It's July! Halfway through the year, a third of the way through the summer.
In January I resolved that I was going to take better care of my body. It's been a great summer on that front: I've been exercising six days a week and enjoying it, and I've been eating vegetables like nobody's business. I've been more energetic and happy too. Here's to more of the same.
I also said I wanted to work on an evening routine that would include nightly inbox-busting. SIGH. Should it encourage me that there are only eleven emails in my inbox right now? that our family dinners are much happier than they used to be? (I should write a post about that, actually.) But we still don't have a consistent family prayer time after dinner, and I'd like to be less hit-or-miss with baths and less distracted by screens in the evenings. Even with my veggie-fueled get-up-and-go, I'm still ready for quiet by 7:00.
I was going to spend 15 minutes a day beautifying my home and 15 minutes a day on pictures. Those things keep getting written down on to-do lists and they keep not happening. I think I know what my deal is with the pictures: it feels too huge for 15 minutes. I think I'm going to do a picture blitz this week. I'm going to submit an article for publication tomorrow (go me! also, wish me luck because I'm aiming high!) and on Tuesday I'm going to request a bunch of articles to update a lit review. For the rest of the week, while I'm waiting for articles to trickle in, I will use my work time to power through pictures. Maybe I can get through 9 months' worth of pictures by next Sunday? I suppose I'll never know if I don't give it a shot.
Still not sure why I'm not making progress on the home front. I have paint for making an ugly maroon hanging rack into a cheery pumpkin orange rack. I have pretty green calico for replacing the hideous curtain at the back door. I have a box and a face plate so I can rewire the outlet where my sewing machine lives, theoretically making it easy for me to whip up pretty curtains. Maybe I can get those three things done this week. Maybe. Maybe I can also think about what my deal is with this one.
I envisioned this year as a year of finishing things, and you know, I'm getting there. (I have already exceeded my projected yarn budget for the year, but I had a niece and a nephew born in January who did not have a single hand-knit sweater between them -- clearly a reason to adjust the yarn budget. ...And there was also that impulsive decision to join the Stephen West summer mystery knit-along, for which none of my stashed sock yarn was quite right...and that other impulsive decision to try out the linen yarn I'd had an eye on for years.... Okay. Yarn budget, take two.) I'm also kerpowing my way through the TBR pile, including the Kindle backlog. Haven't yet picked a new ten-year project, though. I think I'll knock out the rest of Eliot, which won't take long (in ten-year project terms, at least), and test the waters with Trollope, who seems like he might be up my alley. Or maybe Thackeray?
The summer plans are going reasonably well too. Our picnic dinner has happened three weeks out of four, which is good enough for me. I can't seem to get to both daily Mass and an Adoration hour each week, but I'm managing one or the other. I made profiteroles for Alex's half-birthday dinner, botching both the choux pastry (slightly soggy in the middle) and the crème pâtissière (too runny, because the last time I made it the eggs coagulated). But what do you know, the kids thought they were made of awesome, with chocolate ganache on top. "Please, Mom," they said breathlessly, "please, will you make these again?" I'll call them a success, even if Julia Child might disagree.
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