Share 4 Somethings, July edition

 

Happy Tuesday, friends! I'm linking up with Heather for today's post, where we all share things we loved, gleaned, braved or saved and achieved. I'll jump right in!

I loved celebrating the freedom that we have in our country. Fourth of July is always such a fun day! On the actual day we didn't do too much, except that we enjoyed being at home and having a lazy morning together, then we went to Mom's and Bill's for a catfish fry with French fries and hush puppies. Mom made homemade banana ice cream and I took a key lime pie. 

I love this old picture of Mom and my nephew Tyler. This was taken over five years ago, but I love her laughing smile here, because he'd leaned down and stuck his cap on her head and I caught with these big smiles. We also loved watching the fireworks in our little town from our front yard.

I loved all the books I read this month! I had been in a reading slump during May and June, so it was good to read some great books again this month. Four that I read will definitely go down in history as some of my favorites of all time. I'll share them in another post later this week, so check back!

I've gleaned a lot of history about our country and some of its landmark places. Todd and I have found a couple of documentaries on Fox Nation that we love—one is called What Made America Great and my favorite episode so far was about the home of the Vice President of the United States, for instance, did you know that it's a temporary home for the person who holds that office? You should Google it to find out more, it was fascinating! I love anything having to do with American history. This is coming from the mom who has finished homeschooling her kids, yet decided to keep all their textbooks on economics and history. Seriously, we had the BEST curriculum for these subjects, put out by Notgrass History. I will always recommend them! I have written about them here before, and one time someone from their company reached out to thank me for giving them a shout out on my blog. Isn't that cool?

The other one I mentioned is fascinating because it's a walk back through time—it's called Who Could Forget and it takes you through the top news stories from certain years. So far some of my favorite episodes came from the nineties.

I braved going to my dental appointment at the beginning of the month. I hate going to the dentist! I've not figured out yet if my new filling is going to work. He had mentioned that it may not, and that I may need a route canal if that's the case. Those words are terrifying to me, but he assured me it wouldn't be any worse than having a filling. I am still having some pain in my mouth, but I've also been battling my sinuses because of the humidity we've had, so I really don't know which issue it is. Yes, my teeth, jaw and ears hurt when my sinuses are acting up! I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.

It's been so hot here that I also feel like I brave the heat and high humidity every time I step outside of our house. I've been doing things like keeping the blinds shut in the daytime and keeping the lights off to help it be even cooler inside. I am so thankful that our A/C works and that it does a great job of keeping it cool inside. We also have huge trees in our backyard, which help tremendously and shade our house during these months. Everyone in our area has been complaining that their gas and electric bills have gone up and true to form, ours was one that also increased by $150 because of this heat. Needless to say, I will LOVE when Fall arrives with cooler temperatures, though we have a while before that'll happen. August is often one of our hottest months of the year.

I achieved a lot of cleaning out this month. I'm working on selling my books, a few at a time. My goal is to get rid of the bookshelf in our bedroom so that we can do a little bit of rearranging. I've been cleaning out my portion of our closet a little at a time, I've cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, our dining room hutch, the laundry room cabinets, our pantry and the bookshelf in our living room. I LOVE being able to have the time and motivation to do things like that. 

What's something you loved or achieved this month? I'd love to hear from you! Thanks for reading my blog, friends. Love to all!