This post is already excessively long, so I’ll keep the intro short :) Here at the midpoint of the year, it’s become customary to share an update on my PowerSheets goals. Pausing and reflecting like this really does help me to appreciate how my little efforts have added up over time, and with ten goals on the docket for 2023, there’s a lot to cover! (And plenty of ups and downs.) Without further ado…
LEARN SOMETHING NEW
Goal no. 1: Create a book for the first 10 years of EFM Progress I’ve made: Let’s just start out with a real humbling update, shall we? To put it bluntly, there is very little progress to report. I did download the Blurb software and format a past post into a sample layout… and then I got paralyzed by how long one post took and how overwhelming of a project this could be and set the whole idea aside in despair. It feels like perhaps there’s a shortcut I don’t know about (my layout skills are pretty minimal!), but I also could believe I would just have to plug away at the hundreds of posts in my archive one by one. I feel disappointed and frustrated, because I really want this to happen, but the idea of spending 100+ hours to bring it to completion feels daunting. The next six months: I think my next step will be to challenge myself to complete five or ten posts in one sitting to see if I get quicker as I go along – then I can make a plan from there!
Goal no. 2: Tend to our home trouble spots in a new way Progress I’ve made: Things are looking up :) I’ve worked steadily through each month’s area, shuffling the original list as needed based on our family’s needs. So far, I’ve tackled my desk/command center, the upstairs linen closet, our coat closet, our master bathroom cabinets, and our upstairs loft. As funny as it might sound, one thing that has helped motivate me is to take a photo or a time-lapse video of my progress. Whether you share them with anyone or not, they’re fun to see! The next six months: June’s closet, our master closet, and the downstairs linen closet are the next three on my list.
Goal no. 3: Read through the Gospels with CWM’s boxed collection Progress I’ve made: I’ve made very little progress on on this goal as originally framed, but I do feel I’ve made progress on the heart behind the goal, which is to spend time in scripture. Most notably, John and I have been working our way through The Bible Project’s 14-hour From Adam to Noah class, and it’s been really fun to do together! I take notes as we watch :) The next six months: I plan to finish the class!
Goal no. 4: Secret goal Progress I’ve made: My initial plan was to spent 2-3 hours each week chipping away at this with some of my additional time away from work. I very much did not do this in the first half of the year – something else always seemed to be a higher priority – but I did continuously add thoughts and ideas to a doc. The next six months: A few weeks ago I actually did set a timer and spend one hour of focused work on this, and it was amazing how much I got done. With a looser summer schedule I’m giving myself grace until June is back in school, but at that point, John has agreed to hold me accountable to “pay myself first” and commit to this project for one hour twice a week.
DO SOMETHING KIND
Goal no. 5: Invite one family (or friend) over for dinner each month Progress I’ve made: Between COVID and a newish baby, we had gotten completely out of the habit of inviting other families into our home. I set this goal as accountability to change that, and it’s been very successful! So far we’ve had two families from church over, some old friends, a really old friend, and some newer friends. And one month we went out to dinner with friends, which was not exactly the letter of the goal, but very much the spirit. The next six months: More of the same! I will say that though this goal has helped me flex the hospitality muscle and having people over doesn’t feel so foreign anymore, it also doesn’t necessarily feel easier – it can still feel like a lot of work to find a date, choose a menu, and prep our space. But it has been worth it.
Goal no. 6: Reach 5,000 minutes on Peloton Progress I’ve made: This is going very well! Thus far I’ve reached 4,324 minutes, which paces me well ahead of my goal. I’ve been helped along by the fact that Peloton added outdoor walking and cycling to their tracking system; all of our lunchtime spins around the block and biking to school have added up. The next six months: My new goal for the year is 8,000 minutes!
