What's Up Wednesday : August 2022

I've seen a few other bloggers participating in the What's Up Wednesday monthly linkup, and it looks fun, so I'm joining in this month!   

1. What We're Eating This Week: Pizza tonight for spirit night at Charli's school. Beyond that...who knows? I'm so bad about meal planning!

2. What I'm Reminiscing About: Taking Charli to the fair with my parents when she was little - maybe around 1.5 years old? Since Mom and I took her to the fair a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about it and how we had to change her diaper in a historical building while she was screaming. Fun times! This was also the first time any of us have been to the fair since we lost dad, and since he loved it, we talked about him too. 

3. What I'm Loving: Charli's independence! Although sometimes it's tough when she gets frustrated doing certain things, I'm seeing this independence more and more each day, and it's so cool to see her work through things on her own!

4. What We've Been Up To: Decluttering and cleaning thanks to help from my aunt and grandma, going to the fair, first grade math homework (ugh), gymnastics and Girl Scouts for Charli - August has been busy!!

5. What I'm Dreading: I can't think of anything I'm dreading right now!

6. What I'm Working On: Finishing tagging items for an upcoming consignment sale (I always procrastinate!!), the never-ending process of decluttering and cleaning, finding and sticking to side hustles

7. What I'm Excited About: Life changes! =)

8. What I'm Watching/Reading: I need to catch up on all of the episodes of America's Got Talent that I have recorded. I'm sure the season has probably ended or is about to at this point, so at least I can get through all of it at once! I also need to start on my Marvel list too! I'm reading books on my Erin 17.0 book challenge list, plus children's books for a potential side project I've been mulling over. 

9. What I'm Listening To: "Top Hits" on Spotify in an attempt to know at least a little bit of music from this decade. 

10. What I'm Wearing: Lounge clothes or old comfy dresses whenever I can!!

11. What I'm Doing This Weekend: Going to Charli's Girl Scouts event, swimming, working to implement some routines, decluttering, making a few things on the ol' Cricut, cleaning, and enjoying an extra day thanks to Labor Day

12. What I'm Looking Forward To Next Month: Football and (maybe) cooler weather! Although in Tennessee, fall usually takes its sweet time to get here and stick around! 

13. Favorite Amazon Product Of The Month: Since I've been in consignment tagging mode, it's gotta be the 100 pack of hangers that I'm quickly using up! FYI - that is an affiliate link, so if you click on it and purchase hangers or something way more fun on Amazon, I'll make a few pennies from your purchase, which I will then use to save towards more hangers for the next consignment sale...    

What's up with you? How has your August been? It's felt like it's only been about 15 minutes long here...

Linking up with Sheaffer and Shea

40 by 40 : Month 1 Update

I'm nearly one month into being 39, so it's time for my first 40 by 40 update!

1. Get another tattoo - Not yet, but I did find out that a tattoo artist who I follow on TikTok for her amazing glittery looking tattoos will be at a convention in Chattanooga in March. I want to see if it'll be possible for me to go because I would love one of her pieces!

2. Visit the beach - Definitely not yet!

3. Do a cartwheel - No, but I've been debating asking Charli's gymnastics coach for pointers. We'll see if I'm brave enough to do that, or if I'll just keep Googling it...

4. Purple hair - Not yet

5. Ride a bike - Not yet

6. Get a curl cut - Not yet

7. Find a skin care routine - Not yet 

8. Get my nose pierced...again - Not yet

9. Buy a new phone - Not yet

10. Create a will - Not yet

11. Have family pictures made - Not yet. One of our friends who is a photographer does amazing Christmas picture sessions with snow, usually in the fall, so that's the tentative plan for our family pictures!

12. Go to the eye doctor/get new glasses - Not yet

13. Make our family notebook - Not yet

14. Go to Cheekwood during the fall or spring - Not yet since it isn't fall or spring yet!

15. Try five new restaurants/coffee shops in the area - We tried two last month! One was a food truck that was at the farmer's market event I mentioned in my July Sentence A Day post and the other was where we had my belated birthday dinner with my in-laws. They were both really good...or at least I think so since I didn't have all of my sense of smell and taste back yet... (2/5)

16. Go to the dentist - Not yet

17. Take a picture in front of a Nashville mural - Not yet. Charli has a dentist appointment downtown (that I need to...ugh...call and reschedule), so whenever we're in Nashville for that, I'm going to go mural hunting!

18. Stick with our budget every month, starting in August - This one was a little bumpy for us! I recently had a change at work that switched my pay days from weekly to every two weeks, so we had to relearn how to budget our money when we didn't have money coming in weekly. We also both received pay raises, so we had to account for our new incomes, which unfortunately also made us spend a little more since "we had extra money" (theoretically). Half credit here. (0.5/12)

19. Set up a craft area - Not yet. I have a couple of ideas of how I want the space to look, but I haven't done anything yet because my plans involve moving a lot of furniture around, and some of it from upstairs to the basement, which I know Will is going to be thrilled about!

20. Go to a UT football game - Not yet since the first game isn't until September 1!

21. Do a 5K - Not yet. I think I'm going to aim for doing one on Thanksgiving. That gives me a little over three months to get back into the walking habit, plus it's so nice to feel like you accomplished something before stuffing your face!!

22. Take a weekend trip with Will - Not yet. If I can make the tattoo appointment in Chattanooga work, then that might be our trip!

