I realize that we are well into the second half of 2020 now, but I stumbled upon this resource last night and just had to share it! This is from CNN and it gives a really thorough overview of the first 6 months of the year with some great photos. It’s also fascinating (and sad) to watch the Coronavirus numbers change each month. This will definitely be something that I will use for a year-end recap and to add to monthly roundups.

July was a tough month for us because our daughter Riley and her husband Ryan suffered a miscarriage. I share this with their permission and I think it’s very important to check with others before you include sensitive details about their lives. It can be difficult to know if you should include the really hard stuff sometimes. I always believe in including the good and the bad, but there are times when that isn’t possible or even comfortable. I’m grateful that Riley encouraged me to include this and how strong she is. Miscarriage is a very painful thing to go through (emotionally and physically) and having never gone through that myself, I’m glad that there have been others who could step in and tell her they know exactly what she is going through.

Last night, our son Alex was shocked to find out that it was going to be August on Saturday. He said “I don’t even know what month it is anymore!” I think we can all relate! It’s such a strange time, but that makes it even more important to take a few minutes to jot down what life is like right now. Use my simple roundup prompts to document the month so you don’t forget all that happened. It’s my favorite memory keeping tool and so many of my readers have made it a routine in their own lives as well.

My monthly roundups have been more time consuming to complete lately because of how much I’m trying to document, but they feel more important than ever. I’m so glad I established this habit long ago. There are plenty of ways to do a roundup, you don’t have to use a scrapbook page format. I love to illustrate the information so this is my favorite approach. Here are my layouts for the month of June 2020.

It’s been another crazy month in our world and there are plenty of things to document right now. I hope you will take some time to do a month-end review so you can keep track of all the details. This is what I refer to as a “roundup” and it’s a great way to gather your thoughts and memories from the past month and put them into an easy to access format. I just use a few simple prompts to get organized with this monthly activity.

I have to admit that roundups have been a bit challenging these last few months with all that is going on in the world. I’m dedicated to recording our family’s history though and that includes the good and the bad. This is such an important time to document and I’m truly grateful for this habit that I established more than 14 years ago of recapping each month. You can read about my roundup prompts and tasks here.

I used digital scrapbook pages as the format for my roundup.

Well, we have almost made it through May and now it’s time to bid farewell to the month and take a minute to recap our memories. This simple little routine has made a big difference in my memory keeping life. I hope you will give it a try. It’s super easy. I follow a simple set of prompts each month and now I have added a few COVID-19 related items as well.

I finally got my April roundup done! I ended up putting together 2 pages so I could capture a lot of what happened during the month. Not only did we have a pandemic going on, but we had a few more 4.2 earthquakes and more than 1,000 aftershocks. What a crazy time!

Another month is coming to end and I want to remember the details of my life during April of 2020. It was a doozy of a month and will definitely be one I remember for a very long time. Doing roundups is a monthly ritual of mine since January of 2006. I just take a few minutes to close out the month by recording the everyday details. It’s been the most valuable tool in my memory keeping arsenal.

I follow a simple set of prompts each month and now I have added a few COVID-19 related items as well.