Looking Back: August Recap

Previous Months: Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul

August started out ROUGH and ended really nicely. I chose the word “RESTORE” to characterize the month (or the quintile, or both) and I really do feel rather restored entering September!

BIG THINGS:

I survived a very tough week of call

Josh went from entirely non-weight bearing to walking with one crutch (and sometimes none!)

My dad was discharged from rehab and settled in at home

The kids started back at school!!! (IT WAS TIME.)

PHL trip (only travel of the month!)

BOOKS READ: 4, plus I’m about 1/3 of the way through Long Island Compromise and 1/2 of the way through Glass Castle. I REALLY enjoyed both novels I read — one new and one somewhat backlist. (2026 books list so far!)

The Measure by Nicki Erlick

Whistler by Ann Patchett

The Unfollow Effect by Emily Feldspaugh 

Letter from Japan by Marie Kondo  

DATE NIGHTS:

2! One at Bru-Ske-Ta and another at Flanagans. Both Friday nights (taking advantage of the current setup with no Friday night activities!)

HABITS:

Headspace: 18/31

Walk outside: 25/31

Read: 27/31

Listened to music: 28/31

Duolingo: 19/31

There was not as much piano playing, but I definitely did a few sessions!

FITNESS:

Strength: 15.5 sessions (one I called “mini back/biceps” on a time-limited day). 7 of them were in the gym (6 leg days, 1 upper). Maybe some improvement in lower body strength, but upper not sure — issue with the Empowered schedule is that back/bis and shoulder/chest/tri only get one day per week unless you include the full body day, which I haven’t been. There’s SOME strength work in Pilates to add to this, but not much.

Pilates: 5 sessions at the studio, all 2.0 classes

Walking: 25/31 days, with an average step count of 10,534 (high for me!)

Yoga: 2 sessions of Yoga with Adriene

Nutrition: I got pretty dialed in this month starting right after my call week! I’ve been consistently tracking macros and feel like I’ve been overall very intentional with nutrition and protein.

TV / MOVIES / PERFORMANCES / MUSIC

4 eps of Ted Lasso season 4 (family show except for A who doesn’t like it!)

The Odyssey in theaters – really enjoyed and still thinking about it!

Devil Wears Prada 2 watched on video with A + G

Music faves: new albums from Phoebe Bridgers, Brandon Flowers, and Tiny Habits

That was it! Not a TV-heavy month.

SUCCESSES: (primarily from my August goals list):

Did some time tracking

Aforementioned protein + gym days

We got to see Poppy a lot!

Fun walk & talk sessions with Sarah J and Kesley!

Finished drafts for BLP Live + Home workbooks; sent both to designer

Wednesday inbox zero most weeks

BLP Live swag figured out

CME stuff (for myself!) figured out thanks to realizing I could get credit for use of OpenEvidence

Metaplanning: Rebooked Hawaii flights and (mostly) hotels!

FAILS / ABANDONED SHIP:

Putting KonMari sessions on hold for now

“Complete abstention from scroll” . . . didn’t happen. Especially during my call week, sadly.

Help C with planning –> still need to do more of this!

Clearing C / G’s rooms (Q3 project, oops)

Beach morning. Well, we’re headed to the Keys this weekend – close enough!

HIGHLIGHTS

The PHL visit

Visiting Perez art with Poppy

I really had fun with the Hobonoichi roll out this year (esp chatting about it with 2 college besties who are super into it too!)

Little bits of self-care: one mani, massage (!), and I got my hair straightened

Using AI to help with time blocking — I’m really loving this!

Just generally feeling . . . productive and centered! And truly enjoying settling into school year routines.

LOWLIGHTS

My dad still in a lot of pain, unfortunately

Josh has a long road too, even though he’s made progress. I know he wishes he could just walk pain-free again. Everything is still hard for him and I know it must be so frustrating. (He is handling it a lot better than I probably would be.)

---

Back later this week with September goals as Q4 marches on!