This Blog-tember prompt comes at a pretty perfect time! The last couple weeks have been really busy between school starting, spending all last week getting ready to sell iced coffee at the fair, spending almost thirty-five hours at the fair over three days last weekend, and coming down with a cold/sinus infection this week. This weekend sounds like a good time to relax a little, so I’ll be ready to take on next week!

Friday, September 16: How do you de-stress/take care of yourself?

1. Write it down! One of the main things that stresses me out is my mind swirling with everything I need to do. Sometimes, I get to the point where I just need to write things down so I can clear my head and stop worrying about forgetting something on my to-do list. That’s where my planner comes in handy! It really helps to have everything written out where I can see it.
2. Cleaning This may sound kind of strange, but another way I de-stress is to clean. Honestly, I love cleaning, especially the kitchen and my room. I feel so much better when my surroundings aren’t cluttered and messy. I love to put on a podcast or some music and get cleaning!
3. Reading Of course, reading is one of my favorite things to do when I have some time to myself. There’s just something about settling in with a good book that brings me peace, and I’ve been loving these cool fall days when I can read outside!
4. Coloring I’ve recently jumped on the adult coloring bandwagon. I have a couple of coloring books, but I just found these cards (one of them is pictured above) that I really like! They’re smaller than a coloring book page so they don’t take as long to finish, they’re not stuck in a coloring book where you may never see them again, and I can send them to my friends 🙂
5. Embroidery Last but not least, I’ve also been teaching myself how to embroider. It’s so relaxing, and I love choosing the perfect colors and then seeing the design come to life! It’s also a good activity to do while watching a show, so I feel like I’m doing something instead of just vegging 😉

What do you do to relax and take care of yourself?

I’ve always loved spending time in the kitchen, but I usually enjoy cooking meals more than baking. That all changes when the pumpkin recipes start popping up on Pinterest in the fall! Then I’m suddenly in the mood to make pretty much anything pumpkin-related: cookies, shakes, coffee, waffles, muffins, pies…you name it! These yummy-looking treats are all on my fall Pinterest board, and I’m planning on trying some soon!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Snickerdoodles, Pumpkin Spice Latte Shake, Pumpkin Spice Waffles, Pumpkin Pie Crescents, Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins, Pumpkin Spice Truffles

I love today’s Blog-tember prompt: five things that bring you joy. I’m starting to realize how important it is to recognize what brings you joy, and to make time in your schedule to enjoy those things. It’s so easy to rush from one thing to the next, crossing items off our to-do lists. That is good and necessary, but what fun is life if you can’t experience some joy while you’re at it? So here are five things that bring me joy.

1. Reading outside on a cool morning. I love to read anywhere, any time, but I especially love those cool mornings in the spring and fall when I have time to sit out on the porch with my coffee and a good book.
2. Candles. There’s just something so peaceful about having a candle burning, especially one in a mason jar 😉
3. Fall/autumn. I love pretty much everything about fall. Cooler weather, colorful leaves, pumpkin everything, fairs, football…not to mention my birthday! Last year, I was working at Hobby Lobby, and seeing all the fall decor was one of the highlights of my day at work 😉 Plus, it includes Thanksgiving and the lead-up to Christmas, which are two of my favorite holidays.
4. Coffee. I don’t think that needs much of an explanation!
5. Stationary and notebooks. Whenever I’m at Target or TJMaxx, I head straight for the stationary aisle. I don’t know what I’ll ever do with all those notecards and notebooks, but I’m sure they’ll come in handy someday, right?

Honorable mentions (no less important than the other things I’ve mentioned, but I had to pick five!): road trips with my family (even just to church), going on adventures with my sister, and going to sleep listening to the rain. There really are a lot of joy-filled things and moments in life, if we will just stop to look for them!

What brings you joy?

It’s hard to believe summer is pretty much over! The calendar and the weather may not show it, but school has started again and the last few days have been feeling like fall here in New England. Summer went by so fast, but it was fun while it lasted!  Here are some of my favorites from the summer season.

Book: Montana Fire series by Susan May Warren – I love everything that Susan May Warren writes, and I was so excited to hear that the first book in her new Montana Rescue series is coming out in October! Then when I found out she was releasing a series of three e-books as kind of a prequel to the Montana Rescue series, I immediately added them to my summer reading list. All of her books are a great mix of romance, adventure, faith, and family, and as an added bonus, this summer’s series included some characters from her past books.

Product: dry shampoo – This stuff is seriously awesome! Let’s face it, there are a lot of things I’d rather do in the summer than wash my hair every day. It’s so nice to be able to spray some of this in my hair, brush it, and go. (Not Your Mother’s is my favorite brand, and I’m not making any money by saying that!)

TV show: Olympic gymnastics – I love the Olympics, and the women’s gymnastics is my favorite sport to watch. It looks like so much fun, but also so hard to pull off! I really admire anyone who can compete, especially at that level. Watching the national championships and Olympic trials, trying to guess who would make the team, and then watching the actual Olympics was something fun my sister and I could look forward to and enjoy together. Plus Team USA totally killed it out there! We also loved listening to this song that sounds like it was written for the Olympics. I have no idea if it was, but it’s perfect!

New recipe: blueberry cobbler – My grandmother has a little patch of blueberry bushes, and for a few weeks this summer she was giving us a quart of blueberries every few days. We found this recipe for blueberry cobbler on Pinterest and made it twice. It’s really easy and it’s soo good!

Memory: beach sunrise – One day, the week before my sister had to go back to college, we decided to go on an adventure. We left the house at 4:30am, stopped for coffee, and headed to the beach to see the sunrise. We took some pictures, made a few funny videos with boomerang, froze our feet in the water (the Atlantic is cold any time of year up here!), and checked out one of the touristy shops. It was a fun, spontaneous road trip, and definitely worth getting up so early!

Movie: Captain America – I’m not really sure how I lived to the year 2016 without seeing any of the Captain America movies (or the Avengers, or anything Marvel related), but I did. Then my sister and I decided to go see a movie, and Captain America: Civil War is the one we ended up seeing. After that, I was hooked, and had to rent or borrow every other movie with Cap in it. Kind of silly, but it’s a fun memory from this summer!

How about you? What are some of your favorites from this summer?

I’m back for the second day of Blog-tember! Today’s prompt is to write about your current goals, so here are my goals for September.

1. Blog at least three times a week. I should have plenty of inspiration with the Blog-tember prompts! I’m hoping to write more than three posts a week, but it’s better to have low expectations so you can beat them, right?

2. Read four books (at least two non-fiction). I have so many books that I haven’t read, mostly nonfiction because I always seem to make time for a good novel 😉 I really want to make a dent in that pile. Two won’t make much of a difference, but it’s a start!

3. Set up a budget. When I was working at my last job, I used the Mint app on my phone to give myself a budget. I haven’t done that since I started at my current job, so that’s a priority for this month. It’s way too easy to spend money on coffee and books if I don’t give myself some limits!

4. Movie/coffee with a friend. One of my goals for the year is to spend more time developing my friendships. It’s been a long time since I’ve really been able to spend time with my best friend, and I think we could both use an afternoon out, having fun and catching up.

5. Send a package to my sister at college. She has a lot fuller schedule this year than she did last year, so I want to be more intentional about encouraging her and cheering her up. Hopefully she isn’t reading this 😉

So there you have it! Five goals for September. I’m hoping to post next month about how I did, and then set some goals for October.

What are your goals for this month?