23. Go kayaking - Not yet

24. Pay off most of our debt - Not yet. I'm working on some side hustles/ways to bring in extra income, so hopefully those will pan out and we can start paying extra on these things!

25. Go on six fun/different dates with Will - Not yet (0/6)

26. Go on six fun/different mom/daughter dates with Charli - I'm counting the splash pad and exploring the state park for our first one since it was somewhere she and I had never been to together. Plus, mom kept us supplied with snacks, so that made it even better! (1/6)

27. Try a new workout class - Not yet

28. Watch all of the Marvel movies/shows - I found a list of all of the movies and shows in chronological order of when the events happened in the MCU, and wow, let's just say I underestimated how many titles there were! I haven't started any yet, but I think this will be an item that I make a lot of progress on during the colder months!

29. Try two new recipes a month - We did two pretty simple recipes this month - one, a ham, cheese, and honey sandwich on waffles (Will didn't try it, but I enjoyed it!), and the other was the infamous red bag chicken from Aldi, which was really good! We've eaten that chicken several times in the last few weeks!

30. Read 100 books - So far I've read 6 books, so I'm a little short of my goal of 2 per week, but I'm making progress! (6/100)

31. Get a new tablet or e-reader - Not yet

32. Replace my broken Pandora bracelet - Not yet

33. Make a house projects list and complete one a month - I started lists for all of the rooms, and with the help of my aunt and grandma, we completed one task - clearing off the dining room table (along with the area on the floor around the dining room, Charli's room, and Charli's playroom! Woo hoo!). (1/12)

34. Buy new makeup and start a makeup routine - Not yet

35. Use the Instant Pot - Not yet

36. Play bingo in Kentucky - Not yet

37. Complete a 30 day challenge [TBD] - Nope but I'll look into picking a challenge before my Month 2 update so I'll at least have an idea of when I should do this. 

38. Monthly social media free days - Completed on August 4! (1/12)

39. Make $500 from freelance writing - $0 so far, but I have a few ideas of where to find some fast jobs, so we'll see if month 2 is better!

40. Get Koopa's DNA done - Not yet

The first month flew by, but I made some decent progress! Let's see how month 2 goes!

Sentence A Day : July 2022

Time to recap July, one sentence at a time!

1 - We finally got a little bit of much-needed rain but not nearly enough!

2 - Charli's second gymnastics class, and she had a great time again, but she suckered us into going to a coffee shop afterwards!

3 - Sunday at home with Charli and Koopa while Will worked, and we got more rain!!

4 - We don't love fireworks, but we love watching Charli enjoy them!

5 - Tuesday that felt like a Monday...nothing bad, just confusing to my brain! [Sentence a Day : June 2022]

6 - Trying to squeeze a week's worth of work into fewer than a week's worth of days is exhausting!! [Currently : July 2022]

7 - Went with Charli and Mom to see a play tonight, and Charli did really well, even though it was a little advanced for her at times!

8 - Chattanooga weekend trip with Charli, my mom, and my brother (Will stayed home to take care of the animals in both households), and our campground/camp cabin is really nice, but we couldn't swim tonight because of the weather.

9 - Spent most of the day at the Creative Discovery Museum since the Aquarium was almost sold out, and then when we got to the campground, there was lightning, and they closed the pool, which made Charli pretty mad!

10 - Finally got to swim at the campground, went to the Aquarium, had a late lunch, and headed home...phew!

11 - Went into the office for a little bit and feel like I've been in the car enough for a month or two!

12 - Unfortunately I finally got hit with the dreaded 'rona and feel awful!

13 - Lots of resting and whining today; poor Will and Charli!

14 - More resting today and so much coughing...over it!!

15 - Felt a little more human today and worked for a couple of hours, but it got Will, so he's down for the count now.

16 - Happy birthday to me!!! 🎂Gonna have to celebrate next weekend thanks to the ol' c-virus...

17 - Rode with Mom and Charli to pick up some toys Mom got on Facebook Marketplace, got some coffee that I can almost taste, then spent some time at Mom's playing with Charli, who promises she'll come home tomorrow night!

18 - Spoiler alert - she did not come home tonight...sigh... [40 by 40 : The List]

19 - Ran errands at lunch and took my brother to get him some lunch and while sitting at a red light, a container of Tide Pods fell off a car and in front of mine; I posted on our local community Facebook group to see if someone would claim it, but no one has so far...so odd!!

20 - I forgot to write my sentence today, but I think it was a pretty regular day.

21 - Ditto yesterday!

22 - Will and I met Mom, Charli, one of Charli's friends, and his mom at an orchard for a farmer's market night, which was hot but fun!

23 - Gymnastics, school shopping (including Mom getting some new glasses for Charli), and dinner with the in-laws for a belated birthday celebration!

24 - Went to a splash pad at a local state park with Mom and Charli, then explored it a little bit, which makes me want to get a camper and hit the road!!

25 - Monday, Monday, Monday...

26 - Charli has a stomach bug, which is ironic since she was just asking last night about throwing up...

27 - It was a short-lived bug, and she is feeling like herself again!

28 - Open house night at Charli's school to get her yearbook from last year and meet her teacher!

29 - Finally finished a freelance project that I took way too long on...phew!!

30 - Errands day with Will, Charli, and Mom, and Charli begged to go to the car wash!

31 - Last day of Charli's summer break, and I'm not ready for early alarms again!!

This year is flying by!