"Let August Be August"

we're supposed to be more serious this month? bleh

Hello! Crayons are 25 cents at Walmart again, which means that just like that, summer has fluttered away. As Simon & Garfunkel sang: “July, she will fly // And give no warning to her flight.”

Last summer, we had lived in our new city for a year and I had finally gotten very close to three friends, then August came around and all of a sudden, two of them got full-time jobs and one of them moved nearly an hour away. Wah. This time of year can be a painful divide for friends who have different schedules. Also, August feels like a let’s-get-down-to-business month after feeling childlike and free for a minute.

I lamented to a friend recently that I struggle to find balance with schedules and commitments, and she said that instead of aiming for some arbitrary and impossible sense of “balance,” she prefers to think in terms of seasons. What a wise approach. There’s lots of growth, gratitude, and grace to be found wherever you are…whether you’re with friends constantly or hunkering down, volunteering around town or just trying to sweep your own floors, victoriously meeting your goals or floundering a bit in the hard things you can’t control. Seasons exist, and we can cheer each other on through all of them ❤️

Here are three random tips that might make Let’s-Get-Down-To-Business Season feel a little more inviting. They help me, anyway.

The Library Lets You Say “Yes”

You might’ve noticed I’ve posted fewer and fewer craft and activity ideas lately. It’s because I haven’t been setting up many 😛 Why? We rediscovered the library.

The small library I’m zoned for wasn’t meeting our needs—a 20-book limit? Really? 😅—so I decided to just cough up fifty bucks and buy a library card in the city and commit to driving a bit more to access it. We tried out all the locations in the system until I found a favorite to make our primary branch, and I’ve been blown away by the commitment of these librarians to serve their community.

In our favorite branch’s Monday afternoon sessions, we’ve made hummus, Ooblek, watercolor-and-stamped art of our city’s skyline, paper quilling projects, homemade candles, and more. For a long time I’ve been wanting to try many of these activities at home but felt deterred by the cost and mess. When the library offers these activities to the community, it’s way more efficient (and fun) than one mom trying to do all the Pinterest things on her own, and the kids love it. Librarians happily open the door for kids to try things their parents wouldn’t normally say “yes” to.

And that’s what I love: the library lets you say “yes.” It’s a shopping spree that costs $0! (Or, if you need to go out of your zoning like I do, it might cost $50 a year 🤷🏻‍♀️)

The library lets you cozy up next to your kid and say “What are you interested in these days? Let’s chase after it.”

The library lets your kids say “Can you get me a book about _____?” so that you can say “Yep! I’ll order it right now!”

And the library lets you say “yes” to your interests, too. I love to flip through cookbooks while my kids are playing at the park, try art tutorials from books I’ve wanted but couldn’t buy, and dip my toes into the works of deep thinkers I’ve heard good things about. It’s all so low-commitment that you can feel free to try things you might normally write off!

Anyway. I hope you get to check out your library a little deeper this week. If the programs and selection have little to offer, maybe there’s a location a little further out that can meet your needs better.

Same LEGOs, Fresh Ideas

One neat hack that the library has helped us with is checking out books that give suggestions for LEGO builds using bricks we already have. My kids have learned the value of the dollar enough to know that, to them, new LEGO kits are almost never worth the expense 😅 Instead they buy LEGOs used, usually by the pound, and work on their little collaborative neighborhood together. Books like The LEGO Ideas Book help guide their imagination, and recently they found inspiration from Build Your Own LEGO Escape Room to make really cool mini obstacle courses, complete with tight-rope walking over lava, navigating across slippery ice, falling into a trap door, etc. They use their fingers as little walking legs 😁

My most tender-hearted daughter didn’t want to make anyone have to escape or potentially get pretend-hurt, so she made a nature walk instead 🥰 I’d love to hear the ways your kids use LEGOs inventively, too. We’ve simplified our home and toys a lot lately, so LEGOs are kind of the main attraction when it comes to toys.

Making A Commonplace Book

Few things get me more hopeful about a new season of life than a fresh journal. I think it’s because I love imagining all the things that I’ll fill it with. It’s lovely to think about all the sweet, surprising, and painful-but-eventually-redemptive things that might happen in the next several months that will be worthy of writing down.

Practically speaking, I’ve been using what could be considered a simple “bullet journal” since about 2016. I think my favorite aspect is making a table of contents and adding page numbers. (It goes faster than you would think if you only do all odds or evens!)

Last year I started calling these little journals “Florilegium”; see the excellent post by Tsh Oxenrider about commonplace books that people throughout history have made a habit of keeping. “Florilegium” literally means “a gathering of flowers”; I want my journal to be a collection of beautiful things. My goal with these little journals is:

• remember and be grateful for the beautiful people, words, and moments I get to experience

• create beauty with my life and brainstorm on-the-go as I think of ways to make life better for those around me

• have a place where I take notes, scribble ideas, write weepy prayers, and keep track of task lists

I keep my Florilegium in my bag at all times and bring it with me almost everywhere. When I sit in a waiting room or watch the kids play outside, it feels less rude to daydream, brainstorm, and record thankfulness into a journal than if I were typing furiously into my Notes app (which I utilize multiple times a day as well.)

One more tip: you can use folded washi tape to make little tabs on the pages or sections you want to be able to flip to quickly; in my current journal, I put my tabs on the master task list and on the first pages of Part II and Part III. Always remember to save a page for keeping track of “Things to Improve When I Make My Next Journal!”

I’ve tried lots of journals over the years and I can’t get past the 5x7 inch, $8-10 journals from Peter Pauper Press. (Not sponsored; I’m just a paper snob who’s found a very satisfying product 😆)

Personal Greetings

If you find your heart tender as August approaches, you might appreciate the poem by Morgan Harper Nichols where she says “Let July be July. // Let August be August.”
I hope this month, whether it includes transitions or plodding along or both, is a rich and meaningful one for you.

Last year’s August theme was Self-Care and it was one of my very favorite months to write. Paid subscribers can read the full archives—twenty posts in August alone!—but I’ve opened up the encouragement letters below for all readers in case you could use them ❤️

A Letter to the Burnt Out
A Letter to the Failing
To the Person Who Feels Unsupported
To the Person Who Feels “Less Than”
To the Person Who Struggles With Self-Care

I’d truly love to hear how you’re doing. I’m grateful for you.

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts