One of the biggest things with Capacities is making connections to different things you didn’t think to connect, and while this post isn’t really about that, I love finding new things on the internet that people enjoy, and just reminding myself to enjoy things around me. So I guess this is that.

Just a few bits and bops I enjoyed this week.

1. This interview of Kerri Russell and Matthew Rhys from Vanity Fair. I loved them in The Americans and I love that they’re still together in real life. The few interviews I’ve watched of Matthew Rhys, dude has just the most ridiculous (and wonderful) sense of humor. And the accent is great, too.
   
   The way the two of them joke about each other, but you can clearly feel the love and respect. I hope we all find loves like that.

2. Finally buying a ticket to go see Six! The Musical in theaters. The original West End Cast filmed a pro shot, in, like, 2022, before I even saw the show in Houston and it’s just now making it’s way over to the States.

3. The Band Perry drama. I love country music. And I also love internet gossip, as an observer, and this week, there was some big drama. This band started out in the late 2000s (like 2008 or 2009) as three siblings. A few years ago, they took a hiatus, the lead singer (and only sister, Kimberly) tried her hand at a solo career and realized she needed the band name to work. One brother, Reid, joined the reunion along with her husband and shortly left after. The other brother, Neil, is saying he was pushed out of the band at the time of the reunion. I’m so curious to see how this plays out and if Kimberly even says anything about it.

4. Fall candles. I’ve decided that I really ought to blame corporations for my sudden annual urge for fall always hitting in August. By the end of July, Shiner had Oktoberfest beer out at the store. That and football coming back soon, my brain is ready for some crisp mornings and a Saturday of college football again. While I have to wait for both of those, I can at least make my house smell like fall right now.

5. James Talarico dropped a wonderfully petty ad against Ken Paxton that has me giggling. I moved to Austin a decade ago to work in politics, and I did for six months, so this senate race is one I’m keeping a lot of tabs on, given that I am in Texas. I might someday write about my political alignment journey from childhood to adulthood (and even wrote a little about it here), but there is something just so funny to me about the fact we now have a political ad about Ken Paxton stealing a pen. A $1,000 pen, that he returned after being caught but I love that it’s become an ad. You can watch it here.

6. Doctors who help. As a kid, especially with a special needs brother, I now know as an adult that I didn’t know how to fight for what I needed in life. Maybe I still don’t, but there have been some medical needs of mine that have come up against the ire of my employer leading to me having to request medical accommodations. Even now as an adult, asking for that - asking my doctor to take time out of her day to fill this form out for me, I have this inherent fear that I’ll be told “no” or that I’m overreacting. But I guess I wasn’t because she filled out the form in twenty-four hours, no problem.

   
   It’s really just nice when you don’t have to over explain why you need things.

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I don’t know that I’ll share bits and bops every week, but sometimes it’s fun to just share things I enjoyed this week.

As we come up to the end of pool season (mid-September is usually when I call it quits), I’m trying to still read as much as I can. For a week in July, I thought I had cracked the code. Read a book on my kindle at the pool and then read a physical book (paperback or hardback) at home. That worked for a week. I just feel there are so many things going on, that by the time I sit down to relax, reading and trying to process words on a page are the last thing on my mind.

As I write this, I’m back on my “I’m about to find a new job and it’ll change everything” bullshit” as I’m about to interview for a new job. If I get it, I’ll be writing a whole post about the process, but I don’t want to jinx it either. If I get it, I’m hopefully taking a week off to relax before starting the new job.

Either way, my reading list is still stacked with books I want to read this month. As of me writing this, I’ve read 32 books so far this year, which means I have five months to get 18 books done. Most years I would think that would be an easy goal to hit, but this year? Well, I’m not actually sure.

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My August Reading List

1. In Stormy Weather by Chelsea Curto

2. Anywhere With You by Ellie Palmer

3. Not So Fast by Karen Booth

4. All Her Fault by Andrea Mara

5. Love is an Algorithm by Laura Brooke Robson

6. How to Kill a Guy in 10 Dates by Shaliee Thompson

7. The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

8. The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

9. Game Point by Meg Jones

10. Play Along by Liz Tomforde

11. Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb

12. Catch Her if You Can by Tessa Bailey

Here’s to a month where we actually get some reading.

But August is here, and after a busy weekend, it’s time to get back to work and focus on what’s going on and what my goals are this month.

