Hi, friends! This coffee date is brought to you by a pumpkin cream cold brew and a quiet early morning writing session, courtesy of our kids sleeping over with family (thank youuuu!). August was chock full, and also so so hot. Let's catch up a bit...

Settling into routine

We're over a month into our school year and I've started to notice that we're settling into routine. Our mornings are going smoothly and I'm really enjoying being back in a work routine. Our days are not without parenting challenges but I always really notice how good the routine of school is for our kids and our family: the structure, the time apart and then enjoying being back together again, and our kids interacting with adults who are not us. I'm thankful to find ourselves here again!

Our school year routine hasn't fully come online however because both of the boys will play a sport this semester and those have yet to start. I'm curious to see how our weeks feel once those practices and games start. I think we could feel quite busy but in a good way (she says hopefully).

 Each of the kids will be involved in two activities and while we generally have tried not to have too much going on this feels good for all of them right now. The summers are so long and hot (and continue! this week it will be 111º!) so we need stuff to keep everyone busy. And I love the interests and skills they are pursuing in their activities. For Dash it's improv, soccer, and drums (at band in school), for Cedric improv and basketball, and for Maeve swimming and musical theater (or whatever you would call singing and dancing for four year olds haha).

Working a lot

In August I put in many work hours to prepare for my Everyday Habits, Routines, and Rituals workshop (register, or read more about it). I'm so proud of myself and really excited for the content. I'm also really looking forward to officially kicking off the workshop on September 9th and enjoying interacting with everyone in the workshop. I had several work sessions in August of being completely immersed in the workshop content for hours, where I felt in a flow state, and it's so enjoyable. I can happily work for hours writing, designing, and planning. I'm nowhere near making up the income I was earning from my full time job with my own work, but I have a start and I feel a lot of momentum.

Creative work is interesting because, at least for me at this point in my career, no one commissions me to do things. I have an idea and if I want to make it happen I just have to do it: envision in, making the time to do it, and hope that people value what I create. It can be a little scary, and daunting, to create something from scratch and to put it out into the world without someone else telling you, "This is what we want you to do and how to do it." But the creative freedom and sense of accomplishment that comes from making something that I love and feel passionate about is so much more than working on someone else's idea. I have a color-coded spreadsheet (are you surprised?) of all the projects I plan to work on over the next few years and get excited thinking about all that I want to do.

A family trip to Karchner Caverns State Park

In August Chris took a guys' trip, I took a girls' trip, and we took a family trip to Karchner Caverns State Park. Honestly I can't believe we fit it all in! But I'm so glad we did. At Karchner Caverns we stayed in a state park cabin for the first time, and were pleasantly surprised! We had beds, air conditioning, and a fridge and microwave. A few highlights include: Cedric being in his outdoor element on the trip, touring the mind-blowing cave with our family, and sitting in the breeze shade and reading for two hours one afternoon.

A favorite annual trip

In August my book club took it's annual trip to Sedona: ahhhhhh. It was wonderful, as always, and also always go by too fast. Although we see each other monthly throughout the year, on our Sedona trips we get to have those weekend-long conversations and get deeply caught up with each other. And, because our Sedona trip has been happening for so many years, it's an annual touchstone where I think back to what my life was like a year ago, two, and more, and reflect on what life feels like this year. I'm happy to say that this year I felt even better about so many things across my life than last year. What a lovely feeling, and it makes me look forward to what I'll notice about life on next year's Sedona trip.

Other August tidbits

A few other things I want to remember about this August...

+ Dash has learned to make cookies from start to finish, including cleaning the kitchen. Maeve was his assistant chef one evening and he was so sweet and patient with her.

+ Taking Maeve to swim lessons is my favorite thing right now. I love watching her make progress on such an important skill, especially when we started with so many tears and fear. She is our timid girl and watching her be brave and try her best makes my heart soar.

+ We've had a few afternoons with dark clouds, even thunder and lightening, and one dramatic dust storm. But barely a drop of rain. We miss rain so, so much. I've lived here for 16 years now and it does feel like the summers are getting hotter and drier. Ugh.

+ One Sunday afternoon I took Maeve to the library, and then for a frozen strawberry lemonade. We parked in the shade, shared our cold drink, and listened to Descendants music. I loved it and was envisioning Sunday outings with my girl through the years and what those might look like over time.

+ Lately we've had a few sweet family afternoons and dinners where Chris and I looked up, caught each other's eye, and silently said, "This is going so well!"

+ And also we've had many, many mornings where Maeve wakes before 5 a.m., and always before 6 a.m. and she's generally sooo grouchy in the morning. Chris bears the brunt of it because he is Maeve's preferredn morning parent, and he's feeling pretty worn down with it lately. I hope that this fall we move out of that season of our life.

+ After my schedule being less consistent through the summer I've found my way back to working out five times/week. I am worn out after my Saturday workout (my last of the week) but also love getting back to a higher volume of running and lifting.

August goals

Finally, let me check in on my August goals and see how I did:

+ Continue advertising my workshop Everyday Habits, Routines, and Rituals. Yes! I advertised my workshop, and continue to do so. Probably not as much as I should and that's an area where I want to improve in the future. But I also did so much content prep work that I think I did the best I could, and I'm really happy with the number of people who have registered for the workshop.

+ Kick off a blog overhaul. Yes! Very excited for this.

+ Paint my nails every week. Yes! My current favorite nail colors are two reds in the quick-dry Expressie polish. A bright red called Send A Message, and a dark red called Seize the Minute. (Always with Orly Bonder base coat and the Seche Vite top coat for the best long-lasting home manicure.)

+ Make our way back to school-year routines. Overall I feel pretty good. We haven't been consistent about family cleaning and I'd still like to add that in, and I think our weekend screen time needs revisiting...but overall I do feel so much more routine than when the month started. And I'm grateful.

+ Decide on Chris's birthday presents and plan how we'll celebrate. I have some great gifts that I just need to wrap, and I planned a family dinner out. This is reminding me that I should plan a babysitter for a day date just for us, and still need to finalize details for Chris's actual birthday (September 9th!).

+ And finally, watch a lot of Olympics! Yes! This was so fun.

I'm going to wrap up there and make the most of our remaining kid-free hours. What was your August like? I'd love to hear!

P.S. August 2023 coffee date and other coffee date posts