This last month has been a total doozy–I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to see a summer come to a close, though the advent of the new school year comes with its own challenges (especially since we unexpectedly ended up homeschooling this year).
I don’t tend to delve into problems much on the blog because I’d rather focus on solutions and the things that I CAN control, but just so you have some background on my last month, here were the things that made August particularly challenging:
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- 1 – Since the company Matt works for is still located over an hour away (where we used to live), he has started to spend Monday through Thursday staying up in Cache Valley to be closer to work so that he doesn’t have to commute for two and a half hours a day.
- While this saves us a ton on gas money and makes it so that Matt is able to have way more free time (because he doesn’t have that long commute), it does mean that a lot more has fallen on my shoulders during the week. Thankfully, my mom is a huge help when she’s around (as we’re living with her and my stepdad), so I’m not totally on my own.
- I know some couples thrive with a bit of regular time apart, but we’ve always hated to be separated from each other for long. Not only do I miss having my other parenting half around, I just miss having Matt around, period. As cheesy and cliche as it sounds, he really is my best friend, so this last month has not been my favorite.
- 2 – Our search for our next house / place to live has been extremely frustrating, to say the least.
- I loathe being a buyer in this current housing market, and I’m sad that we left a house that we truly loved to maybe only be left with an option of a house that’s just “livable” but not necessarily “lovable.” Prices have exploded everywhere, and even the amount we sold our house for doesn’t seem to even be able to get us the same amount of house or as nice of a house as we had before.
- 3 – Homeschooling–while it has been going well enough–is very time-consuming, and since I’m on my own for much of the week, it’s made my days with three young kids even more exhausting than before.
- I’m struggling to fit in necessary tasks such as showering or paying bills, much less doing things I love like reading or going to the gym regularly or blogging.
- 4 – I never thought this would happen to me, but my laptop got hacked and I came thisclose to getting spammed out of at least $250, if not more.
- Seriously, this has been one of the most stressful things that has ever happened to me. Not only was all of my personal data and passwords and everything compromised, but the whole experience has just left me feeling paranoid that I can’t trust anybody and like I’ve somehow been “marked” now.
- Tip for you: If your computer gets taken over and frozen with a message that you’ve been infected with malware and a screen that looks just like a technical help screen that’s built into your machine comes up, DO NOT CALL THE NUMBER. Instead, turn off your computer, disable it from the Internet, and use a different device to call the technical support number for your device.
Sorry for the vent-fest—like I said, I’d rather focus on solutions than problems, but I wanted to let you know where I was coming from this month.
Let’s get to the goals recap though, shall we?
August Goals
Transfer phone service to Google FI and order a smartphone for me (!)- While we could have stuck with Tello for cheaper coverage (or gone with another similar service), we decided to pay a bit more a month (though not nearly as much as from the “big” mobile companies) to switch to Google FI because they offered the best coverage for the price in the area that we’re going to be moving to.
- I ended up ordering my (first!) smartphone from them too, and so far, so good. It’s absolutely huge compared to any flipphone I’ve ever had, but the GPS feature has already saved me a few times, and it’s been great having a way to video chat with Matt while he’s away from us so much of the week.
Set up appointment with specialized massage therapist- I was hoping to actually have GOTTEN my first massage with said therapist by now, but he was booked out until the end of September, so I still haven’t seen if massage will be the final key to fixing my back or not. But the appointment has been made, so we will see!
Purchase gym membership- If you read my recent post on how I’m trying to lose the baby weight this third time around, you’ll already know that I’ve done this and started going already. It’s made zero difference on the scale, but it is definitely helping my mental health, which is just as important.
- Send in homeschooling affidavit
- I have this printed and filled out, but I still need to get it notarized and sent in. Rollover goal for September.
- Plan out first quarter of homeschooling
- I have quickly seen that my initial plan to work out a detailed plan quarter by quarter was not feasible, as I need to remain pretty flexible to meet my daughter’s needs. I think a better approach will be to do a VERY rough sketch of when I want to tackle certain units that are not reading or math (such as the sunflower science/nature unit I want to do in the spring) and call it good.
Start homeschool- Done! If you want more details on how it’s been going thus far, you can check that out on my other blog.
- Start teaching Raven piano lessons
- Nope—it was pretty immediately clear that we needed to get in a firm homeschool schedule/routine before I threw another big thing into the mix, so I’m resetting this as a goal for September (but still probably won’t start until close to the end of the month).
- Call about van key
- My time to work on anything other than immediate-needs childcare and homeschool is almost nonexistent, so I’ve been having a really hard time doing random household tasks like this one. Rollover goal.
Unpack and organize- I can only take credit for about half of this getting done (as my mom dove right in and did the other half for me), but done is done. We are officially moved in and unpacked!
- Make four recipes out of Taste of Home’s Most Requested Recipes
- Sigh. I always hate to admit defeat, but it’s become clear that I’m going to need to throw out this particular resolution for the year, along with several of my other 2020 resolutions. I mean, this year just has REALLY not gone as I expected it to in January…(as I’m sure all of you can say as well!)
Get my eyes checkedand my glasses fixed- I went in for an eye appointment at the very beginning of the month, which was my first eye exam in over a decade…and it showed. My prescription needed to be quite a bit stronger than it was before, and I also learned that my old glasses were unfixable because of where the frames had been broken. I ended up ordering two new pairs from , but I haven’t gotten them yet. I will say this though—money-wise, Zenni blows any walk-in optical center out of the water with their prices! (You can get $5 off your first order if you sign up through my referral link .)
September Goals
- Start brainstorming my next 101 in 1001 list
- My first 101 in 1001 list‘s deadline is October 7th, so it’s time to get crackin’ on a new one! I do kind of want to hold off on finalizing this until we know for sure where we’ll be living next, but I can at least start on brainstorming the goals I have that aren’t tied to where we’ll be living.
- Plan something fun for our birthdays
- Both my husband and I have birthdays at the end of this month, so we need to plan something fun to celebrate!
- Go on day adventure
- It’s been way too long since we’ve done a little day adventure as a family. We used to do them monthly almost without fail (and I LOVED how it gave us something to look forward to!), but the pandemic and the move and the general craziness of life right now has just really put a wrench in things. Time to find a socially distanced activity to break our dry spell!
- Get a haircut
- Now that I live closer to my favorite stylist, you’d better believe I’m going to take advantage!
- Spray paint jewelry box
- Something I want to start getting comfortable (and good at) doing is remaking/reimagining furniture pieces, so I figured I’d start small with my jewelry box. My plan is to spray paint it with black chalkboard paint and then spray paint the hardware too. I’m excited to see how it will turn out!
- Finish The Age of Innocence and Daring Greatly
- If I finish these two books, I’ll able to knock three more items off of my 101 in 1001 list—finishing five classics from this list, finishing five Pulitzer prize winners, and reading five books recommended by five different people.
- Finish the process of securing our online protection and financial identities
- I’ve done all the most urgent and mid-level urgent things—now I need to work on getting everything in place so that even if they were to sell or use my data years and years down the road, we would still be protected. The whole process is such a pain, but I guess the good thing that came out of it is that we’ve never been more cautious about securing our identities and assets.
- Call about van key
- Rollover goal.
- Give Raven’s hair a trim
- We literally haven’t trimmed Raven’s hair in years. We’re waaaay overdue!
- Start teaching piano to Raven
- Rollover goal.
- Send in homeschool affidavit
- Rollover goal.
PLEASE send good vibes that our September will be a bit less stressful!!! 🙂