For the last few years, I’ve been focusing on quarterly goals, going through a method by another author, Sarra Cannon, who does the HB90 method. But with that, there is a monthly review every month and I take it as a time to re-evaluate and adjust if needed. However, for the most part, looking at my quarter three goals? I feel like I’m in a good spot, a third of the way in.

At least with one goal.

So, now is the time to review where I’m at and how I’m focusing to hit these goals every month.

Goal One: Write the first, full draft of And She Hunts

word count target: 93,000 words for the draft
for writing for the quarter: 50,000 (good) / 70,000 (better) or 93,000 (best)

As of writing this post Sunday afternoon, I’m at 36,000 words. Not quite as far as I’d like to be but we’re still squarely on track to hit at least the better goal, if not the best goal.

While I would love to finish this draft this month, I think it’ll be closer to Labor Day. August is just going to be a busy month, with lots of events after work and on the weekends. I’m hoping for 30,000 words again this month, at least.

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Goal Two: Build Reader base

Instagram: 800/900/1,000 followers
Email newsletter: 40/50/60 subscribers

Right now, I’m sitting at 801 followers on Instagram and 38 followers for my email newsletter. I definitely expect the Instagram number to drop under 800 again, as I’ve been fluctuating around this number for a while. Part of me believes that if I focused more on social media, I might see more growth. And I want growth to sell more books but man, social media is such a terrible thing nowadays.

That’s why I want to grow my newsletter. Maybe someday, I’ll write a blog post on my other substack, for my pen name, about why an email list is so crucial for authors, especially indie authors. And I’m not just talking about a Substack list, but an actual list of emails and names you can take with you if you need to move platforms (and I have done that too many times this year).

So, I guess we’re on track for both of these stats? I don’t think I’ll be saying that in September.

Goal Three: Daily Score Average of 85

I’ll be really honest, I’m failing on this one. And not necessarily in the way you think, I’m just not tracking. When using Notion, I had a formula in my daily note where I could add different habits and things I did throughout the day - like write 1,000 words or meal prep, and all of those habits had a score assigned to them, between 1-10. The formula would then round up and add all those habits for the day and spit out a score.

Well, I’m leaving Notion, and the app I’m moving to doesn’t offer that. So, we’re going back old school to go over habits and I’m keeping it simple now. The big things I need to do every day, like take my medicine, log my food, and be creative.

Going back to review my goals and recap July, I feel better than I did before. That’s part of why monthly reviews are so important. To remind myself that it wasn’t a total failure and I did good last month.

Now, here’s to moving forward and keeping momentum when needed.

July was the first month all year that I feel like I wasn’t sick. Even with the flu gone, I’m a life-long, all-year-round allergy sufferer. Being on phones for my day job definitely activates my sinuses and I am loading up on allergy medicine more than ever before. The moment cedar shows up on the allergy count, I’m a goner. But it was the first month that I felt like I was just dealing with that - the normal allergies.

This was also the month I finally dove back into a book and started writing. By mid-June, after months of not writing because I was just focusing on searching for jobs, I knew I had to get back to writing. In July, I wrote 36,000+ words. It’s not my best month ever, but it is by far my best month of 2026.

It feels good to be creative again, to tap into that part of my brain that I don’t get in my day job. Especially over the first half of the year, when so much was just trying to survive - trying to survive the day-to-day of my job, the illnesses, the grief that stll catches me off guard, it got dark in my brain.

Creativity - the writing, the planning, the plotting - all of it, is important for my brain and important for my health.

The month started off not at my house, but dog-sitting again. This was a stressful moment as these dogs were much more vocal, while I was on the phones, than my parents’ dogs were in May.

However, the response from customers, which was usually empathetic is understanding that dogs just need to express themselves, finally gave me the boost of confidence to get back on my walking pad during work. I’m now doing 3-4 walks a week during work and that, too, is helping my mental health.

We celebrated a few friends’ birthdays, including an event at putt-putt where we caught a rainbow. That was actually the second rainbow we saw that night. We watched a World Cup match with friends the night after, and being out to watch sports with others reminded me while I love sports so much, even if I no longer play them.

Fourth of July weekend, we also went and visited with my great-uncle, who is the last surviving sibling of my grandfather. It’s bittersweet, to spend time with family members now, but know that the end is near for them. It’s the same way with my maternal grandparents, too.

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The other big thing I did in July was finally decide (I think) on a new productivity app. I’ll write about the whole process eventually, but after years of working in Notion, it’s time to say goodbye. I spent a lot of time thinking about the apps that I had the option to use and then dove back into one.

