I’m one month into my new work rhythm, we’re back from two weeks in New England, June is back to school, Annie is walking, and fall is around the corner. And this month? This month, John and I celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. I am grateful and in awe, and included a nod to this milestone on my PowerSheets: “If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.” Taking care feels effortless some days and a tall order others, but every day, I feel sure we’ve found a treasure in each other. We will be celebrating big this month, and I can’t wait!
On my calendar this month: — The first day of fall! We’ll bake apple cider scones for our family and June’s teachers, a tradition we started six years ago. — My very favorite kids consignment sale! — Our tenth wedding anniversary and trip to Bermuda!!!
What I’m loving right now: — When in Maine, Kate introduced us to the card game Dutch Blitz, and I. could not. get. enough. It’s addicting in a similar way to solitaire (maybe I’ll win if I play just one more time!), but is played in a group. SO FUN. (You can buy an expansion pack to play with more than four, too!) — Martha Stewart was the topic of our most recent Articles Club, and this podcast episode was in the bonus material. As a very longtime Martha fan, I felt seen (and even learned some new info!). A very enjoyable hour! — This clock was included in our kitchen refresh design plan. I ordered and hung it back in May (for $8 less than it’s now listed for, sob) and it’s kept my hope for this project alive through many months of no progress. Aside from being a beacon of hope, It’s so nice to be able to see the time from almost anywhere in our downstairs without needing to have my phone on me.
As a reminder, you can find alllll the things I’ve loved over the last few years neatly organized right here!
What I read in August: — I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet | Hoo boy. I know I have many Shauna Niequist fans reading (I count myself among them!), but… this was not my favorite of her titles. The subtitle – “discovering new ways of living when the old ways stop working” – is important here: I realized pretty quickly that her “old” ways and my “current” ways are very similar. She speaks very compassionately about her old ways (not in a disparaging way!), and there are extremely valid, difficult reasons why she needed to find new ways – but I don’t have those reasons, and so this book just wasn’t what I needed for this season. And that’s okay!
Revisiting my August goals: Enjoy our time in Maine and Connecticut Edit June in June Volume 7 (I finally picked a song!! Progress to come!) Plan and enjoy our back-to-school dinner Make kitchen decisions and order things (Met with handyman and Callie! Tile, cabinet hardware, hood vent, lights have been ordered!) Make powder room decisions and order things (Light has been ordered but I can’t really say this is complete…) Complete June’s baby book Adjust to my four-day work week rhythm
September goals: — All hands on deck for the kitchen project! This is the big month when work will start and (hopefully!) be finished!! — Order mirror and hand towel for powder room — Edit June in June Volume 7 — Film Sheptember, Volume 4 — Complete June’s baby book — Prepare well for and enjoy our anniversary trip — Clear the backlog on my “Friday list.” In the weeks before my schedule shifted at work, I began to put tasks on a “Friday list” – things I’d get to when I was no longer working on Fridays. There are currently 32 items on it (some big, some very tiny) and I’d love to clear at least half of them out this month!
I’d love to hear: what are you celebrating these days? Big or little – all good things welcome :)
As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2022 goals!
Happy August, friends! It’s a big month around here – as of today, I am transitioning to working four days a week. This might seem like small news, but to me, it looms large. I’m very much looking forward to this change, and yet I’ve also felt conflicted – not necessarily about doing it, but about sharing it. If it would be of interest, I’m willing to attempt to untangle my many thoughts in a future post, as I think conversations around women and moms and household responsibilities and “work/life balance” (ick) are often shout-y, shallow, and all-or-nothing. This would decidedly not be that, but it’s still a delicate topic. Let me know what you think.
On that note, the main driver of this shift is to give more weight in my work/life balance to our home and family’s management, but I do expect it will give me a bit more time to write here, and for that I’m very grateful, as this blog and community are a joy of my life. (Still no plans to make it a job, though, ha.) Thank you, as always, for being here! xo
On my calendar this month: — A week in Maine and a week in Connecticut! Two of our favorite places with some of our favorite people. We feel very lucky. — The first day of school!
What I’m loving right now: — S’mores game changer: use original Fudge Stripes cookies in place of both graham crackers and chocolate bars. You’d think the ratio wouldn’t be quite right but it is perfection. Heartfelt thank yous to the Michigan cousins for making our introduction! — We listened to several episodes of the Along for the Ride podcast on our recent road trips, and they were delightful! Each episode has games, stories, and conversation starters, and though they’re geared towards kids, we all enjoyed listening and playing along.