Goal no. 7: Update our legacy box Progress I’ve made: This was inspired by PFC’s “dead box” (but legacy box sounds much nicer, ha!). I planned for most of the progress here to happen in the second half of the year, so it’s no surprise that there’s not much progress to report. We did meet with an estate planning attorney to update our documents in the spring. The next six months: I’m intrigued by the Big Book of Everything, which Brooke recommended on my original 2023 goals post – I think that will be my starting point when I’m ready to dig into this goal!
SEE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
Goal no. 8: Complete our family photo album for 2015-2019 Progress I’ve made: No progress to report :) The next six months: Complete the album, ha! Since the photos are organized and I’ve already made two of my five-year albums, I don’t anticipate this being too hard.
Goal no. 9: Tend to our family culture Progress I’ve made: Lots of little-by-little progress! We’ve instituted our new slimmed-down but more frequent parent-kiddo dates. They were met with some confusion and even disappointment at first, but overall have been a joy. We’re working through our summer fun list and weathering a summer schedule with LOTS of variation. We’re thoughtfully pursuing and evaluating activities, including piano lessons and neighborhood swim team. We’ve traveled, played a lot more tennis as a family, tried out sleepaway camp at a Mother-Daughter weekend, and made lots of memories. And I read Habits of the Household and have implemented MANY new practices because of it, which has easily been one of the biggest wins. The next six months: I’d still love to take the Birds & Bees course!
Goal no. 10: Have fun with my friends Progress I’ve made: Lots of fun has been had! :) I started the year with a bang with the first Articles Club weekend retreat (such a delight!) and followed it up with many monthly meetings since. I co-hosted a book swap with a dear friend. I took tennis lessons with a friend this spring. I had a two-person book club with another friend and got together multiple times to discuss chapters (including biking the American Tobacco Trail together twice!) And I’ve generally seen more friends more often thanks to our hospitality goal. The next six months: In the near term, I’d like to use our Museum of Life and Science passes with friends several more times this summer. I’m also still hoping to host a potluck party this fall!
And there you have it! A very robust update on my 2023 goals. If you set your own goals for the year, or even if you didn’t, I’d love for you to share a win in the comments from the first six months! I can’t wait to cheer you on :)
When I hosted my first book swap in 2019, it was such fun that we vowed to make it an annual thing, or at most an every-other-year affair. Well… you know what happened next. But here we are, four years later, living our best readerly lives at a book swap once again, and it was a delight. In case it might inspire some of you to host a swap of your own, I’d love to share some photos and details from this weekend. (And if you’re just here to vicariously enjoy our readerly shenanigans, that’s a-ok, too.)
This time around, my beautiful friend Bethany agreed to be my co-host. She’s an avid reader, a wonderful cook, and an even better friend – plus, she has an inviting home with many large surfaces on which to display books (so you can see why she was a slam-dunk pick).
One Paperless Post invitation later, our guests were a mixture of Articles Club gals, preschool mom pals, and neighborhood buddies, plus a smattering of book-loving friends from other corners of our respective lives. It can feel a little nerve-wracking to bring together different groups of friends, but books are the great uniter, aren’t they? We invited 24 guests and had about 16 attend with summer travel and a few last-minute sick kiddos.
Food for a book swap brunch
We opted to host this year’s book swap in the morning – 10am – and so we kicked off the party by piling plates high with brunch food: two kinds of quiche; mini white chocolate baguettes from a local bakery; a mini pancake platter with nutella, soft butter, and syrup; smoked salmon sliders; and a monochromatic fruit salad inspired by a long-ago Cup of Jo post. (I’ve been holding on to that inspiration for 8 years! It finally had its day in the sun!)
We also served sparkling water, mimosas and bellinis, and coffee.
Book swap activities
Most guests brought their plates out to the sun porch and patio where we had scattered two literary quizzes for a little fun. The first listed groupings of characters and challenged guests to supply the book titles; the second required matching literary quotes to their books. Turns out both were quite challenging, ha! You can download them here for your own book swap, if you’d like: Literary Quote Quiz and Literary Character Quiz.