There is still a small possibility I just move to Apple Notes and call it a day, but I’m not ready to make that call just yet.

And of course, there were all the things I watched and read. Whatever August may bring, I hope it’s nice like July.

What I Watched

• Supernatural

• World Cup

What I Read

• Chase Me if You Can by Heather Frances

• Everyone in Lying to You by Jo Piazzia

• The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives by Elizabeth Arnott

• The Romance Revival by Christina Lauren

• Molka by Monica Kim

• The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey by Astrid Dahl

I’m not sure if it’s just post-Covid life where everything leaves my brain two minutes after it happens or just that I feel like this year will not give me a break. I started the month still sick from whatever sinus infection I had that I just couldn’t shake. The last week of May, I had almost lost my voice completely, sounding like croaking animal more than a person.

By the first week of June, I had my voice back, but still had this nasty cough that I just could not seem to get out of my system. I mean, deep, in your lungs, mucus comes out kind of cough (trust me, it was not fun).

And even now, halfway through July, while I feel better thanks to another round of medication, I’ve realized that I feel like I’ve spent most of this year sick in some way or another. If not the flu or the sinus infection, it’s been the blues, or colds or just awful fatigue (I’m on night three of three hours or less of sleep) and a good chunk of that I blame on my job.

June was a month I almost saw progress on the job front. I interviewed for an internal role (as did one of my best friends). Immediately after that first interview, I knew the role wasn’t for me, but it’s still good to get that practice in for interviews. It’s also the only actual interview I’ve had this year, but several of my friends have made progress with new jobs in the last month and a half, so fingers crossed it’s almost my turn.

Outside of work, there was not much pool time due to life and being on medication that made me sensitive to the sun. However, there was a lot of time spent out of my house which was nice. We’re currently a one car household and since my boyfriend works in an office and I don’t, I have to really make an effort to get out of the house during the week.

And often times, that comes at the expense of my wallet. But it’s fun to go out sometimes and just socialize with people who aren’t my boyfriend or my customers. Nice, fun conversations that take little time or bandwidth but are with kind people. I also used it as an excuse to get out and brainstorm on my book.

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Despite brainstorming being my main focus, I don’t feel like I got as much done as I wanted. And maybe I have to just try to learn and accept that I never will. My life is so different from when I started writing and blogging, it’s much fuller in some ways and much sadder in other ways.

But one of the ways it’s full is the people I have in my corner now, including one of my best friends, Kala. We got to celebrate her her birthday at the end of the month and I just love getting to celebrating friends and family. I spent time celebrating her birthday and then a week dog-sitting for family, again.

With the first half of the year gone, I really hope this second part of the year is kinder, maybe a little slower (that it won’t be) and full of more happiness, not sadness.

June Reads:

• Her Last Breath by Taylor Adams

• Such a Clever Girl by Darby Kane

• Caught Up by Liz Tomforde

That year, and for a few years after (I believe), his show did man on the street interview, convincing people to believe things that simply weren’t true - like that John Kerry’s running mate was Stu Ped. Many people fell for it, and as a ten year old, it blew my mind that people couldn’t remember who was running with John Kerry - John Edwards. My dad always thought it was funny that I knew more about the election than those who could actually vote, and as a kid who grew up in the midst of 9/11 and the War on Terror, I always felt like it was important to know what was going on. I thought that was patriotic, and in that political climate, after everything that happened since the last election, patriotism was important, especially in suburbia Texas.

As a kid, I had such a different idea of patriotism than I do today. Proud to be an American? Well, to be honest, I’m not so sure.

One of my core strengths as an individual (according to the Clifton Strengths Test from Gallup) is that I am futuristic. It is burned into me that I simply believe that the future has to be better (and lord has that burned me a few times recently).

I think that belief really defines what loose patriotism I might have now. Especially in the last ten years, it feels like the wheels are slowly going backwards. The American Dream dies with inflation, corruption and adulthood. Because part of me doesn’t know - how much of the American Dream has really died in the last decade, or even two decades, since I was a kid in my dad’s car, and how much is it just that I’ve grown up and no longer have that wide-eyed innocence.

Patriotism, at its core, is being proud of one’s country or homeland. But in the last ten years, here in the United States, it’s definitely taken on a new meaning. In fact, if you Google the definition of Patriotism, the Google-forced AI gives you that and the definition of nationalism.

