You may or may not have noticed, but August was the first month I didn’t do a 10 on 10 post since I started doing them all the way back in February 2016. The truth was, they started to stress me out because of the sheer number of photos, plus I got a little tired of the format and wanted a way to switch things up.
The great thing about the blogging community is that there are always bloggers doing awesome ideas for posts, so I got this fabulous idea from Rebecca Jo, who basically writes down one sentence per day each month as a fun way of recording what’s going on in her life. Of course, me being Ms. Wordy, I basically never was able to stick to just one sentence, but it’s the thought that counts!
(Note: the photos may not always have to do with the day’s recap, but I wanted a place to put some of the cute ones from that day, anyway!)
8/1 (Tues) – My body hurt from painting all day yesterday, so I spent an impressive amount of the day reading and later having a surprisingly deep conversation with Matt (surprising just because he randomly asked, out of the blue, what deep thoughts I’d been having lately…and he got an earful of ’em). Started reading over Matt’s first novel that he’s finally finished his first draft of and making edits.
8/2 (Wed) – Got extended a new church calling in our new ward (to be announced Sunday to the world at large) and had a sub in my boxing/bags class, who proceeded to make me want to simultaneously both quit right then and there AND hit the bag even harder than I already was before.
8/3 (Thurs) – Decided to elevate Thursday dinner a bit and make Matt’s latest favorite (sweet and sour chicken) over rice and broccoli. Got an impressive amount accomplished around the house during the afternoon (all boxes cleared from basement family room, DVD bookshelf set up and loaded, dishes all done, downstairs bathroom taped off for the final touching-up of paint).
8/4 (Friday) – Took a book to the park for the first time when I walked Raven over in the morning. Crazy she’s old enough now to play on the majority of the toys at the park without needing constant supervision and physical guidance.
8/5 (Saturday) – Finished up the last of the painting in the downstairs bathroom and finally got it set up and ready for guests next weekend. Took a family date to Sam’s Club (for lunch and to buy more toilet paper!) and to a new splash pad.
8/6 (Sunday) – Got called as a teacher in the Primary, over the 8- and 9-year-olds. I may be speaking too soon, but it seems like it should be a relatively well-behaved group of kids. Also, we bribed our friends still living in our old neighborhood in Logan with blackberries so that they would come out and help us move some dressers into the house (and play games after, of course). Lastly (but most importantly), got the news that my younger brother got engaged! EEK! So exciting 🙂
8/7 (Monday) – Got woken up at 6:45 in the morning to Raven wanting help down from her bed (where we’d just put the mattress up off the floor and onto the frame the night before). Hopefully this earlier rising time is not a permanent effect from the change in her sleeping situation.
8/8 (Tuesday) – Exterminator came to spray down the metropolis of wasp nests we had going on while I feverishly read for hours (due to a book being due back first thing tomorrow morning AND my first book club meeting ever being tomorrow night!). I put some more finishing touches on our front room, though it’s still not really “finished.”
8/9 (Wednesday) -Finally attended the first book club meeting of my life tonight and wondered why it’s taken me until almost 31 to do so, since I’m a book freak. Now I’m tempted to join multiple, just for the fun of it!
8/10 (Thursday) – Took an unscheduled trip to the county fair to support a coworker of Matt’s, who was competing in a local singing competition. Kept Raven up way past bedtime, but it was worth it!
8/11 (Friday) – A last-minute mad rush to get the house ready, as my whole family came to stay overnight with us. The night consisted of Mexican haystacks, playing at the park, and thunderstorms keeping everyone from sleeping too much (oh, and s’mores of course!).
8/12 (Saturday) – Fun in the sun and water, all day long, with the whole fam. Simultaneously chaotic and relaxing, a memorable day that was capped off in the best way possible, with Aggie ice cream. (Note: there are waaaaay more pictures coming from this weekend, but they’ll eventually get a post of their own…I just have to work up the motivation to sift through them all! I literally took hundreds.)
8/13 (Sunday) – A triple whammy of a Sunday—Matt and I gave talks in church, I gave my first lesson to the Primary kids, and I had a (short) teacher training after the 3-hour block of meetings. Whew!
8/14 (Monday) – Went shopping at Walmart, which only happens about twice a year because I HATE shopping at Walmart. Luckily, I found exactly what I was looking for (which, coincidentally, might actually get a blog post all of its own if it ends up being as effective as I think it might be).
