It is hard to believe that it is the end of July. Where has the month gone? Where has the year gone? Here is a quick review of what happened in July.

Miss K finished school and is enjoying her summer break. The weeks leading up to the end of school were challenging as we waiting to find out where she would have a school placement for autumn. (I won’t go into all the details but most of this has to do with her special needs and the process here.) She has a place at the local secondary school and we are pleased with the schedule that they have put together for her. It is a mix of classes with SEN and mainstream. We are thankful to know where she will be attending in the autumn. Now on my list of things to do is buy uniforms.

Miss K turned 14. Her birthday always is a time to pause and reflect on how God has sustained her life.  She is all about birthdays and one of her favourite things to watch in YouTube is birthday parties. We had a party with the girls from her class.

My son and I took a trip to Scotland. We rode the train and visited some friends. It was a nice getaway and fun to see some new parts of the UK and a fun time with my son.

2018 Goals

My goals for 2018 are listed here. I also have them written in my planner and will add notes of things that I have done towards those goals.

Both kids were at camp the same weekend. That has never happened so we took advantage of that and planned tourist. When I told Miss K what we were doing she said, “that sounds boring” which was exactly why we were doing it when they were at camp. We enjoyed a day out in Lincoln. We knew that it would be almost impossible to get Miss K to go on a Towers Tour so we did that. It involved quite a bit of climbing but then we had a wonderful view of the city. That falls under the goal of relationship with my husband.

One of my goals for July was to consistently blog three times a week. I have copied some posts from my old blog. Some of the posts that I copied this month were a number of posts about My Asia Journey. I share those just so you can learn a bit more about me. You can find Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

I finished a fun sewing project that I had been working on for a long time. It took some time to collect the selvages. I made a mug rug with fabric selvages. I like the way it looks and have begun collecting selvages for my next selvage project.

A few trips on the train gave me extra reading time. I finished Why We Sleep, Among the Poppies, which is a Christian Fiction set in World War 1, and Essentialism.

Two things I made in the Instant Pot this month that have changed my world. Okay, maybe that is a bit dramatic but changed my cooking. I made mashed potatoes and hard boiled eggs. I have to say both were easy.

Ponderings in July

Recently I discovered that a zero-waste store has opened nearby. That got me thinking about all the plastic that we use. I am slowly making changes. So I got out the bread maker and made bread — saves plastic bags. I made some felted soap to try that instead of liquid hand soap. Next on my list is making yogurt in the Instant Pot.

How was your July? What did you do? Any good book recommendations? I can always add a few more books to my to be read list.