And I will admit, as an adult who lived through 9/11, the Great Recession, a job market that has been band-aided together, a global pandemic and how many wars? A lot has happened in my lifetime, a lot that could have probably been avoided and it’s hard to be patriotic when your government continually sucks.

But, patriotism doesn’t have to just be about Congress, or the White House, or the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, we had the Artemis II go around the moon and back. That all happened because of Americans - everyday people who designed the Orion spacecraft, those who assembled it, and the three Americans who were on the spaceship as it went around the moon? That’s so fucking cool.

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A top-tier showcase of how cool the United States can be when she has her shit together. When Americans work together, we can do incredible and wonderful things.

Just overnight, Kelsey Pfendler absolutely crushed a record for the fastest solo row from California to Hawaii. Not only did she smash the women’s solo (which was originally 86 days), she beat the mens’ record by 9 days (she completed it in 43 days and the mens’ record was 52 days).

The older I get, the more I’m realizing that patriotism doesn’t really have to be tied to your government. In fact, nowadays, I don’t think it should be. But regardless of who is in office, Americans are doing cool things every day.

The Americans who did remarkable things in the first 250 years - there are so many names in history that created ripple waves that determine what rights we all have now in 2026. The founding fathers, the suffragists, the abolitionists. America’s history has never been super pretty. It’s messy and ugly and has a dark side.

But throughout all of America’s history, there have been people willing to push back, to demand change and progress, in an attempt to make this land better for more people. And as the United States celebrates her 250th birthday, the futuristic in me hopes that we see more of that in the next 250 years. More kindness, more peaceful rebellion, more support, and more liberty and justice for all.

Before yesterday, I hadn’t been in almost three weeks. Life’s little joys just are harder to find when you’re just in the thick of it.

And that reflected in my reading time, but we’re gonna going to keep trying. Maybe in some ways, God or fate knew that this year was gonna whallop me because I set my reading goal lower than normal - 50 books. And I don’t think I’ve hit that yet. I’ll be honest, I actually have no idea how many books I’ve read this year. But I just have to have faith that at some point, I’m going to cross that number and and least accomplish a goal. June only saw me read three books, so trying to triple that is probably a little crazy, but I am not nothing if not insanely ambitious and ridiculous about what I can accomplish on a good day.

There just haven’t been many good days as of late. Yesterday was a good one, though. I spent a few hours at the pool with my kindle and a book that I will definitely need to add to my actual bookshelf.

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As with most summer months, this month is full of books on my Kindle, including a few library books.

July To Be Read List

• Chase Me If You Can by Heather Frances

• Catch Her if You Can by Tessa Bailey

• Friends with Benefits by Marisa Kanter

• Everyone is Lying to You by Jo Piazza

• The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives by Elizabeth Arnott

• Molka by Monika Kim

• The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

• Game Point by Meg Jones

• The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey by Astrid Dahl

• Not in My Book by Katie Holt

• Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb

• The Real Deal by Caitlin Devlin

Now that fear has happened and yet it’s still a fear because I still have two grandparents left. And there is a core part of me that is afraid to dive back into goals while this still looms over me. But I also know I can’t just wait the rest of time for the other shoe to drop, and this feels so heavy on my mind this week.

With the year being as tough as it has been so far, I’m also very hesitant in my own ability to do anything. Every time I try to start a book, something goes wrong. Started a draft of And She Hunts, lost a grand parent. Started a draft of Lost in the Canyon, broke my laptop screen. Tried to plot out And She Hunts, again, broke my office chair. Spent two weeks on a yoga ball.

Obviously losing a grandparent and using a yoga ball as a chair for two weeks are completely different things with different emotional responses, but at the same time, I am so exhausted and so fragile in my productivity, they were both big enough to completely knock me off my rocker.

So, this quarter is going to be tough. The last two have shown me this year is going to be a knockdown, drag out fight. But I’m also realizing more and more that I need writing. I need that creativity, or I feel like a shell of a person. I’ve spent so much time just wallowing all year, and frankly, I need to cut it out. I’ve also spent a lot of time applying for jobs that led to nowhere, and probably will continue to do so.

My goals this quarter, are not much different than any other quarter. They’re just more specific to the big plan.