We also had little stickers with “ask me about…” written on them at the door. In lieu of their name, guests could write in the name of a book they love to discuss. We were hoping this might spark conversation, and it did!
How our book swap worked
While some people style their book swap like a Yankee Swap, my goal in hosting was to clear out my shelves, pass on well-loved books, and get several new books in return. Because of this, we allowed gals to bring up to 10 books to swap that they already owned. (One book was totally fine, too! I’d say most people brought about 3-5.)
Any kind of book was welcome – fiction, nonfiction, memoir, cookbook, coffee table book, and even kids’ books this time around. The only requirement was that they had to be GOOD! We asked guests to write a little sticky note with what they loved about each book and stick it on the cover.
Upon arrival, we asked each gal to “shelve” her selections – we had designated areas for fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and “everything else.” This was a great way to break the ice, give people something to do right away, and get everyone moving around the room.
The actual swap happened at the very end – after much browsing, guests took home as many books as they contributed. If there were any leftover (which there were!) after the initial round of picks, they were open to all.
Bookish decor and favors
Bethany’s home is very lovely, and just a few bookish details made it shine for our book swap: a watercolor book garland cut from a calendar and teeny little watercolor books scattered as confetti throughout the downstairs. Bethany also supplied flowers from her garden – what a treat!
As a last fun detail, we gifted everyone an illustrated bookmark as they headed out. I considered making our own design, but what a delight it is to support other creative women doing what they do best.
And there you have it! Book Swap 2.0 was just as good as the first time around, and I intend for it not to be the last.
Earlier this week, a child riding an electronic scooter was hit by a car and killed in the neighborhood next to ours. We pass through the intersection where it happened every day we ride our bikes to school. While this is not the opening note I usually strike in these monthly updates, it’s been on my mind, and it felt like what I needed to write about today.
First, a reminder: statistics show that the risk of a fatality when a car collides with a pedestrian is 5% when traveling 20 miles per hour. It increases to 45% at 30 miles per hour, and 85% at 40 miles per hour. This was a sobering, but helpful, reminder to me, and I’ve committed to driving at 20 mph through neighborhoods from now on.
Second, a reminder: change is possible. I was disheartened by those in our neighborhood Facebook group responding to statistics like the one above and pleas for drivers to slow down with comments like “they’ll fall on deaf ears” or “they won’t make a difference.” Sure, not everyone is going to be moved to action by a statistic, a Facebook post, or even a tragic accident – but some people will be. People change every. single. day. Change is possible. We must believe that.
Finally, a reminder: life is full of risks. In the first few hours of this close-to-home news, I struggled to know what to do with it. Surely an event as terrible as this would require something of me – some change in our behavior, some mitigation of risk, some further action that would keep my family safer. The hard truth is, though, we already wear our helmets. We already stop at stop signs. We already look for oncoming traffic.
So yes, I can and will drive even more slowly where I know children might dart out into the road. But we’ll also continue to play outside, and go for walks, and bike to school, and slowly but steadily allow our children more and more freedom – even when it scares me.
And with that, let’s wade together into the both/and. Here’s what’s ahead in June and a few other lighter things…
Our beautiful backyard hydrangeas! They have a tough time in the heat of summer, so this is their time to shine.
On my calendar: — My friend and I are hopping back on our bikes to ride the complete American Tobacco Trail! We finished 30 miles in April due to a rain delay. Here’s hoping the last fifteen aren’t too tough… — June’s last day of school. She and I are currently scheming decorations for our official dinner party. — A backyard Jess Ray concert. If you’ve never listened to her music, do yourself a favor.
What I’m loving right now: — We are somewhat far away from having a middle schooler, but this piece by Ashlee Gadd is a heart wrecker regardless. Read at your own risk. (Her writing is just so lovely.) — I tried out Jen’s playlist at the last Articles Club and it was so enjoyed that a few ladies asked about it – yet it also faded beautifully into the background. A perfect dinner party mix! — You know how when you make an Amazon return at Kohl’s they give you a coupon? Well, they sucked me in on my last visit and I ended up purchasing this dress. I think the silhouette and embroidery are so lovely!
As a reminder, you can find allll the things I’ve loved over the last few years neatly organized right here!
What I read in May: — The Inheritance Games | Meh. Am I now too old for YA books? I thought this one was fine, but for me, it certainly didn’t live up to the glowing hype. The characters, writing, and plotting were all just… meh (and I found it really hard to remember which brother was which). — Carrie Soto is Back | This was my first Taylor Jenkins Reid novel and it was solidly enjoyable! Extra fun because I was taking tennis lessons while reading it. The descriptions of the matches suck you in, Carrie is a unique character (I rooted for her even though she’s a bit prickly), and the drama of the four Grand Slams unfolding kept me up past my bedtime. The only thing that annoyed me – and I admit this is a detail that would perhaps only annoy an English major – is that I thought the author used too few contractions, which made the dialogue feel overly-formal in a way that wasn’t consistent with the characters. Make of that what you will, ha! — Camp Girls | DNF. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have my own camp memories from growing up to draw on, but what I read of this book just felt like a mishmash of one woman’s reminiscing – almost like an extended inside joke – without a compelling through-line to draw me in. — Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow | Loved it and loved it and loved it. I’ve written in this post and other recent book reviews about characters that just didn’t compel me; nothing could be further from the truth with this one. Sadie, Sam, and Marx were such complete, sympathetic characters. I raced through this book, wanting to know what happened to them next (but also not wanting it to end!). There WAS a devastating turn of events about 3/4 of the way through that made me want to hurl the book against the wall, but the theme of immortality woven through was fascinating and masterfully done. And, like every other review I’ve read, it must be said that I neither know nor care a thing about video games and still found this book completely engrossing. — Every Summer After | Meh. This book suffered from following directly after Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which I know is unfair, but it just paled in comparison. The characters seemed underdeveloped and the plot felt contrived and predictable. It was also a bit racier than I was expecting, and it definitely didn’t make me sob.
Revisiting my May goals: Edit Annie in April (It turned out so fun! Sweet Annie’s third-child energy is strong and it shows in her movie :)) Organize our master bath cabinets(Done! This area offered an especially great excuse to get rid of things we don’t use anymore, which is always satisfying.) Organize our loft (Done!) Send invites for the book swap (Done! I asked my friend Bethany to cohost with me and I’m very excited about the details we’ve dreamed up, including decor and prizes from this shop and this shop.)
June goals: — Settle into our summer rhythm — Film June in June — Paint our master bath cabinets — Clean out June’s room (with her help!) — Plan thoughtfully for our time in Connecticut and Maine — Complete final prep for and enjoy the book swap — Update our budget tracking (we’ve gotten way behind in logging expenses, so taking this on this month!)
I’d love to hear: what’s a recent (or not) book you panned but everyone else seemed to love? :)
Welcome back to our home! Today I thought we could take a tour of our main room. As you may have seen in this video, our downstairs is pretty much one big room (aside from our master bedroom, which is also on the first floor). In the ten years we’ve lived in this house we’ve never fully settled on a name for this space – it alternatively goes by family room, living room, main room, and sometimes just “out there” if we’re in the bedroom – but main room will do for today’s purposes :)
The last time I shared a full look at this space was in 2015, two years after moving into our home and before we had any kids. Since then, I’ve shared details here and there, like our upgraded toy storage, my desk/family command center, and our dining room chairs. My style has evolved over the years, too, shifting from more colorful and cute to warm and classic. With craftsmen in our home for our kitchen refresh, we took the opportunity to make a few final updates (for now! ;)) to this space, too. I love how it’s looking these days, so come on in!
