Can you believe we are already talking about August?

Every year it still catches me off guard. One minute it’s the 4th of July, and the next the stores are rolling out the notebooks and backpacks like summer didn’t just get started. I used to feel so rushed and frazzled by that. These days I try to let it settle me. I’m sure some of that has to do with not having kids in school any longer. But the thing about August is that it’s not really a fresh start, at least not in the way people feel a fresh start is in January or even spring… but it’s more like a long hallway we walk through before we turn the corner into fall.

Getting ready to me doesn’t mean I have August mapped out hour by hour. It means I’ll take a breath sometime in this last week of July and ask these questions:

What is already on the calendar?

What worked in July and what didn’t?

What’s one thing I want August to feel like?

I could build myself an elaborate game plan for August right now. If you know me I love a good planning session with my notebooks and planners (don’t make fun 😝). But if I tried to plan it all out, it would fall apart by week 2 because life doesn’t actually follow a plan.

August for Bits of Love & Life looks like resetting routines without overwhelm. What does “simplifying” actually look like? A realistic planning session without the color coded binder. I am not going to pretend I have it all together, ever. I would just rather walk into each season with intention than get dragged in by life. That’s what this whole new chapter of life seems to be about for me. How about you?

If you take nothing else from this post, take this: you don’t need a whole system to walk calmly into August. You just need to look at what’s coming, notice what you’ve learned from last month, and take small steps.

That’s enough. Let’s do this!

With love,

Mindy