As a reminder, you can find alllll the things I’ve loved over the last few years neatly organized right here!
What I read in July: — The Prophet’s Wife | I picked up this fictional novel about the wife of the founder of the LDS church in a bookshop in Michigan on a whim. The writing and interweaving of time periods felt a little clunky to me, but what bothered me most was the seeming liberties taken with the interior thoughts of the main character: her feelings towards her husband, her faith, and the church he founded (all largely negative, in her imagining). Though the author takes pains to note this is a novel, not a biography, the plot follows the historical record so closely that I guess it seems a little cheap to impose such strong feelings onto a historical figure without evidence for them. Also, I had flashbacks to reading The Paris Wife with this one: you know you’re headed to an unfortunate ending, and so a sense of minor dread hangs over the whole novel. Not my favorite.
Revisiting my July goals: Write the service I’m giving at the Island in August (Yes! This soaked up much of my extra time last month, as evidenced by my lack of activity here. But I think it was well worth it to show up for one of my most special in-person communities.) Edit June in June, Volume 7 Use Cultivate’s Leap Ahead Day to plan our Bermuda “marriage summit” …and strategize and plan ahead for family meeting topics(More to come here, but got started!) Write out a personal reading plan for the rest of our current sermon series Complete June’s baby book Make kitchen decisions and order things (I am not checking this off, but I did get organized to make decisions… I basically gathered everything I need to make the decisions and laid it all out very neatly so that Callie can come over and we can knock them out in an hour or two. That date is on the calendar!)
August goals: — Enjoy our time in Maine and Connecticut — Edit June in June Volume 7 — Plan and enjoy our back-to-school dinner — Make kitchen decisions and order things — Make powder room decisions and order things (light, mirror, hand towel!) — Complete June’s baby book — Adjust to my four-day work week rhythm
As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2022 goals!
I hope the second half of summer is treating you well, friends! If you’ve had any fun adventures lately, I’d love to hear about them in the comments! :)
We are back from a week in northern Michigan with John’s family, and wow was it a delightful departure from ordinary life. Everything from the weather (75, crisp, sunny, no humidity) to the character of each day (surrounded by loved ones young and old, very little schedule, very few responsibilities) was refreshing. Though the break from normal life did include this very delayed monthly goals post, it was worth it – after all, there’s still plenty of time left in the month, and I wouldn’t have been working toward these goals while away, anyway! :)
On my calendar this month: — All the birthdays! Annie’s, John’s, and Shep’s! — The big photo shoot for Cultivate’s 2023 collection. Always fun to see my pals in person (most of us work remotely) and make some photo magic! — Eating lots of peaches and making this dessert.
What I’m loving right now: — We lived for more than a decade without a printer in our home, and we got along just fine – I’d just print the few things we needed at Office Max, which cost pennies and was right around the corner. When June started kindergarten, though, we felt like it would be helpful to have a printer in-house, and boy has it been delightful. I have very bad feelings towards printers in general – they always seem to be running out of ink and/or jamming – but this one has been docile and compliant. Turns out it’s actually really nice to hit print on something and then just run upstairs to retrieve it instead of getting in your car. — I’m not sure if it can really be classified as something I’m loving, but this piece about the complicated and often uncomfortable realities of online returns was eyeopening. An important read for anyone who cares about waste and thoughtful consumption. — I snagged this road trip activity book for June for our Michigan adventure, and she loved it! A great price and really well done.
As a reminder, you can find alllll the things I’ve loved over the last few years neatly organized right here!
What I read in June: — Hunt, Gather, Parent | You know me – I love my parenting books, and this one is no exception. I’ve really enjoyed it and am jotting down things to share in a future post! As a side note, I’ve always found book review posts challenging to write – there’s so much to say, and how to condense it into a manageable format?! – and so even though I read a lot and love discussing books, I’ve written very few of them. Inspired by Nancy’s podcast episodes, though, I’m going to try framing future book review posts by sharing just five takeaways (I need a constraint!). Let me know whether you’d be interested in reading a post like that?
