How was July for you? Did the start of summer bring any milestones for you?
July was an important month for us as B finished primary school, and the summer holidays started. Of course the summer holidays are usually something to look forward to, but they are different this year.
- The children have been at home lots over the last few months
- Childcare is easier because we’ll be working at home instead of in our places of work
- We’re not sure what plans we can make as restrictions are still in place
Fortunately, we have access to a family property in Dorset so we’ve able to create flexible plans. As I’ve not left Oxfordshire for over 100 days it felt like a big achievement spending time in a different county.
Did you make a big achievement this month or did you make continual progress on a large action? Remember all progress is positive no matter whether it is small or big. What did you start, progress or achieve in July?
I want to celebrate:
Finishing
- Reading The DIY Guide to Building a Family that Lasts: 12 Tools for Improving Your Home Life
- Creating a photo montage of all the children in Year 6 saying what job they want when they’re older
- Our Terraforming Mars* game with the children, it took four hours over three sessions
- Dying the children’s hair pink.

Starting
- A file to save positive messages from people
- To plan my blog tasks using the same method I use for work
- Being more serious about tidying and cleaning the house by creating a theme for each day – I even cleared out all the baby spoons from the cutlery drawer
- To practise photography skills and for the first time used the manual settings on my Sony compact camera* while on holiday

Progressing
- Work on our house as my husband created our utility room
- Getting my work / home boundaries in place
- The Reboot Your Life course, I’m taking my time on each exercise as they’re making me think hard
- Restarting my morning routine by doing meditation and reading on more mornings

Enjoying
- Playing Codenames Pictures and Codenames Duet* with our weekly virtual gaming group
- Celebrating the end of primary school with B by taking her to an aqua park and for an ice cream sundae
- Meeting local friends at a small garden party
- Logic Problems. I’ve had one of these puzzle books for summer holidays since I was a child and forget how much I enjoy them the rest of the year.

I’d love to cheer on your progress, because we need the recognition and motivation that making small changes is as good as big changes. They are the small beginnings that with perseverance will help us make big changes.
What do you want to celebrate?
*Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links which means if you buy something I may earn a percentage of the value. However it does not cost you any more.