BOOKS
Reading Stats of August
- Books read: 10
- Number of pages read: 3,597
- Average star rating: 3.8
- Average time to finish a book: 8 days
- Format breakdown: print (6), audiobook (3), e-book (1)
- Genre breakdown: mystery/thriller (30%), romance (30%), fiction (30%), nonfiction (10%)
- # of DNFs: 2 (I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue and What the Wind Knows by Amy Harmon)
- Audiobook reading: 31 hours, 21 minutes (actual listening time: 18 hours, 17 minutes)
Reading Superlatives of August
- The best book I read in August: Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
- The book I didn’t expect to love as much as I did: Heartwood by Amity Gaige
- The book that lived up to the hype: The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
- The buzzy book that did not live up to the hype: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
- The book with the most “WTF” moments: Bad City by Paul Pringle
Reading List (from favorite to least favorite)
- Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez (print, 2025) ★★★★★
- The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett (print, 2025) ★★★★★
- Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels by Paul Pringle (audiobook, 2022) ★★★★★
- Heartwood by Amity Gaige (audiobook 2025) ★★★★☆
- Dead Money by Jakob Kerr (print, 2025) ★★★★☆
- The Address by Fiona Davis (print, 2017) ★★★★☆
- The Bell in the Fog by Lev AC Rosen (print, 2023) ★★★★☆
- Every Summer After by Carley Fortune (e-book, 2022) ★★★☆☆ 1/2
- Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (print, 2025) ★★☆☆☆ 1/2
- The Last One by Will Dean (audiobook, 2023) ★☆☆☆☆
MEDIA
- Next Level Chef, season 2 – The winner’s edit on this season was easy to spot, but I still really enjoyed watching and rooting for my favorite chefs.
- Survivor, season 16 – I’m nearly finished with season 16, which is titled “fans vs favorites.” There are two tribes: one filled with people playing Survivor for the first time and one filled with returnees like Cirie, Parvati, Ozzy, etc. I’m thoroughly enjoying myself!
- Big Brother – We’re still in Big Brother season and things have definitely improved from the first part of the game. It’s still not a season filled with great strategists, but at least there have been some great blindsides and messy gameplay that keeps things interesting.
- Brooklyn 99, season 3 – I started watching season 3 of Brooklyn 99 when I was going through a depressive episode and needed something lighthearted to watch. It was exactly what I needed!
MONEY
Favorite purchase of August
Afternoon tea with Mom. I gifted my mom an afternoon tea experience at a local tea shop for Mother’s Day, and we finally coordinated our schedules to make it happen this month. We enjoyed our tea (I’m learning that a good peppermint-type tea is drinkable for this non-tea drinker!) and sandwiches and desserts, so it was a good time had by all.
Most delightful little indulgence of August
Pumpkin spice creamer. I was so excited to see that pumpkin spice creamers made their way back onto the shelves at my grocery store this month! I couldn’t add a bottle to my cart fast enough!
Most regrettable purchase of August
Automatic card shuffler. We play a lot of games in my family and I was hoping this automatic card shuffler would make things easier for us, but alas, it did not work as promised. It was a big disappointment, but I spent less than $13 on it so I guess you get what you pay for!
Number of books purchased in August: 1
- Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (Target)
Best recommendation
Desktop vacuum cleaner. My desk is always filled with cat hair and crumbs and all sorts of dust, so I finally bought this adorable desktop vacuum cleaner to deal with all of that. It’s perfect!
Blog/Podcast
On the blog, I took you through a day in the life, one photo per hour style! I gave you my current thoughts on motherhood and being childless at 37. I also talked through some of my highs and lows of my week and posted a fun three things Thursday blog.
On the podcast, Bri and I talked about our TV and movie watching habits as well as gave some recommendations and spicy opinions on popular shows/movies that just aren’t for us. And then we did a superficial deep dive on the Primal Question, which is a personality framework that was very interesting to talk through!
JOURNAL
Samples from my One Line a Day journal
- August 2, 2025: Mom and I did our TSA pre-check today and it was so easy. As I was leaving Mom’s house, though, I was nearly knocked down with an immense wave of sadness. Ugh.
- August 4, 2025: Appt w/ my psychiatrist. She’s putting in an order for a new med to add to Prozac. Let’s hope it works.
- August 5, 2025: Insurance approved the prescription and my copay is $0. Some good news finally.
- August 7, 2025: I woke up today and nearly felt like my old self. OMG – it is good to be back.
- August 10, 2025: I’m definitely out of my depression. I think the birth control messed me up. Gah!
- August 12, 2025: Mom and I met with Amber and spent an hour working on our London itinerary. We leave in 7 weeks!
- August 16, 2025: Took Chip and Lucy to the dog beach. They both did so good! Chip really enjoyed running around with all the other dogs.
- August 21, 2025: I feel another cyst growing in my armpit. OMG. Will they ever stop?
- August 24. 2025: Mom and I went for afternoon tea, which was a lot of fun. And then I took a lovely long nap!
- August 30, 2025: Got a pedicure today and almost witnessed a pregnant woman faint! Thankfully, she was fine. Scary!
Previous years:
- August 9, 2022: Our first full-length podcast episode released today. The reception has been amazing.
- August 30, 2023: Hurricane day! Idalia made landfall way north of us. I didn’t lose power + no flooding around me. What a relief.
- August 29, 2024: My first night using my CPAP! It was awkward and hard to fall asleep but I know things will get easier.
SUPERLATIVES
- This month’s chapter title: The Quiet Month
- Weather notes: So much rain! We had a few days where it rained nonstop, which is unusual for us.