The centerpiece of our dining area is our table. I found it in an antiques shop in Connecticut many years ago; my parents generously gave it to me as a college graduation gift (it was about $300). It is a heavy sucker, and has beautifully carried us through life from a party of two in an apartment to a family of five who regularly hosts Articles Club. (At its smallest, it is a four-top, and with several leaves, easily expands to seat 12!)
We replaced the chandelier last year with our kitchen refresh and… it is not my favorite. We went with the inexpensive choice (it was $120), and I think it shows – the finish looks cheap next to the rest of the kitchen hardware, and it hangs a little wonky. I’m considering eventually replacing it with this or this – feel free to let me know which one you prefer, or if you have another suggestion for me! – but am okay with it as-is for now.
Our colorful bookshelf is still going strong! I re-sorted it a few years ago so that it no longer goes in rainbow order from top to bottom, but instead has the lightest books on the top and then descends in a sort of colorful gradient (and, of course, our beloved ice cream station reigns on the bottom shelf). My Irish dancing crown, CWM conversation cards, and my childhood piggy bank are dotted in there, too. Sometimes I get the urge to shuffle all the colors together, but that feels like a lot of work :)
Seating Area
And here’s the rest of the space! It’s come a long way from the early days, and I’m pleased with it – it works hard for our family and feels like a cozy hug.
The most recent upgrade to this space was the fireplace surround. Before, it had a thin, dated mantel and tile that matched our old kitchen backsplash. I gave our handyman an inspiration photo and asked him to build a classic and more substantial mantel, and he did a fantastic job. He also replaced the tile with the same kind we used in the kitchen backsplash. So, so pleased with this update!
These chairs were a splurge several years ago. They’re comfy, such a classic style, and I love that they’re made in North Carolina. I did waffle over whether cream was the right choice with little kids, but I made a decision and have made it the right one :) I do keep my favorite spray close at hand and assume we’ll need to reupholster them at some point down the line (a soft green or maybe navy could be lovely!) and so try not to be too precious about them in the moment.
Our TV is somewhat laughably small, mostly because we bought it a long ago, but it kind of tracks for our family :) I like that it’s visually almost tucked into the gallery wall.
The sideboard was a very lucky find at HomeGoods a few years ago, and does a bang-up job at storing board games (there are more in the chest), puzzles, drawing paper, a bin full of cars, and our collection of Magna Tiles. Train tracks and LEGOs are in the two rope bins.
Our gallery wall is due for a little updating, but it makes me happy: it includes everything from a painting I inherited from my grandmother, of the view out her window, to an old dinner plate from our Maine cottage. The painting of my bouquet by my sister-in-law and our framed wedding invitation (still obsessed ten years later) are two of my other favorites. The disco ball came home with me on our last day in the NC Cultivate offices – a reminder of the good times we had together in our lovely space :)
Say hello again to none other than the tan sofa I waxed poetic about in this post. She’s an old gal (we’ve had 12 years together!), but still going strong. This purchase represented one of my and John’s first big leaps into adulthood; we saved for months to afford the $700 price tag. It is incredibly comfortable, the velvet fabric is impervious to stains, and the practical color hides the dust of daily life effectively. It’s wonderful to have a piece of furniture the kids can go nuts on, especially when I’m a little more precious about our cream armchairs.
The big frames are a fun conversation piece: they hold four photos we took on our travels, including snaps from Michigan, Yosemite, Nevis, and France.
Hallway
Finally, we purchased three of these bulletin boards a year ago to hold artwork for our three kids. They’re a cheerful addition to the back hallway and the kids love curating their personal galleries.
If I’ve missed something you’re curious about, happy to share – just drop a note in the comments. And thank you again to Honeysuckle Collective for a few of these photos!
Friends, it’s one thing to invite you into my thoughts, and another into our home – even if virtually! I hope you enjoyed this peek at our space. It’s always fun to be able to picture the backdrop to a story, isn’t it? :)
