For a long month, July sure did speed by! I’m getting ready to do my own personal roundup of the month’s events and I wanted to remind you that this is the perfect opportunity to take some time to document your own life. You can start this process at any time and you don’t have to do it every single month - although you will be glad if you are regular about it. Just look over the prompts and answer a few questions. Easy peasy!

Today is a holiday in the state of Utah. The 24th of July is known as Pioneer Day around here because that is the date that the Mormon Pioneers entered the Salt Lake valley (in 1847) and decided to call this home. The 24th is often just as big of a deal as the 4th of July around here. There is a big parade downtown + a marathon and many people gather for barbecues, picnics, and fireworks.

Now that the year is more than half over (gulp), I’m realizing that I haven’t done much with my One Little Word yet. My word for this year is STORY. I’ve definitely thought about it throughout the year and it has been a positive influence in my life, but I want to take more action around this word. I want to be sure I’m aware of my story and that I’m telling it. So I’m doing what I usually do when I need some inspiration - turning to Pinterest. Here are some images that I’ve pinned to my OLW board.

If you’ve been following me for awhile, you will know that I typically go through a lot of technology upgrades around here. Both my husband and I love to keep up on new technology and we are suckers for new iPhones and iPads. My kids have no complaints because they often get our hand-me-downs. We also love that Apple has now made it so much easier to trade in old devices to get store credit. They also make it much smoother to transfer your old data to a new device now. I recently got a new Macbook Pro and it was so easy to switch.

Laughter is such a necessity in life! I have readers who have told me that these posts make them very happy and I will tell you that they do the same for me. I love finding these silly things on the internet and saving them to share here. Hope they give you a reason to smile!

HOW TO GATHER JUNE MEMORIES:

• Review calendars, social media posts, journal entries, etc. - I use the Momento app to keep everything in one place and then look back through my online calendar.

• Make sure all your photos are uploaded and backed up to at least 3 places. If you use Google Photos, your photos will already be sorted by date. I like to search the month (June 2019) and then select all of those photos and create an album for them in Google Photos called June 2019. It’s not necessary, but I find it useful.

• Gather any memorabilia from the month such as ticket stubs, invitations, programs etc. Scan or photograph them if desired and then upload them with your photos for the month. And/or put them in a file marked June 2019 if you plan to save the physical copies for scrapbooking or memory boxes.

I recently watched an online lesson from Deepak Chopra about how to handle inner and external chaos. It was something that I wasn’t expecting to be so helpful and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I have used these 4 sentences to get myself through chaotic situations.

What am I observing? (Non judgmentally) It’s important to simply identify what is happening without placing judgment on it. This is harder than it seems.

What am I feeling?

What do I need?

What is the best way to fulfill this need?

I used this new learning as inspiration for a 2 page art journaling spread.

For more than 13 years, I’ve kept a private blog just for my family. It’s been a place to share photos of my children with my parents and siblings. We used it to document our homeschool years and even though it’s been more than 7 years since anybody in the house has been homeschooled, we still tend to refer to it as “the homeschool blog” for some reason.

It’s a place to record vacations, school and work information, missions and church stuff, health progress, holidays, special events and more. I use a very similar format to my Creative Lady blog.

I’ve always loved reading and I graduated from college with a degree in English. I also went on a literary tour of England, Ireland, Scotland, and France for a study abroad program. If you ever want books to come to life for you, just visit the place where they were written or take place. Here I am on the moors of England while studying Wuthering Heights in 1989. Epic!

There are several events and venues that don’t allow photography. You can’t snap photos during performances like plays and symphonies. You also are not allowed to take pictures during a movie. If you love to document these events, you might want to use one of my favorite tricks. Just hold up a program or ticket for the performance and take a picture of it before it begins.

I’m so grateful that I started this layout early in the month and kept adding to my journaling cards as the month progressed because as I reached the end of May, I didn't feel like working on this project. I think it’s important to carve time for creative projects when you have the energy to work on them.

Here’s a little glimpse of my past month:

I think you know what I’m going to say here, right? It’s the last day of the month and that means I’m going to share my roundup prompt!