July: The Calm Between Two Storms {+ August 2023 Goals} -

Yikes, I’m getting this out super late.

Between Matt unexpectedly losing his job and school starting up again and us being in the peak of flower farming season, things have been crazy over here. I’m not even going to try and make this as detailed as I normally do, simply because I just need to get it posted before we’re already in September.

For a quick update on July though, it was (thankfully) the low-key month we all needed. It was all about finding a new routine with Naomi at home, especially when it came to balancing my time between hers and the other kids’ needs as well as my flower farm duties. I was so relieved to be home all the time again that I just leaned into creating a good rhythm with everything, and it really helped that Matt finally installed the drip irrigation on our farm so that he was no longer needing to water every other night for two hours or so. Naomi also took so well to being at home — she was able to completely go off supplemental oxygen in July and was growing like crazy; she averaged a weight gain of an ounce a day for basically almost the whole month after she got home!

We’d been told to lie low with the baby and not take her out though until she was about four months old or so, so we spent a lot of good time together as a family enjoying the new pool we got from Sam’s Club, playing outside, enjoying our favorite games to play together as a family (1, 2, 3), and going on a few little day trips to go out to eat or go to a park. We also took the kids to the local parade for the 4th of July, and our neighbors invited our two oldest kids over for fireworks. The funnest thing though was probably that we signed the three older kids up for swimming lessons at our local pool, so we got to enjoy swim time every day for half the month.

All in all, it was a super low-key summer once Naomi got home from the NICU, but it’s exactly the way I would have wanted it, especially since I know that when our kids start to get older, they’ll spend a lot of their summers out of the house and hanging out with friends. I’m sure enjoying this season of motherhood right now while they’re still young but are starting to get old enough to really help out!

Onto how my goals for last month went, though:

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July Goals

Get insurance situation sorted out
- This has gotten so much worse…it has seriously turned into such a nightmare. I thought that absolutely for sure this would be over with by the end of July, but I’m not even sure it will be taken care of by the end of August judging by how things have gone. I’ll hope for the best though.
~~Plant shrubs~~
- We’re creating a new perennial garden area, and I’M SO EXCITED about it! We bought three shrubs that also have the added bonus of being great for cut flower use, and Matt put them in near the beginning of the month.
~~Install drip irrigation~~
- Phew, this has been a long time coming! My husband has been hand watering our flower farm since we started it back in 2021, so to say this is a relief to finally have finished is the understatement of the year.

Get quote on deck, kitchen flooring
- Nope, and now with us dealing with virtually no income thanks to the job loss, this will likely not happen for awhile yet.
Repaint laundry doors
- Nope, no time in July. Rollover goal.
Completely declutter master closet (my stuff, anyway)
- I didn’t completely declutter it, but I sure made a ton of progress, plus I made larger strides in my minimalism journey, which I mention below and which I want to do a post on soon.

~~Take another load to the donation center~~
- Check! And it was another massive one.
~~Cut Raven’s hair~~
- She’s been begging me to do this for months, and I finally gave in. I love her long hair, but she is totally thrilled with how much easier her short hair is to take care of.
Cut Matt’s and the boys’ hair
- Rollover to August.

Publish 3-part series on our NICU stay
- Rollover to August.
Finish 3 books
- Believe it or not, I actually read four! Getting back into the habit of reading while I pump milk (instead of watching YouTube videos) has been the trick. I finished A Little Princess (family read aloud), Eat That Frog (totally see why this is a classic), The Psychology of Money (definitely lived up to the hype for me), and The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (concept is brilliant and life-changing, but writing was just so-so).

Other (Unplanned) Wins:

Completely decluttered our master bathroom
- I was originally just going for the closet, but I needed an easier win, so I went for the bathroom 🙂 It feels soooo much better.
Created master plan for decluttering the entire house
- I’m doing some MAJOR decluttering around here, so much so that I’m planning a post all about my process. It’s been astounding really how much of a difference it’s already making in our home, and I’ve just started!

I set all my goals for August at the end of July (well before the shock of Matt’s job loss had happened), so it’s definitely interesting to see how certain priorities have had to shift. I still want to get around to all the ones here, but necessity dictates that we put a few off for awhile.

Here’s the official list though: