Y’all, it’s June, and that means SUMMER! I’ve been out of school for four years, but flipping my calendar to this month still gives me excited butterflies in my stomach. Do you have any fun plans coming up? We’re sticking pretty close to home in June, but will be eagerly checking things off of our summer list (coming soon). In July, however, one of my best (and oldest–we’ve known each other since 1993!) friends is getting married in Virginia, and my whole family is coming up for the celebration. I’m already counting down the days, especially since I haven’t seen my brother and youngest sister since Christmas! That’s the sweetest thing about summer, I think–even without many big holidays to celebrate, the season creates such beautiful opportunities to spend quality time with loved ones. Yes please to that!
May Goals
1. Celebrate our second wedding anniversary!
2. Try a new class at the Y
3. Serve a couple at my church as part of the wedding committee
4. Give our house’s exterior a makeover
5. Write a personal essay about motherhood (have made good progress!)
June Goals
1. Make some changes to my blog workflow and organization to better fit my new daily schedule and content goals
2. Bring meals to two families and snuggle their sweet new babies!
3. Read two books (would love suggestions for great fiction books you’ve read lately! Nothing depressing or scary, please :) )
4. Finish my first draft of my personal essay
5. Test out some new products from BeautyCounter–SO excited about this!
P.S. Really quickly, there are three new features on Something Pretty that I want to point out to you!
1. If you hover over “Lifestyle” in the menu at the top of the page, you’ll see a dropdown for some of my most popular/favorite categories, like motherhood, marriage, and our house.
2. The Celebrations page, also listed at the top, is now organized by holiday! I’m so excited to bulk this up a lot throughout this year and make it a fun and useful resource for those special days :)
3. You can now shop my LiketoKnow.it-enabled Instagrams by going to “Shop” on the very top of the page. (P.S. You don’t need to sign up for LiketoKnow.it in order to see the links there!)
I’m currently reading Look Me in the Eye, a memoir, and really enjoying it. :)
Memoirs are my favorite! Thanks! :)
My favorite book I’ve read this year was The Night Circus. It reminded me of the movie The Prestige and the book Water for Elephants. Some other books I loved that I read last year – The Light We Cannot See, The Light Between Oceans, The Nightingale and It Ends with us.
I haven’t read any of those–thanks, Natalie! :)
Ditto to The Light We Cannot See, The LIght Between Oceans, and The Nightingale! All SO riveting!!
Thank you!!
I was going to recommend the Nightingale too but it might fall into the “depressing” category because it’s about WWII but it’s so good! I have read two memoirs recently that were great too: At Home in the World and A Year in Rome (the author wrote the Light We Cannot See while living in Rome with his wife and twin babies and it was really fun).
Oops, that second book is Four Seasons in Rome and the author is Anthony Doerr :)
At Home in the World is at the top of my list, and A Year in Rome sounds so good! Thanks for the recommendations! :)
I’m trying to read more too! I miss it and, now that Annabelle has a consistent bedtime, it’s a lot more feasible. I’ve currently picked up some F. Scott Fitzgerald classics to enjoy!
Can’t wait to read your personal essay and I hope you’ll share more house updates here! :) Loving the new features too! :)
I just finished reading Edenbrooke a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it! It was such a fun light summer read :)
English countryside? Yes please! :)
I was clicking around SP the other day and saw the new things :) Love! I’ll be reading books off of the summer reading list I gave the children. I’ll let you know if I read anything spectacular!
Just no Heart of Darkness, please :D
I recently read “The House at the Edge of Night,” which follows a family and the small Italian island they live on through four generations. I know you love Italy, so this might be a great read for you!
Oooh, that sounds so good! Thanks for the recommendation!