Get ‘Er Done {August Review & September Goals}

I can’t believe it’s already September. While fall is my favorite season and September is my favorite month, I honestly have been dreading its arrival and I think it’s because August was the best month I’ve had in a long time. I felt satisfied, content, rested, and rich in friendship for the first time since we’ve moved (which was officially a year ago last Wednesday… crazy!). I loved working 4 days weeks, spending evenings with friends, becoming obsessed with Settlers of Catan, getting Chris hooked on a new tv show (Suits), feeling somewhat productive, visiting family, and enjoying my last month of summer. I think a lot of this had to do with the growth I started last month and as it continues it keeps getting better. But now fall is here and I need to change my mindset to a busier lifestyle that I don’t love, but will adjust to (hopefully quickly). Now I need to figure out how to transfer what I learned and how I’ve changed this summer over to my fall life. But first I want to reflect on my August goals:

1. Learn some photography skills. I just finished an online DSLR photography course from one of my favorite bloggers, Ashley Ann Campbell. You can learn more about her photography courses here. I’m sad it’s over because there is so much more I wanted to learn from her. While I did some research when we first got our camera on how it worked and I learned the basics about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, I didn’t find much material on how to put the three together and Ashley made it seem so simple. A hard aspect of the class for me was I didn’t feel like I had much to photograph (no little chilens running around like several other classmates), but our trip to visit my parents was a perfect opportunity to practice. More pictures from that later 🙂 We also had a Flickr group to post our pictures, so it was great to get feedback from Ashley and other students in the class.

2. House projects. Now that we have officially lived in our apartment for a year, my goal was to make it a bit more homey, but that didn’t happen. I hung one thing up. It’s a hanging rack from my scarves and belts. You can’t even tell I hung something up because it’s behind our bedroom door. And I did exactly what I didn’t want to do and the reason I haven’t hung things up for a year… I put extra holes in the wall. Lucky the rack covers it. Lesson learned: always pull out the drill instead of using the hand-held screwdriver (unless the drill is not an option). And while we didn’t get curtains, we did make progress by picking out the rods we wanted and deciding on a fabric color for the living room (we decided to hold off on the bedroom until more furniture decisions are made). So some small progress.

Here are some other things that made my August feel productive and fun:

• Finish magazine project from June/July.
• Finally blogged about California, Mexico, and Chris breaking his elbow (though I still need to follow up with what we learned from that experience).
• Uploaded, organized, and edited all of my pictures (our DSLR had pictures from 2.5 years ago).
• Finished watching Bones, watched the first season of Fixer Upper, and Chris and I are on season 3 of Suits… yes I love television.
• Finished reading Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist.
• Lots of friend time hanging out, eating, playing Settlers of Catan, and going to a Phillies vs. Mariners game.
• Family time at home in Michigan and with Chris’s family (they came to Princeton one day and then we celebrated Josh going to college).
• I learned how to collage pictures in Lightroom (like the one above). Oh the little things that make my feel productive.

And now it’s September. With how busy my month naturally is as my second job has started again, I’m praying that some of these goals are even attempted!

1. Read Cold Tangerines. This is another Shauna Niequist book. I received three of her books last Christmas so I am trying to read through them. The last one took me two months to read. With only 75 pages left in August, I barely finished it by the end because I have been watching so much tv and not reading before bedtime… typical. But I liked the trend of reading before bed, so I want to start working on that again. I started this book on our flight home from Michigan and I am already enjoying it. I love Shauna’s writing because I am challenged as she honestly shares the good and hard stories of her life. Her writing is engaging and funny, so what’s not to like?

2. Start building something! I’ve had plans to build something for so long, but I haven’t done it! Starting a project can be so hard for me because I see how overwhelming it can be or I picture everything that could go wrong. So I’ve decided I just need to start. Hopefully next weekend because I will have some free time up at Chris’s parents where all my tools are.

3. Work on my wardrobe. Last month when I was looking for an August goals picture, I wanted to give the original site credit, and I stumbled across a blog of a Texas photographer named Caroline. I enjoyed reading her material (aka I read all her posts), but I was bummed to see that she wasn’t posting much. So I Instagram stalked her and found out that she started another blog about having a minimalist wardrobe. Another girl from college (Allie) posted about this on her blog, so I started looking into it. Both of them referenced the blog Into Mind, so I started doing my research. Here’s a summary: create a capsule wardrobe that lasts for a season that is made of of 20-36 (depending on the person or your choice) pieces of clothing that you can style to make your signature look/wardrobe. While I don’t know if I’ll dive into this wholeheartedly, I am desiring to purge my closet of what I don’t wear and only buy things that I am in love with. I’ll write more about this later, but my main goal this month is to purge my closet and start getting a better idea of items I would like to purchase (already got a few new cardigans when I went shopping with me madre over Labor Day weekend). 🙂

4. Workout 2-3 times a week. Chris wanted me to set this goal, but I didn’t want to because I knew I wouldn’t keep it. Meaning it’s already a week into September and I haven’t exercised (unless you include a long walk Up North), so I have already not completed it, yet I am still posting it. Just because I didn’t do it one week doesn’t mean I can’t do it the rest. Especially because I know an exercise challenge from one of the blogs I follow is probably coming up soon. Plus, before Chris’s brother left for college we all made a bet to see who could be the most ripped by Christmas. While we didn’t set a prize, I’m sure it’s bragging rights and nice abs. So with that being said, I need to exercise and Chris and I are trying to eat more similarly to the detox we did in May (except for when we are with others or the occasional going out to eat).

So there are my September goals… a week late but they are still there.