8/15 (Tuesday) – Took Raven to the library so she could play for a half hour on the interactive computers there. Slowly but surely, she’s starting to get the hang of those things (at the very least, she at least likes wearing the headphones now instead of being kinda scared of them!)
8/16 (Wednesday) – Two of my nieces came up to spend the day with Raven so I could I hopefully get some stuff done around the house. What actually happened was that I spent most of my time making meals and cleaning up from meals, but I’m thrilled at how much fun they had together. (They especially seemed to love going to the splash pad!)
8/17 (Thursday) – Met my sister halfway to drop off my nieces, who spent the morning playing with Raven at the park and eating homemade waffles (which my niece says are “actually better than Eggo waffles,” so high praise indeed).
8/18 (Friday) – Started packing for our vacay to Idaho this weekend…food always takes the longest to figure out. (Note: We still overpacked on food, even though I thought we’d be about spot-on!)
8/19 (Saturday) – Drove up to Twin Falls to kick off our eclipse weekend! I brought a good book to read while Matt escaped for a few hours to play disc golf with his brothers.
8/20 (Sunday) – Went to the first hour of a random ward (LDS church congregation) in Idaho, then headed up to the farm where we were going to watch the eclipse happen. Got there an hour before anyone who actually knew the people who owned the farm, so we felt a bit like trespassers, especially since we got there when no one was home…
8/21 (Monday) – ECLIPSE DAY, BABY!
8/22 (Tuesday) – Started a sugar detox since I ate so poorly over the weekend. You know it must have been bad when my body didn’t even put up its normal withdrawal defenses when I went off it.
8/23 (Wednesday) – Skipped out on my boxing/bags class for the second week in a row–my body’s been really struggling lately. Am worried that my AI disease might be starting a flare-up again. (But I still managed a short 2-mile run!). Made blackberry jam to use up some of the scads and scads of blackberries we’ve got growing right now.
8/24 (Thursday) – Started hardcore potty training (aka, no more diapers, ever). Survived (though I didn’t get to bed until 3 AM because I was paranoid about her pooping in bed and because she actually did need a sheets change around midnight thanks to a vigorous pee).
8/25 (Friday) – Potty training continued, and we (Raven and I) started to go a little crazy being cooped up in the house, but I was scared to death to leave. It’s hard to say if much progress has been made, but she at least stayed dry through her nap (while yesterday she had two major poops during it, so…definitely progress there).
8/26 (Saturday) – Since Matt was off work and could watch the potty trainee, I was able to go to my Zumba class in the morning, the temple right after that, AND the grocery store all by myself. It felt like a pretty luxurious Saturday, to be sure!
8/27 (Sunday) – The Primary leadership combined the Primary class I’d been teaching with the one just below it, so instead of just having 4-5 kids to teach every Sunday, I now have about 12-13. Today was a little…rough, but hopefully it will get better as we go along. (Today was also the first day Raven had NO accidents! Woo hoo! I think it did help that we only took her to the first hour of church, rather than to all 3. It was largely because she’s been sick for a few days, but the potty training was a good excuse, too!)
8/28 (Monday) – Watched my neighbor’s baby in the morning and counted my lucky stars that he was super easy because Raven had like 3 major accidents today. Two steps forward, one step back, I guess.
8/29 (Tuesday) – Felt extra grateful for Matt after I didn’t have him around in the morning at all since he left super early for work today (in order to take advantage of a fun skeet shooting opportunity his boss told him about). So glad to have an extra pair of hands pretty much every morning for a couple of hours to get us off on the right foot! In other news, made a treat with Raven that involved honey rather than sugar, so I didn’t have to feel guilty about it not fitting into my whole “sugar-free” thing at the moment.
8/30 (Wednesday) – One day, I shall remember on Tuesday night to take all the garbage cans out to the curb so that I’m not running (literally running) outside in my pajamas every Wednesday morning at approximately 7:05 a.m. to barely beat the truck to our stop. Today was not that day. (And man, that truck driver is sure probably getting sick of me repeating this little ritual every darn week, though I think he laughs to himself about it every time as he drives away.)
8/31 (Thursday) – Attempted our first trip to the park since potty training. Of course, we ended up getting rained out, which meant that Raven still got wet either way…
In doing this, I realized it’s kind of eye-opening to keep track of what you do every day for a month—it makes you realize how much stuff goes on in just a 31-day period!
How was your August? (And if you care to weigh in whether you prefer 10 on 10 or this new Sentence-a-Day post, I’m all ears!)
