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?

I don’t know about you, but the Rio Olympics have taken over the TV at my house for the last few weeks! My favorite event is the women’s gymnastics, and it was so much fun to watch Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Madison Kocian, and Laurie Hernandez blow the world out of the water and win medal after medal. With the girls now making the media rounds here at home and still taking social media by storm, I’m reliving the memories and sharing why I think they’re awesome!

1. Their work ethic and dedication. These girls have put in many, many hours of hard work leading up to these Olympics. They have dedicated their whole lives to their sport, and there’s something satisfying and inspiring, even for a casual observer like me, about seeing them succeed in such spectacular fashion. All their hard work and sacrifice has paid off, and their reward is absolute excellence and dominance. And, of course, a few medals 😉 I can only imagine how awesome they must feel, knowing that all those years were worth it! 
2.  Their personal stories. All five of these gymnasts have incredible stories. From Simone Biles being adopted by her grandparents and given a second chance, to Gabby Douglas coming back for her second Olympics despite a slightly rocky beginning to her gymnastics comeback, to Laurie Hernandez’s making the team at age 16 in only her first year competing at the senior level, to Madison Kocian’s dazzling uneven bars routine earning her a spot on the team. Then there’s my personal favorite comeback story: Aly Raisman’s. She suffered a major disappointment being on the losing end of a tiebreaker for bronze in the all-around competition at the 2012 London Games. Now at 22 years old, she’s the oldest member of the team (the other girls call her “Mama Aly” or “Grandma”), and she’s at the top of her game. This year, she came back to win a silver medal in the all-around. In a sport where it’s rare to compete in more than one Olympics, she blew everyone away and did even better than last time. Redemption at its finest!
3. Their friendship and camaraderie. I loved seeing the genuine friendships between the girls, on and off the competition floor. You could tell from their reactions that they were all excited when the others did well, like when Laurie Hernandez took silver on the balance beam, ahead of Simone Biles’ bronze. They’ve been living and training together for over a month, and I imagine it would be one of the greatest experiences ever to share such an awesome life event with girls who have quickly become your best friends!
4. Their awesome leotards. Okay, this might be kind of superficial, but I think they have the best-looking leotards at the Olympics. Is there anything better than red, white, blue, and bling? I don’t think so.
5. Their historic victory. This team was the first from the USA to win the team gold medal at back-to-back Olympics. Gabby and Aly were part of the gold medal-winning team in 2012, and this year’s team won by a huge margin. Not only that, but at least one medal in each event (all-around, uneven bars, balance beam, vault, and floor exercise) was won by a member of Team USA. By the end of competition, they walked away with nine (9!!) medals: four gold, four silver, and one bronze, making them the most-decorated women’s gymnastics team in US history. Not to mention that Simone’s four gold medals tie the Olympic record for a female gymnast at a single Games.They are truly the best in the world, and their records will be tough to beat in the years to come. They are champions in the truest sense of the word.

I love the fact that, despite their status as Olympic champions, these girls still seem so relatable. I wish we could be friends in real life! But even if we never meet them, there’s still a lot we can learn from them about dedication, work ethic, and striving for excellence in everything we do. So go out there, work hard at what you love, and don’t forget to celebrate with your friends along the way! And if you get a chance to wear some red, white, blue, and bling, definitely take that chance 😉

Photos by John Cheng, from the USA Gymnastics Facebook page