- Favorite meal/snack: My favorite comfort food, what we call in our family “hamburgravy.” It’s basically deconstructed shepherd’s pie where you just mix up ground beef, mashed potatoes, corn, and any type of gravy together. It’s one of my favorite meals.
- Something I learned: The definition of lint and why it collects so much in the dryer
- An unexpected delight: Getting a sweet postcard from Birchie and Nicole, where they expressed how much they enjoy my podcast! It was such a sweet card to receive!
Tell me something good about August for you!
I’m reading The Road to Tender Hearts right now and enjoying it very much. I Hope This Finds You Well was also a DNF for me.
The best thing in August was of course meeting Nicole and sending that post card!
Yay, I’m glad you’re enjoying The Road to Tender Hearts. I loved that book so much!
You met Nicole in August!! YESSSS.
SO glad you are out of your depression! I guess the birth control was an epic fail (or, at least now you know what doesn’t work.)
That afternoon tea looks so fun! I’ve always wanted to do something like that (but it would all have to be vegan and also have no sugar.) (What? There’s no such thing? Darn!)
I also read ten books in August, which is a huge number for me. I’m sure it’s just average for you. Our only overlap was Heartwood, which I also enjoyed.
10 books is great! That’s a big number for me, too. I was happy to sneak in that last book right under the wire.
Epic fail indeed on the birth control. Whew!
The tea with your mom looks like so much fun! That was a great Mother’s Day gift idea! The little desk vacuum looks handy. I think I need one. You’ve had your CPAP for a whole year? Where did the time go?
The desk vacuum has become my favorite thing! It brings me a lot of joy, haha.
A whole year of CPAP therapy! It has indeed been as life-changing as people told me it would be.
I also can’t believe you’ve had your CPAP for a year??? Wowzers. Time flies.
I was just thinking about looking into an automatic card shuffler. So I’m sorry to learn it didn’t work. I will see if I can do some research and find one that works well. We have a few card games with SUPER thick decks and it’s such a headache to separate it into piles and mix and match things to get everything well shuffled. But, also, maybe I’m just being too lazy? We shall see! But I will tread carefully knowing your experience didn’t pan out.
I really hate shuffling cards! And we have a few of those massive decks, too, where you have to shuffle them in sections. It’s so time-consuming. I guess I need to pay a little more than $13 for a good card deck shuffler!
I read “I Hope This Finds You Well” but only gave it 3 stars. August was a great month for reading for me! The Correspondent was my favorite book. I can’t imagine anything topping it but I hope I am wrong as I’ll take more successful books! I also had 3 DNFs which is a lot for me.
We play cards a lot as well but have a card shuffler that works pretty well. This is the one we have (https://www.amazon.com/FEIERYA-Automatic-Shuffler-Playing-Electric/dp/B09Q69K331/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2SROESTNA4O9Z&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.8AvsGrbxgszb7Tk5NtZ_085ZtP_2doPVqe8HKaBGM7lwr9pgZDse8frwMnPr5JqS6vViNhbOhnJs82D8N44ZFqPl3eNTeu53_XGYRWn4dGtZ-i_S4lE-fe71a3PxbjumpMVhIp2dYe1Cblf7-kj6Z1Ugh7OhU04ydEyiUjwFgv1sdX2FESJh4ZQqt20RBcRIt3TFx7KTxWiYnCwXpvzgFo0GMb46nGzhc-rMi0oO_RznNvo21ZW0gsz_TXfIDAvAz_9jlUt485ZU4JwwvRIiHF5c6O5B3COzADZEZdvxQM0.g0W8JAAb1dcQ2APmROLCG4k0rGhg-v2zB6Blj3Vpeaw&dib_tag=se&keywords=card%2Bshuffler&qid=1756846279&sprefix=card%2Bshuffler%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-5&th=1). It’s not fool proof, though. It’s a little finnicky but we have figured out how to make it work. My parents have it, too. I might need to upgrade and get a nicer one when this one wears out. We play a lot of games with 3-5 decks of cards so a shuffler is a MUST for us!!
August was kind of a tale of 2 months. We had a great week at my parents and the early part of the month was good. Then last week SUCKED with the tragedy in my neighborhood. Nearly all of the trees have ribbons with the school colors so the community has really come together to support Annunciation in ways both big and small. We visited the memorial at the church as a family yesterday. It was the first time we’ve had to explicitly talk about school shootings with Paul which was a hard convo. I do hope this motivates my state to make changes to gun laws such as banning assault rifles. I also know we need to do more for mental health but we can’t do that while cutting Medicaid…
That’s the automatic card shuffler I bought! I think we got a bad one because it just wouldn’t shuffle from both sides. We tried everything! I need to do more research and just spend the money on a good one because it would be so useful.
It has to be so tough to have those convos with your kids and send them to school. No school is safe these days, and it’s really scary to think about. I don’t understand people who are so gung-ho on gun rights but even so, wouldn’t you want the people on your side to be responsible gun users? And no civilian needs an assault rifle. It’s truly despicable.
What a lovely month you’ve had! Afternoon tea is such a lovely gift for your mom.
I had a great August as well – it kicked off with Birchie coming to see me, and it was such a great visit. I wish she lived down the road! Then I went to a musical with my friends, the guys came home, and it has just been a delight of sunshine and gardening. And today I’m leaving for a short impromptu road trip for my BFFs birthday!
Can we just PLEASE smoosh all our different cities together so we could be one big in-person bloggy community? THE DREAM.
I hope you had fun on your road trip!
So excited that London is creeping closer.
Also how wonderful that your depression is gone and the meds are working.
It feels good to feel good, that’s for sure!
Thank goodness you did not wait to talk to your psychiatrist when you started having symptoms. I hope that helped stave off the worst of it. <3
Also, London! Cannot wait to hear all about it on the other side.