My Quarter Three Goals

Goal One: Write the first, full draft of And She Hunts

word count target: 93,000 words for the draft
for writing for the quarter: 50,000 (good) / 70,000 (better) or 93,000 (best)

I also need to build out the project in Notion, keep notes and details on characters. Do you ever have any projects you know you need to do - like organize your receipts or track all the work you’ve done on your car so you know the last time you had your brakes worked on? Well, those are things I need to do but I also need to do that with my book business - document character information and details.

So somehow in the middle of writing a book, I’ll update those details, too.

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Goal Two: Build Reader base

I hate the term “following.” It feels creepy, especially as a woman on the internet. However, I want people to read my books. And you have to get people to pay attention to you online to do that well these days.

Over the past few years, I’ve narrowed down my focus on social media to mostly be Instagram, since that’s where the bookgals are. I’m also trying to build my actual newsletter, and I do have a substack for my pen name, I’m just not sure what to do with it. I was sharing quotes from And She Runs while I was working on it, maybe I’ll do that with And She Hunts.

But for social media, I have two goals.

Instagram: 800/900/1,000 followers
Email newsletter: 40/50/60 subscribers

There are also some updates I need to make around my email newsletter, like an introduction series for when people do sign up.

There are so many things to do behind the scenes, that’s for sure.

Goal Three: Daily Score Average of 85

This one is a stretch. In quarter two, I toyed around with the idea of leaving Notion for a few reason, but I’m back to it and part of that was my daily score. I have a formula where I add habits and things I do throughout the day to take care of myself, and those add up to a score. My goal is to have a daily average of 85.

Some of the things I document that add to the score are things like doing my laundry (clean clothes are always good), writing, reading a book, cleaning my house, going on a walk. Things that are good for me. Things that help me.

And I really need a lot of things to help me lately. So, here we go, back on another quarter to go and try to make some magic happen.

But we got an entire book done in about two and a half hours and I think that’s a great way to start the month.

June Reads

• Her Last Breath by Taylor Adams

• Such a Clever Girl by Darby Kane

• The Last Ferry Out by Andrea Bartz

• You’re Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego

• Not in My Book by Katie Holt

• Caught Up by Liz Tomforde

• His & Hers by Alice Feeney

• The Secret Lives of Murders’ Wives by Elizabeth Arnott

• Game Point by Meg Jones

• Set Point by Meg Jones

• Well, Actually by Mazey Eddings

• Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb

Hoping several weekends this month include an afternoon at the pool with the book, because at this point in life, this is the one thing that soothes me the most. As long as there aren’t a dozen teenagers there, but it is a neighborhood pool, so we work with what we got. And hopefully take a deep breath for our souls this month.

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At least not on what I want in life. I’m ten years into a hopefully long publishing career, and I hope this is still the beginning. I hope there’s a long writing and publishing career ahead of me still.

And I hope someday it does come become a full-time career. That’s the thing I want more than anything in this world right now. I don’t really want kids, I’m okay with not being married right now, I don’t need a big house. I just want to write full-time. And not because I got laid off, but because I am making regular income through my books.

But that moment is not here today. There is still work to be done, not just for writing but for myself, too.

When I sat down to brainstorm my goals for this month, I was on day one of antibiotic and had a nasty cough that sat deep in my lungs. My ribs hurt from the cough. I was depressed because I was sick again and because it feels like nothing is going right this year. In an ideal world, this next book would be off with readers or at least on the third draft right now.

However, because I was sick, I had to be realistic with what I could do, instead of being optimistic about what I could do. Even then, I still feel like I was a wee bit optimistic about what I could do. Which leads us to my June goals.

June Goals

Writing Goals

I really only have one goal this month and that’s to plan out a book series. I’m not planning to plot out this series chapter-by-chapter, but I do want to have a broad overview of what happens in the series.

• plot book two

• plot book three

• plot book four

• plot book five

Nice and simple, I hope. I also have my quarterly planning session, HB90 in the middle of the month, so I need to squeeze that in, too.

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Reading Goals

Read twelve books. Already read an entire book at the pool on Monday, so we have to be off to a good start.

Health Goals

Move my body again. My boyfriend and I have talked about joining a gym and waking up at 4 am to go every morning. I’m not sure I’m ready to pull the plug on 4 am, though maybe 5 am could be doable. He works earlier than I do, and I’m not sure I can commit to waking up that early every morning. Especially in the winter. But for now, I want to try and move my body in some way every day, whether that’s going to swim laps or walk on the treadmill or even just lift weights. Step by step to build some momentum. If I can do it in the summer, in Texas, I can do it any time.

