What I learned in August.

Happy September!!! The official month when we pretty much call summer quits and we slowly start welcoming all the pumpkin and cinnamon back into our lives. Today, I am sharing what I learned in August and linking up with Emily Freeman over at Chatting at the Sky.

August was a knowledge-heavy month for me– it was also a whirlwind of activity leaving me with an average of a little more than one post a week… so there’s that.

1. I learned the JOY that comes in being someone else’s champion. This summer I’ve been able to take part in someone else’s dream. A close friend and confidante of mine is writing an amazing book, and asked me to help.  Months of emails, texts and randomly timed phone calls led us to a nearly finished manuscript and a book proposal. I read Michael Hyatt’s book on writing a book proposal and then actually wrote my first book proposal. It was scary for sure, but exciting.  One day I hope to write a book proposal of my own… but until then, this was so fun. There’s something really heart-filling about being someone else’s cheerleader– especially when you don’t have to wear a polyester uniform and royal blue bloomers.

2.  I learned that I do not understand the hype with Cold Brew Coffee. I am an Iced Coffee Fanatic. I really only have one coffee a day, and it is almost always iced. Usually my husband brews a pot of extra strong coffee in his Chemex* and then we chill it. I have tried the Cold-Brew method several different times and I always end up with coffee grounds galore. I recently tried the Pioneer Woman’s version, taking every careful step to be sure I wasn’t doing something wrong. I strained it a second and even a third time with the cheesecloth, and still I got this:Not to mention a huge mess. I’m just not sure it’s a better method than what we are doing…  but people rave about Cold Brew Iced Coffee. Anyone have any tips? I will happily try it again.

3. I learned that heat makes people cranky. This past weekend our downstairs AC went out, the temps topped 99 and we had the added holiday to delay getting it fixed– so we spent about three days without Air Conditioning. In Georgia. In the summer. Oh. My. We really did make the best of it, and we survived. We ate ice cream as often as possible and we introduced our kids to one very important thing– Magic Shell Ice Cream Topping. They also learned the joy of sitting in front of a box fan and talking into it for hours. Ha! Some things are just awesome no matter what generation you’re born in. I learned that when the internal temperature of a home is 86 degrees, butter softens very quickly and coconut oil remains at a liquid state.

As much as those things might be culinarily convenient, when one’s home feels somewhere around the temperature of, OH, I don’t know–standing-on-the-surface-of-the-Sun Hot, one tends to notice a change in their attitude. It’s amazing how something as simple as being perpetually hot and sweaty can make you cranky– but at some point, we did notice that we ALL were in fact… ILL with one another.

But most importantly, this all taught me how I sort of… appreciate a few days of frustration and NOT having something we tend to take for granted, because it gives me a good reminder– of all the amazing blessings we live with every day. Not having Air Conditioning for three days sounds so paltry, but it caused me to realize how much we DO take for granted. And THAT is a lesson worth learning. 

4. In August, we celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary. In seven years, we’ve shared three addresses.

Two daughters. Two states. We have shared a little more than 2, 556 days as a family.

I learned that Seven years isn’t long enough to spend with your very best friend and that I’m quite sure 67 years won’t be long enough either. 

 

 

Your Turn! What did you learn in August????