — and it’s a little more inclined than them, too. But a great, lightweight option!
— This is admittedly early, but I just bought these sweet bunny bookends for Annie for Christmas. She’s in the enviable/unfortunate third-child position of having everything she needs and parents who are trying to avoid toy clutter, which makes gift giving challenging. She loves bunnies, though, and I think she’ll get a kick out of having this little pair for her room!

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!

— The bracelet bead kit ($8!!) we used at the kindergarten breakfast and for slow afternoons
— The card game we play obsessively with our siblings and in-laws
— The cutest paper cups for back to school dinners
— The Shibumi shade, an NC beach staple that’s SO easy to tote and set up
— The wooden card holder that makes games so much easier with little ones

Last month on The Connected Family:
— My favorite takeaways from How to Know a Person | Written for citizens, it has a lot to offer parents, too
— Why we prefer communal screens to tablets | 7 quick reasons that might help your decision making
— Our quest for an “away for the day” middle school | Exactly what I emailed our principal, and her response

What I read in July:
— Killers of a Certain Age | Even though it was on my reading list for the year, this was a DNF for me. I didn’t love the characters or the humor after a few chapters, and I’ve learned that means it’s time to move on to the next book on my stack.
— The Vanderbeekers Ever After | The seventh and final installment of this middle grade series that has my heart! I laughed, I cried, I’m even more firmly convinced that everyone should read it.
— Die With Zero | I’m teetering on the edge of writing a post about this one! Lots of thoughts! In short: this book is written for a niche (wealthy) audience. I generally agree with the thrust of his argument, but felt like he was oversimplifying some points — and also not addressing some obvious objections I had) — and yet still ended up with a book that could easily have been half as long.

My reading list for 2024! I’m 12 / 24 so far.

Revisiting my July goals:
Complete 40 hours of deep work (26, and I actually feel pretty good about this considering how broken up my last week of the month was with cousins here!)
Edit June in June (Done! Volume 9 in the books!)
Successfully send June to sleepaway camp (She loved it! More on TCF next week.)
Book our Acadia accommodations for next summer (We made some progress here! We revisited and discussed options, and chose a week, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.)
Write one module of the TCF course (I mean, in retrospect, this was definitely not going to happen…)
Read chapters 13 and 14 of Outlive (Traveling and other disruptions meant fewer evening walks and fewer chances to listen!)
Finish the 2015-2019 photo album (Again, no.)

As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2024 goals!

August goals:
— Finalize plans for our anniversary trip to Asheville
— Complete 40 hours of deep work
— Go through the kids’ clothes in advance of my two favorite consignment sales (+ sort and tag what I’m selling)
— Book our Acadia accommodations for next summer
— Reset June’s job chart for the new school year and make one for Shep (I think I’m almost ready to write a post about our system!)
— Tackle the upstairs closet, one of the areas from last year that needs a refresh
— Print photos for our new mantel frames (this is the kind of thing that could linger for months if I don’t put it in my PowerSheets)
— Frame June’s camp photo
— Submit everyone’s passport applications

Are your kids already back at school, or do you have a ways to go still? Or maybe you’re in year-round school, or just relishing a fresh start yourself! I’d love to hear.

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