Revisiting my June goals: Download Blurb software, get familiar with it, and complete 2008 in book (Nope – more in my mid-year goals review!) Finish memorizing 1 Corinthians 13 with June (We did one more verse!) Finish editing Annie in April and film June in June, Volume 7(Done and done! Annie’s video makes me tear up the most of any I’ve done so far. I got to use one of my favorite songs and it is just so sweet.) Plan Shep’s fourth birthday party (and plan for John and Annie’s July birthdays, too)(Planning for his low-key nature/camping brunch celebration is complete! Annie’s birthday was celebrated in Michigan surrounded by family in one of our favorite places in the world. Scrambling a bit to get John’s festivities together in the wake of our trip, but we’ll make it happen!) End the school year and begin our summer well(Yes! More here!) Write the service I’m giving at the Island later this summer (No actual writing has happened but I’ve been turning over lots of ideas in my head, which is often the necessary prerequisite to writing.) Pick blueberries, many times over (Sadly, our favorite blueberry patch has changed their hours this year, so we haven’t been able to visit yet. Hopefully in the next week or two!)
July goals: — Write the service I’m giving at the Island in August — Edit June in June, Volume 7 — Use Cultivate’s Leap Ahead Day to plan our Bermuda “marriage summit” — …and strategize and plan ahead for family meeting topics — Write out a personal reading plan for the rest of our current sermon series — Complete June’s baby book — Make kitchen decisions and order things
We’re off for an extended trip to Maine and Connecticut later this month, so I’m doing my best to keep this month’s list simple and relatively fool-proof! And here’s hoping that gives me a some space to squeeze in blog posts I’ve been hoping to write: our Hammocks Beach recap, Michigan recap, c-section tips, first year baby gear final reviews, some faith formation practices that have been working for us, and that book review! Thank you, as always, for being here, friends!!
Happy July, friends! A proper monthly goals post will be coming shortly, but first I wanted to step back and share a mid-year update on my 2022 goals. I’ve done this for the past few years, and, as we say at Cultivate, pausing and reflecting like this really does help me to appreciate how my little efforts have added up over time. And, I don’t know, I figure you might be curious?! If so, let’s go!
Goal no. 1: Return to in-person worship. Progress I’ve made: I said this was my number one goal at the beginning of the year, and the progress certainly bears that out – hallelujah! Like many, we began worshipping from home when churches closed at the beginning of the pandemic, and then… never really returned, even though we were loyal online attenders. However, given my understanding of Jesus’s vision for a life of faith centering around learning, growing, and loving in a local community, I knew it was past time for our family to open ourselves back up to the discipline and delight of in-person worship. And we have! We’ve joined a new church family and have been worshipping regularly since February. We’ve joined a small group, we’ve started serving, we’ve gone to people’s houses for dinner, and we (and our kids) have made friends. From where we were then to where we are now, it’s all by the grace of God, and I am so grateful. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: This goal is complete!
Goal no. 2: Bury the word of God in our hearts. Progress I’ve made: I have not been particularly systematic about this goal, but it has been fruitful nonetheless! The kids’ Sunday school has memory verses each month, so we’ve memorized those as a family, and June and I have also worked on a few together (still plugging away at 1 Corinthians 13!). For the first four months of the year, we were in a sermon series on Matthew as a church, and I LOVED doing my daily reading each day at lunch as set by the church-provided plan. Since we’ve moved onto a new sermon series without an at-home plan, I’ve gotten out of the habit, but this makes me think that it might be the right season for some other kind of structured plan (something I’ve not been interested in for a few years). Regardless, I have really started to notice my increasing familiarity with scripture (also helped by my work developing Write the Word journals!), how it has increasingly come to mind when I’ve needed it over the last few months. Grateful! What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: We’re still new at church, so I don’t know if providing a reading plan to correspond with the sermon series is common or not, but if it’s not, I would love to sketch out my own so I can get back into my lunchtime study. And I want to finish 1 Corinthians 13!
Goal no. 3: Complete my outstanding creative projects quarter by quarter. Progress I’ve made: For this goal, I assigned specific projects to each quarter of the year: a 2010-2014 family photo album to Q1, the first 10 years of EFM book to Q2, kid memorabilia and memory keeping to Q3, and finishing the Advent calendar to Q4. The Q1 goal is complete – HOORAY! The Q2 goal is dead in the water. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: I have accepted that the EFM book is simply too large of a goal for me to complete in my current season, given the other items that my revealed preferences (i.e. what I actually do) have shown are my priorities. I do plan to revisit the idea in the future. For the second half of the year, though, I’m moving forward with my plans as laid out and feel confident I’ll be able to complete them!
