The July Edit

fireworks, baseball, and back to school shopping

If you’re a new reader, the Monthly Edit is a brain dump of everything I consumed (or consumed me) during the month. This newsletter is filled with recommendations and reflections that I hope will add value to your life.

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July Pinterest inspo.

It feels unfair that our summer ends in July, especially with the temperature most days topping out somewhere in the upper 90s without the heat index and humidity factored in. We’d rather be poolside than sitting in an office or classroom. That’s right. Our month started with hamburgers and hot dogs celebrating the 4th of July the only way we know how and ended with the first week of school under our belts. While our days have switched from doctor’s appointments, baseball camp, Panini sticker trading, and watching endless World Cup games to a more routine grind, I’m not quite ready to let go of summer. I’ll be savoring the 8:30 p.m. sunsets as long as possible.

Here’s what our month looked like.

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Currently Obsessed

Adult read

Abby Offsides by Anna McCallie

A near-perfect romance. I am fully in my soccer/football romance era.

Read all of my July book reviews in my monthly roundup!

Kids’ read

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault

My son started the school year off reading a classic rhyming children’s book from the late 80s, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. If you’re not familiar with the book, the letters of the alphabet have a friendly race to the top of a coconut tree. What a perfect book to practice letter recognition as they ease into a classroom setting. He came home with a craft based on the book, and I heard about it multiple times throughout the week. It’s a classic for a reason!

Watching

With the World Cup wrapping up, I was able to fit in a little more TV time. My daughter and I watched two cute classic movies on Disney+: Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Baby’s Day Out. My mom took the kids to see the new live-action Moana movie, and they enjoyed it well enough.

Off-Campus

I started rewatching this with my husband before the World Cup games started, but we had to put it on pause halfway. We finally finished this month!

Enola Holmes 3

I enjoyed the first two Enola Holmes movies, but this was awful. I enjoy when Enola breaks the fourth wall and the playfulness in general her character adds to the story; however, the plot and mystery were all over the place. The setting lent itself to more action/adventure. The overall production felt rushed to wrap up the series.

Voicemails for Isabelle

I decided to challenge myself to only watch this rom-com while walking on my walking pad! It made exercise feel like a reward. I can confidently say that at no point did I know where that movie was going! The premise is a little over the top, but I loved that Izzy was still able to find joy in life by wading through waves of tremendous grief. If you’re looking for a movie that is a little silly, very cringe, and filled with sisterly love, give this one a shot.

Masters of the Universe

Let’s just say I understand why this one was so quick to head from the big screen to streaming. Superhero movies have gone 1980s campy lately. It was too silly to take seriously as cinema but I couldn’t stop watching.

Listening

• SIENNA SPIRO - Visitor (Deluxe)

• Suki Waterhouse - Loveland

• Gracie Abrams - Daughter from Hell

• Charli XCX - Music, Fashion, Film

• The Strokes - Reality Awaits

• WILLOW - The Thread

• Michigander - Over Before You Know It

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The Family Table

Collectively, my family is taking charge of our health and making some positive, incremental changes. We are starting to incorporate more of a Mediterranean diet. Going back to school has made it easier to create new routines, including meal prepping our snacks like celery with cottage cheese and apples with peanut butter. One of my go-tos this month was roasted broccoli. Even with just a little S&P and garlic, it gets such a rich flavor with the perfect crispiness. I swear I could eat handfuls as a snack!

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Our Month in Moments

• ⚾Baseball camp and MiLB games. My son went to baseball camp through our local MiLB team and participated in an on-field, pre-game parade. My husband caught a home run ball, and they had the player sign it after the game! It’s a memory they’ll treasure for years to come. My husband and I went to another game with my coworkers to celebrate a well-deserved retirement.

• ⚽Panini Sticker Trading. I’ve mentioned before that my family has been collecting Panini stickers this World Cup season. My son and husband met up at trading events a couple of times to try to fill up our pages. It’s neat to see the community surrounding the swaps. My biggest takeaway from our World Cup summer has been the knowledge and appreciation for different countries and cultures we’ve fostered in our children. We need to sign them up for a Geography Bowl ASAP.

• 🎒Back-to-school. Our school district is on a modified year-round schedule, which means we get a super short summer with two weeks off for Fall Break, the holidays, and Spring Break. It’s hard to believe we’re two weeks into school already. My son’s Kindergarten teacher is new this year, so I’ve got a stack of picture books to share with her to fill up her class library. My husband is teaching Chemistry this year after spending the last two years teaching Biology, and it’s a welcome challenge. One thing I did this year that I think I will continue in the coming years is to take each child separately to do their school shopping. It gave us some good one-on-one time but also gave them a sense of ownership and accountability over their preparation. Plus it helped them build some life skills like making a shopping list (planning), sticking to it (needs vs. wants), comparing prices (budgeting), and navigating a store (behavior and spatial awareness).

• 🍼It’s been a while since I’ve had a pregnant friend to celebrate, and it was a real treat to catch up with two of my IRL besties this month. We showered mama and baby with gifts, and each guest was sent home with a bouquet from a flower bar and some sweet treats. The whole time I was thinking about how lucky I am to have people I can literally call on for anything from push pins to a cold Poppi. I can’t wait to hold this little one and be on call to give her mama a break when she needs it.

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Five Links Worth Clicking

1. Why Ted Lasso is a Great Show for Book Lovers

   Thoughts from an English teacher on the joy of books in the age of short-form content. I shared this with my husband, who is both an educator and fan of Ted Lasso and all things soccer.
   
   “One reason we often ask people what their favorite song, movie, show, or book is is that we want to understand who they truly are. What makes them tick, what motivates them, and what do they care about?”
   

2. The Best Story I’ve Found About Doing Good Work

   A clever story from a classic children’s book about the value in taking the time to do things by hand.
   

3. A 30-Day Protocol to Rebuild Reading Capacity

   One of the most important articles I’ve read this month. Click this if you need to reset your attention span.
   
   “Reading at length is a physical and mental skill, built by practice and weakened by neglect—no different in that respect from the stamina to run a distance or carry a conversation in a second language. Years of reading in snatches, on screens, between the thousand small interruptions the screen invites, can train our attention toward speed and away from depth.”
   

4. AI Search Is Out. Asking A Human Is In.

   Reasons I’m also turning to Google a lot less these days.
   

5. A return to the library helped me read twice as many books

   For readers who feel motivated by time constraints.

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Thanks for being here this month.

See you in August. Now go read something good!

Elsewhere on the Internet: Goodreads / Storygraph / Pinterest

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