I’ve been going back and forth on whether I wanted to write a reflection post on the month of August. Honestly, August felt like the longest month of my life. June and July flew by and I can barely even remember them. August seemed to last forever. It was five very long weeks packed with adventure, excitement, turmoil, sadness, pain, irritability, exhaustion, and memories. Lots of good, lots of bad. A huge part of me just feels like saying good riddance and forgetting about it all together because it’s already done and over. But I feel like I’m doing myself a disservice not to briefly reflect on it, because reflecting is how I make positive changes and move forward with my life in the right direction. But I will try to be quick! My mind is currently MUCH more focused on September and all the awesomeness that will begin tomorrow WHEN SCHOOL STARTS!!!
I had four goals in August and I think it really helped to keep them to a minimum and keep them obtainable! I’ll have to keep that in mind tomorrow when I write my post about September/fall goals!
1. Make Memories!
I definitely made a lot of memories this past month. We had our little cottage weekend vacation with Greg’s parents and relatives. I had my solo vacation to Minnesota which was equal parts fun and frustration. We had our family trip to La Crosse which went really well, not counting all the bed bug stress (but hey, it was a memory that we’ll NEVER forget!). We took care of Hudson and had two night sleepover. Caden got to see two theater movies with Greg and Shepard and I had a nice Mod Pizza date night. We spent another day with Greg’s relatives which is always enjoyable. The boys had tons of low key friend time with the neighborhood gang. I had a couple of evenings and a Saturday to myself, which I always appreciate A TON in summer when it’s so rare. Greg and I had a date night at a local restaurant. And the boys, my mom, and I had a really special day in Madison together. We were busy! We also had a whole lot of crappy things happen in August, but I think the good outweighed the bad.
2. Read 12 or more books!
I really tried to make reading one of my highest priorities this month, just because it makes me so happy. It’s always hard to get much genuine work done with kids running around all day in the summer, but I’m always able to read. I gave myself plenty of opportunity and validation to spend hours a day some days, just lounging and reading. It was pretty awesome! I read 12 books in total, just as I’d hoped. Books and reading are such a huge part of my life and my biggest hobby and I liked giving myself permission to just go ahead and do it when it’s the only thing I felt like.
3. Make and start an end of summer/fall doll schedule.
I wasn’t super successful with this. With over a week of vacation at the beginning of the month and a whole bunch of stressful chaotic things happening the last two weeks of the month, it didn’t give me much time to work. I did make a batch of back to school dolls, which went over pretty well. I also ordered more fall and Halloween fabrics to make some fresh new dolls when I have more time. I was hoping to have a big release of new dolls tomorrow, on the first day of school, but the weird pinched nerve in my back these last four days prevented me from ever sitting down and working. Oh well, that’s just life. I know that summer is a very slow time for producing and for sales. I just expected more of myself this year after all the time off I needed to take after I broke my ankle in spring. But I’ll just need to remember next year that working simply can’t be my highest priority. It’s easier as the boys get older, but I still need to be available to them. I will have to make up for this in September.
4. Write every possible day.
Well, this was a big fat fail! As I feel like I’ve already explained three times, this month turned out to be insane. August is usually one of our slowest months of the year and this year it was so busy and packed and exhausting. I just did not have the mental energy or physical time to sit down and write in the ways I had hoped. Reading, which requires a lot less effort, was my go to when I got any sort of break from everything life was throwing at us. And I’m okay with it. But I do truly hope to start writing a lot more often in the future months.
Overall, I’d say it was one of my best summers to date. It helps that the boys keep themselves pretty entertained on their own now, especially if their friends are available to play. We didn’t go on as many day trips as we usually do, but we still had a lot of fun times together. I think that at least until this last week when I was just DONE, I kept a pretty good attitude and accepted the chaos instead of being incredibly overwhelmed by it (most of the time). I appreciate these few months a year I get to see my kids all day every day. I LOVE when they go back to school, but I did a really good job of pushing that out of my mind and not wishing the days away. As a whole, it was a good summer. But I’m also really glad it’s over. 🙂
(Side note: This photo is from a week and a half ago when I randomly decided to dye my hair for the first time in ten years. Can you tell?? Probably not! I don’t think a single person noticed. I was trying to keep it as close to my natural color, just hoping for a bit more vibrancy. I guess I picked a little too close because it looks EXACTLY the same.)
