“Summer has set in with its usual severity.” 
–  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Hells bells, how on earth is it AUGUST already? Let’s not dwell on this too much as I may get dizzy. It’s time again to recap the successes and failures of the month against my yearly theme and this time I have a rather smug report to offer!

General Motivation

Kittens, I seem to have emerged from my funk…it only took half a year apparently! July was the month of Getting **** Done. From run of the mill adulting to bigger life planning, I felt more productive and simultaneously less overwhelmed by stupid stuff this month than I have in a long time. My anxiety seems to have mellowed a bit in the background and while still ever-present and humming, I’ve not been experiencing the spikes and flares that I was in the first six month of 2019. Here’s hoping the trend continues. Lots of small tasks and projects kept me on track this month and I was able to use the launch of my new 101/1001 list as a great jumpstarter for motivation overall.

Health

I’m still not exercising as much as I should, but I am exercising. I’ve been doing the occasional spin classes at the gym, yoga at home, and then supplementing this with basic activity like walking home from work and taking long walks at the weekend with Jeff rather than using public transport.

We’ve been eschewing takeaway food while at home, and I’ve been eschewing takeaway coffee in favor of homemade cold brew. Huzzah, summer! Cooking has been a huge priority this month as a result and I’ve been trying to eat much more diversely thanks to our continued grocery box delivery system, which I continue to heartily endorse.

Both in this category and financial below, I’m in the midst of a couple of 101/1001 projects that are helping me focus on both expenses and some basic life admin and not default to laziness when that would be the easy option. My normal grocery delivery service includes some recipe boxes for salads, which I used a few times to eat more veg in general and to try new recipes overall (a goal), and make meal prep (another goal) more easily accomplished. When we are at our least organized, food can become our biggest expense after rent so deciding to focus on this from both a health and money perspective–and as both a couple and individuals–has been an extremely positive choice this month. Which leads me to…

Financial

We did do some shopping this month. I purchased a top and work appropriate summer shoes to replace yet another pair of victims to London’s cobblestones (this city is extraordinarily hard on heels), both heavily discounted on sale. Less justifiably, I picked up another maxi dress and an unnecessary lipstick (because Lisa Eldridge released her second collection and I guess I wear pink now…) and some personal items that don’t fall in my restricted categories (underwear or socks and so forth). Jeff replaced athletic shoes that he had literally shredded.

However, those choices aside, this was a month for pretty successful discipline. Having changed up our budget and finances so significantly in June, and having reached the decision to move when our current lease is up…let’s just say that this was not a month that I was going to let my/our goals slide. This month we paid off the majority of our credit cards in full, paid for our immigration process, and tucked a sum into savings to begin building our emergency fund and also prep for the move. We want to accomplish as much of that as possible using cash! Once back from the wedding, the second half of August and early September are going to be dedicated to the move…and that’s going to come sooner than my brain can comfortably deal with!

Grooming

Ducklings, a revelation: I now understand why people pay to have professional blow drys. I had a work event this month that I wanted to look especially nice at and so splurged for a blow dry service and it was a game changer. My hair has never been as smooth in my life. Alas for poverty but if I were stupidly wealthy, I would absolutely pay for a glam squad to manage my hair for me and consider it money well spent. However, the experience was doubly useful because the pro gamely answered a ton of questions about product and technique for me and gave me a lot of pointers which I used throughout the rest of the month. See?! This is the kind of knowledge you lose when you only get your hair cut a couple of times a year and are too timid to ask questions!

A bit of a side note, my hair also offered a bit of a visual history of my general health and wellbeing travails over the first six months of the year. It turns out I had a hilarious ton of “regrowth” that was only a couple of months old but very evenly distributed all over my head, indicating when I previously had a lot of hair loss due to stress. Yikes. YIKES. At least it’s growing back.

Otherwise, I’m streamlining my style for summer (see the Other goals below), so am trying to put more emphasis on the “finishing touches” of accessories and presentation. This was a good month for that.

Other

Made a decision: we’re moving due to financial motivation. Therefore, did a LOT of property research, arranged viewings, found a great options and put in an offer for this fall. Fingers crossed that nothing falls through, we’d be really happy with this apartment even if it would be bittersweet to leave our current home.

I built my warm weather capsule wardrobe both to meet a challenge and to begin to prepare for a move. I used this challenge as an excuse to get a headstart on packing and begin boxing up other items, continuing to clean/cull/donate/sell as needed. Keep an eye out for the summary blog post on this project at the end of August

Upgraded lingerie drawer, and threw out old and worn items.

Finally, immigration paperwork submitted and residency successfully achieved! This was our big (and by far most expensive) task this month and I’m delighted to have it behind us.