Phew.
That’s how I think I’m going to feel after every August that we do the flower farm.
August was nuts.
And of course, because I sometimes have a hard time pacing myself, I also decided that it was a great time to take on massive amounts of decluttering and simplifying in the house, which, while it did help a lot in cutting down on the general housework and tidying that needed to happen daily, the process eventually became its own stressor.
By the end, I was clearly burnt out and my mental health was definitely not great, so the end of the month found me slowing waaaaay down, starting to exercise a tiny bit again (I’ve been able to start running for the first time in years because my back is totally fixed!!), and doing a lot of introspection. While I haven’t 100% felt like I’m back to my “normal” levels of motivation and handling stress without anxiety and such, I’ve got some good tools to help me better manage everything, and I’m overall doing much better now as we start the new month.
Note: There are affiliate links to books and products mentioned in the post.
August Goals
Even though I kept August’s goals list relatively short, I still hardly got anything on it crossed off. I did make a ton of progress on our house in general though, even though I can’t technically put a line through any room or space as being 100% done.
A lot of our projects are often done on weekends, and since we were doing the farmer’s market every Saturday, that basically took up all our “project” time. However, we did SO much better at this year’s farmer’s market, and we got a lot more business than anticipated in general, which was a huge boost for us not just financially but also for morale when it comes to continuing with the farm.
We were also super proud of Raven — she wanted to try selling some of her watercolors and artwork at the farmer’s market, and she sold out of nearly everything she brought every week. Mathias saw how much money she was making and wanted to join in too by the end, so for the last two weeks, they both sold their watercolors. Even though they spent about half or more of their earned money every week at the farmer’s market, we still feel like it was a really good learning experience for both of them 🙂
Other happenings: Raven started second grade, we fit in a lot of family fun wherever we can, and we also worked on building up more friendships with the people in our neighborhood.
Onto the goals, though:
- Get a haircut
- Sigh. Why is it so hard for me to get this done? I think part of it is because I haven’t tried any stylists down here yet, and that’s generally very much a trial-and-error process, which is not exactly fun. The other part is that during this season of my life, it seems hard to carve out two hours during salon hours to have just to myself. Nevertheless, this still desperately needs to happen.
Give Matt + the kids haircuts- This was much easier logistically to get done because ever since we invested in this home haircutting kit, we’ve just taught ourselves how to cut all the kids’ hair, and I’ve taught myself how to cut Matt’s (and it actually looks pretty good, too!). Definitely one of the smartest purchases we ever made, as it’s already saved us hundreds of dollars.
- Finish editing photo session
- Yikes, this is so bad that I still haven’t done this. Rollover goal.
Make a trip to the donation center- We made a massive trip at the end of the month where we probably got rid of a dozen huge boxes, in addition to some other larger items that just went by themselves. I also sold a couple things on Facebook Marketplace, and even though we still have a ways to go, our house is already about ten times more manageable.
- Paint and hang new laundry doors
- We did at least take a paint swatch from the old doors and take it to Home Depot to get paint matched, so we at least have the paint mixed up and ready to go. Now we just need to devote an evening or weekend to the job.
- Remove painting tape in master closet
- Why am I so adept at procrastinating home tasks? This would take me maybe 45 minutes, yet I still haven’t done it yet, and we painted the closet at the end of December.
- Price out and measure for baseboards
- Nope. But we need to.
- Entirely declutter and organize master bedroom
- I’m quite proud of how much progress I’ve made in our bedroom, but we’re not quite there yet–I still have three boxes to go through and a shoe rack to declutter stuff off of and then probably get rid of the rack itself. But it’s looking much tidier overall.
List Buick- After being on my to-do list for over a year and a half, I finally got it done! And it’s SOLD AND GONE! Hooray for being able to put an extra thick line through this particular nagging task 🙂
- Fix doorbell
- I think Matt did try and take another look at it, but it’s still broken. Rollover goal.
September Goals
Seeing as we’re already a third of the way into the month, I sure have pretty high expectations about just how much is going to happen in the next three weeks 🙂 I will note that many of these are actually fun items though, just because I know if I don’t write them down, they won’t always happen, and our family is really trying to work on planning more quality time together.
This is the month when we expect to receive our first frost, which effectively means the end of the more active selling part of the flower farm. While I used to dread the coming on of winter, flower farming has definitely taught me to embrace the fallow season, as we ALL really need it after months and months of pretty intense growing and harvesting. So, in addition to all the items below, we’ll be wrapping up all our bouquet subscriptions and the pay-it-forward bouquet program we do, as well as starting to prep the beds for winter. Pretty crazy!
Here’s the official goals list:
- Get a haircut
- Rollover goal.
- Go on one-on-one dates with each of the kids
- This is a new thing Matt and I are going to try. We’ve said that one of the dates with one of the parents can be a date that costs up to $5, and the other date with the other parent needs to be something that’s free. That way the cost is minimal for the month, but we can still carve out the individual time that our kids are needing more and more the older they get.
- Go to a u-pick orchard
- ‘Tis the season!
- Go on a hike
- It has been insanely hot lately since we’ve been in a massive heat wave for about two weeks. Thankfully it’s just about over, and since the flower farming season is also starting to wind down, it’s the perfect time to start doing all the hiking we’ve been meaning to do ever since we moved here.
- Go to the temple
- The temple right by our house has been closed for nearly a year now, which makes going regularly tricky. Our next nearest one is about an hour and twenty minutes away. However, we really miss going frequently, so we want to start seeing if we can try to fit it in about once a month. It’s not quite as good as the weekly visits we were doing before, but it’s better than nothing. (To see what temples are and why they’re important to my faith, you can click here.)
- Do something fun to celebrate mine and Matt’s birthdays
- Thanks to my mom, our plans for this are already in the works!
- Buy new running shoes for both Matt and me
- Both of us have holes in our running shoes and desperately need to buy new ones. Since we’ll be going up to “the big city” a couple times this month, we’ll try to fit it in one of those times.
- Fix clog in master bathroom sink
- We have two sinks in our master bathroom, which means this has been put off for a lot longer than is acceptable 🙂
- Paint and hang new laundry doors
- Rollover goal.
- Remove painting tape in master closet
- Rollover goal.
- Price out and measure for baseboards
- Rollover goal.
- Finish decluttering and organizing master bedroom
- I’m not sure this will get done this month–even though I’m getting really close–but I’m leaving it on the list anyway!
- Fix doorbell
- The new eterni-goal, apparently.
- Finish three books off my Summer Reading List
- I haven’t been finishing nearly as many books off of these for the past two summers since that’s when flower farming season is, but I’m currently in the middle of three books off of it that I should be able to finish by the end of the month: Garden Maker, The Anthropocene Reviewed, and Love & Saffron.
- Finish photo session
- Rollover goal.
- Leave two positive reviews for small businesses online
- Now that I’m a small business owner myself, I see firsthand how important online reviews often are, especially when people are just finding us for the first time. Since I’ve been asking people to leave reviews for us, I feel like it’s only right that I take the time to leave a few myself and spread the love!
What are your plans for the month? Are you ready for the official start of fall to come, complete with its first frost and everything? Or are you wishing summer could stay just a bit longer?
