Looking Forward, Looking Back – July 2023

Three times a week is a habit: No, no and no. Blogging I’ve posted 1-2 times per week most weeks. I meant to start gardening once we returned home but have only managed to get out into the garden a few times. There is a fair bit of tidying up, and I also want to start planning my summer veggie gardens. I have been taking some photos, but I need to get back into working on our photobooks.

Read: 52 books. I only completed two books last month, and GoodReads is telling me that I’m two books behind schedule, but I’m a good way through three books now, so hopefully, I’ll be back on track by the end of the month.

Travel: I sat down with Hubby last weekend to find out what he wanted to do and would be able to do while we are in DC and New York. It’s constrained a little bit by the running and resting he’ll need to do before the New York marathon, but we now have a rough itinerary. I want to book all our train tickets and rough out our activities for Italy and Germany this month. I still want to do some posts about our time in Queensland.

Home: The shelving was installed in our study, which was the last thing on our list. We’re really happy with the workmanship. I’ve only moved across the items on our desk shelves that were overflowing but will populate the rest as we go along.

Photography: Not heaps of movement in this area. I will post my In the Garden photos later this week. I want to continue this month with my son’s primary school photobook.

Round the Neighbourhood: A small progression in running or walking all the streets in my neighbourhood. Elwood: 72 of 94 ⬆️ 12, 76.8% ⬆️ 12.97%. I’ve been taking some photos and doing a bit of research on various aspects of the neighbourhood, which I’ll share sometime this month. There is also a couple of art installations at a local mansion that I’ll try to pop down to see.

Sustainability: Getting back into the cooking, and shopping routine but need to be a bit more organised so I can make good use of our bulk stores.

Run: I’ve downgraded my ambitions to run 2000km this year. This month was not great in terms of distance because I had the recovery period from the half-marathon and missed some runs due to feeling unwell after my shingles vax. I feel like I’m back on track now, and ran four times last week for a total of 38km which gives me a good start to build on. I’ve entered the 15km DeCastella run, which is at the end of August.

Entertain: Family dinners and small group are back on. We also had our running friends over for a firepit launch with mulled wine and cheese. Followed by a Mexican rice bowl dinner.

Other: I finally went bra shopping and retired my worn-out bras. It’s amazing what a difference a good-fitting, non-stretched-out bra can make. This month I need to see if I can get a team together to start mainly music at our church. We also need to reassess our private health insurance (we no longer need pregnancy coverage etc, and we don’t yet require cataracts, hip replacements or dialysis so we can move to lower coverage.)