Goal no. 4: Make my fitness a priority and have fun doing it. Progress I’ve made: Fitness was 100% not a priority in 2021 – being a healthy pregnant person and a cozy post-partum person was, and that was perfect for that season of life. And now here we are in 2022! Our Q1 Peloton challenge was a slam-dunk success (apparently I’m a competitive person?!): I worked out every day but two, and biked 240 miles. Though I’ve dropped off a bit in Q2, so far this year I’ve logged 2,629 minutes of cycling, strength training, and stretching – versus 1,800 in all of 2021. I’ve also been in in-person physical therapy (and doing at-home exercises) since February for diastasis recti, and though it’s taking longer than I’d hoped, I’m grateful to be seeing progress. Finally, we’ve taken a handful of bike rides as a family of five! I have several goals under this umbrella: complete a diastasis recti program (any recommendations?), compete with our siblings in a Peloton challenge in Q1 (and probably Q4), add Annie into our life as a bike-riding family and get back out on the trails (starting in Q2!), and complete an MS75 ride in September with John and hopefully our brother- and sister-in-law! What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: We need to decide if we’re going to tackle an MS ride this year or table it to 2023… I am leaning toward the latter. Now that we have our car back, I hope to go on many more family bike rides together this summer and fall!
Goal no. 5: Celebrate our marriage with joy! Progress I’ve made: John and I are celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary this year! There wasn’t a lot I wanted to *do* for this goal; I mostly just want to make it a focus to praise the Lord for all He has done and continues to do in our marriage. And I think we’ve done that! We could not be happier or more grateful for where and how we are at this point in our life together. We’ve enjoyed monthly date nights (so far this year, for my Triangle gals: Chef’s Palette, Mandolin, the Durham (and Nate Bargatze!), Taverna Agora, the Provincial (and Top Gun!), and Mandolin again). We’ve booked a beachside dinner in Bermuda. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: On our September Bermuda trip, I’d like to incorporate some “marriage summit”-type activities and vision casting for the next decade, and am planning to figure out the format for that during Cultivate’s Leap Ahead Day later this month. Planning to read sections of Creative Love and do some internet sleuthing, but if you’ve read a book or article or listened to a podcast episode on marriage summits or milestone marriage reflections, I’d love to hear! I also think I need some sort of celebratory anniversary dinner outfit?!
Goal no. 6: Refresh our home one quarter at a time. Progress I’ve made: This goal is by far the one where I’ve expended the most effort and have the least to show for it, ha. The original goal was to refresh our kitchen (and possibly our mantel) in Q1, and tweak our loft into a true play room in Q2. In reality, in what felt like a part-time job at times, I spent all of Q1 and into Q2 chasing down contractors to bid on our project. We did, eventually, chose two, and their work is scheduled to start in September (!). I also worked with Callie on a design plan for the kitchen (we’ve chosen the cabinet color!), and we’ve made some changes to our loft that feel significant: adding shelving, rehoming some of my styling supplies, rehoming some toys, and displaying the ones remaining with more care, a la the Montessori model. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: LOTS! In Q3, it looks like our kitchen project will be complete, our fireplace mantel and surround will be replaced, some detail on our stairs will be refreshed, and our power room will be refreshed, as well. In prep for September, when the bulk of the work will be done, I need to make many, many final decisions and a few purchases. I am very grateful to be able to do this project (10 years in the making!), but the decision fatigue is real. Would you be interested in hearing more about what we have planned? It might help motivate me, ha!
Goal no. 7: Establish new rhythms for our family. Progress I’ve made: This goal was the most vague, and it’s easy to feel like nothing has happened. But, stepping back, I can see that we have absolutely established a new Sabbath rhythm: church, out to lunch, an afternoon nap for everyone in the house, and prepping for the week ahead. We’ve also done two quarters of our quarterly dates with the two older kids and they’ve been a huge hit! June and I went to our local production of Mary Poppins in Q1, Shep and I went to the trampoline park and Chick-fil-a in Q2, and June and John went to a ropes course and out for sushi in Q2. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: I’m hoping to start family meetings when the school year starts back up! Planning to use some of my Leap Ahead Day time to do some planning on this.
Goal no. 8: Make meals easier. Progress I’ve made: This is my simplest goal of 2022! I wanted to 1) buy a small chest freezer for our garage, 2) get into the practice of doubling and freezing meals, and incorporating frozen meals into my meal planning, and 3) build out 1-2 “brainless” weeks of menus for each season so I can copy and paste when I’m short on time. So far, I have gone to Lowes to look at freezers, reached an impasse with John on whether we should buy one, and wrote one brainless meal plan :) What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: Still hoping for that freezer!!
Whew! I’d love to hear how your progress on your 2022 goals has gone so far, if you’d like to share. Big or small, it’s worth celebrating!!