Career Goals

Find a new job.

I know the job market is terrible right now, and lord, please let me get at least a new job before the end of the year. January-March is the super busy season in my industry and I do not have it in me to do another year of this.

But obviously I would like a new job sooner.

Or to go viral on social media and sell a ton of books. But I’d like to wait on that until I have at least one more book out.

Laura, Lost in Texas Goals

I’ve been in a bit of a rut just writing goal posts, recap post and monthly TBR posts. And I want to write more. Part of me is afraid though - because I know that at some point, I will be up for a job and someone who might hire me will see this website, I think, and might hold something against me. Having a public relations degree, and coming from a “you’re too sensitive” family, I self-filter a lot. But I want to try and open that up a bit.

So, I’m working through a list of ideas of things I want to write about and determining what I’m comfortable with sharing right now. So, I hope there are more blog posts this month than just the regular three.

Except this time, it was a telemedicine appointment with a doctor I will never talk to again, because I was 100 miles away from my PCP and she books up fast. I spent the last week sick and dog-sitting for my parents as they move into their new home in Southeast Texas. After spending the last thirty-four years (almost) in DFW, they’re starting their new adventure in Bryan/College Station (don’t worry, they’re Aggies, they’ll fit right in. Actually everyone in my immediate family is an Aggie except me).

It was a week that I wanted to spend resting and refilling myself, or replenishing if you will. I wanted to spend the week plotting out my book series and snuggling up with some pups.

Instead, I spent the week coughing and creating a ton of mucus (TMI but that’s the hard truth). That’s not the only thing I had, there was one week in May where I called out two days in one week due to a migraine. I think the stress of just life is really getting to my body right now, given the fact I’ve been sick twice this year. For comparison, it took three years for me to catch Covid for the first time, so my immune system is definitely not happy.

It’s not just my immune system that’s not happy, either. It’s my mental health, too. My whole body is screaming for a break, and I’m not sure how to give it that. The most obvious way would be to take time off, and I do have today off, but I don’t have enough PTO to take a week off to just breathe.

In fact, I worked last week while sick and dogsitting because I don’t have enough PTO to take off when sick and take off when I want.

Everything is great.

But even though things are looking rough, there were good moments in May.

The second weekend, the weekend of Mother’s Day, my boyfriend and I helped my dad move into their new house. It’s weird to think about my parents living anywhere other than Flower Mound, since they moved there before I was born, but again, they’re Aggies. If they were going to end up somewhere, Bryan/College Station would be it.

They’re also half the distance from me now, which is good. That means my parents can come see my grandparents more often.

The next weekend, my Opa and I drove down to San Antonio (aka, I drove through the most stressful traffic on a Saturday afternoon) to go celebrate my cousin. My maternal side of the family, there are six kids (my mom’s generation) and thirteen grandchildren (and now three great-grandchildren). One of my cousin's just graduated dental school, making her the first doctor of the generation.

It’s so wonderful to see my cousins just succeed in life - whether it’s becoming a dentist, or getting married, or having babies, I just love seeing my cousins have big milestones. Not even my cousins, but my siblings, too. I just love seeing people’s hard work pay off for the things they want. And I will always do my best to be there to celebrate family members.

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That weekend, too, our AC decided to die. There are benefits to renting - I don’t have to foot the bill for the repair. But that day of working while also sweating was brutal. And then we had the carpets cleaned two days later. And then the day after that was when I first noticed my throat was starting to hurt, and by the weekend, I had a full blown sinus infection.

The sinus infection made it into my lungs, too, and the cough I had was painful. Whatever it was that I had, I’m hoping that it’s mostly behind me now. May was rough.

But now that June is here, I’m hoping for a new month and to rest but replenish myself. There are no weekend trips planned, just 30 days of being at home.

I hope.

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Watching such a cool experience has relit my love for space travel, though I don’t want to go up into space (I hate flying…

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While I did publish my monthly recap and my April To Be Read, I just didn’t have time to publish my quarterly goals. I love quarterly goals, setting up an idea of what I want t…

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But this is not a…

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Thankfully it mostly delivered. No one died, no one caught the flu. No random job changes to make me want to yank my hair out. In fact, I am more or less temporarily in a different role at work, helping out in a queue t…

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February was such a blur, I only read three books when I wanted to read more. So, I’m wanting to be intentional about picking up a book this month, compared to last month.

With pool se…

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