Welcome back!

Here were my goals for the month of August:

1. Donate blood. — Accomplished!
2. Celebrate my birthday! — Accomplished!
3. Write and publish my annual Reflections on My Birthday post. — Accomplished!
4. Make a dent in the mess in my office. — Did not accomplish yet.
5. Continue meal planning. — Accomplished!
6. Publish one Book Review. — Did not accomplish yet.
7. Continue my reduced social media weekends. — Semi-Achieved.
8. Make progress with editing book 2. — Semi-Achieved.
9. Donate books to the library. — Accomplished!

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August was really good. But, it also went by really quickly!

I had a wonderful birthday weekend! My birthday was on a Saturday this year, so I took off the day before from work. It was amazing. I’ve been hooked on Cold Case on HBO Max, so I blissfully lounged on the couch with Phineas and Ferb most of the day! The blood drive was on my birthday, so I was thrilled to give blood and celebrate with about 90 people throughout the day, My parents bought a variety of fun size Reese’s candies to hand out to everyone, and my mom decorated Fellowship Hall with birthday banners! Al treated me to sushi on Saturday night, yum! And then my mom had us over for an amazing dinner on Sunday!

I enjoyed writing my annual Reflections on My Birthday post. It’s a great tradition for me.

I discovered that the myLidl app has amazing recipes! I made amazing chicken shawarma for Al’s lunches one week, and he wants me to make it again soon! Al’s mom also sent us a great casserole recipe that we both loved: Chicken BBQ Ranch Casserole | Julia Pacheco

I’ve definitely been reading more recently, but Book Reviews are another story. I’m close to finishing up two books now, so I’m hoping to have more Book Reviews published soon!

I didn’t make as much progress with editing book 2 as I would have liked, but I chalk that up to things being really hectic at work for nearly a month, and things are just now calming down and settling back to normal.

I gathered up four big shopping bags full of books to donate, and I carted those to the Friends of the Library on August 21st. I also re-established my library patronage, and checked out three books! I may scale back to one book per checkout when I return those three tomorrow, but I’m happy that I’ve gotten back into borrowing from the library. Going to the library is an incredible, consistent memory of mine, and I’m excited to keep it going as an adult. Plus, it will save me money, too!

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What about you? Did you have any goals for the month of August?

Come back soon to see my goals for September!

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Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