How is it August already?! Did your summer fly by? People say time speeds up the older you get, and I would have to agree with that. It’s been a full summer with several trips, so I’m just now home and getting back to everyday life. It’s a privilege to be able to travel, which I’m grateful for. But being home is SO good. I thought I’d pop in for a little update on life lately.
Reading: Bonnie’s list of nominee’s for the Sheen-azing Awards, and was surprised to see my little corner of the internet as a nominee! Thank you to the lone soul who reads what I write and nominated me under the “best kept secret” category. Head over there to check out some of my wonderful fellow Catholics doing their thing on the interwebs, and vote for your favorites! I’ve also been reading great books this year, but will have to give those their own post since there are many.
Writing: Not a whole lot lately, but check out the Freedom’s Calling series from last month if you haven’t already. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever done here, and something I hope people go back to. With this year being the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, I had to do something to commemorate it, and am grateful for those who contributed to this series of stories!
Traveling: to the island of GUAM! How crazy is that? I’ve always wanted to go because my paternal grandparents are from there. So why not now? It’s a great time in my life to take advantage of the flexibility I have for adventure. I went with my paternal grandparents and an older sister and it was amazing. I also went on a camping trip with local young adults in May, and just got back from a girls weekend in San Diego with a cousin and sister. Having the flexibility to do all that is amazing.
Singing: in the car. Do you? I pray the rosary along to a CD first thing on my ~45 minute commute, then often play music. I have little tolerance for weeding through junk on pop stations, so I often listen to something like Audrey Assad. She’s awesome, but I need a little variety. Give me your recommendations for the best sing along music and how you listen! On the way home I usually listen to podcasts, which deserve their own post.
Thinking: a lot about the latest abuse revelations and capital punishment debate. Geez do things stay light around here! I’ll write more on these in the future. If you’ve read any great pieces on these topics, would you please share with me? Below in a comment is fine, or you can email me directly. I’m trying to read from a variety of places and be informed.
Watching: an interesting documentary on gender during a recent flight. It was incredibly biased and contradicted itself, saying biology is everything in regards to gender (“don’t choose a gender for a child born with unclear anatomy and trap them”) but also nothing (“gender is just a social construct and has nothing to do with our biological makeup or anatomy”). This is pretty common as far as I’ve seen, but seems to me to be an incoherent and unscientific defense. In more positive news, on the plane I also watched The Greatest Showman for the first time. The music had already been playing on Pandora, so I was familiar with it, but wow – the music is great. The story was eh to me and could have used more character development. But the music was sooooo good.
Budgeting: do most people budget? I’ve been thinking more about this lately and what I could do to set myself up for a decent financial future. My college debt is relatively much less than most people, and I’m over 1/3 done paying it off a little over two years since graduation. The only other debt I carry is a car loan. Looking back, I would definitely have gotten a cheaper car, but live and learn, right? One good thing I’ve done is contribute to a 403(b) fund (like a 401k, but it’s different when you work for a non-profit) from the beginning of my employment. Someday that’ll be handy, right? I’d be interested to write a whole post on this and discuss people’s money habits!
And that’s it coming your way this Wednesday. Hope you’re enjoying the last weeks of summer!
To Life,
A Drop in the Ocean 
Budgeting – UGH I hate it – but do keep track of the money I spend to be aware. Felt like I was spending a TON of money last month so I put myself on a spending freeze on the 13th – and did good by not spending any more money until we went on vacation to get things like gas which is essential when driving!
Singing: I don’t spent a lot of time in the car, so I usually do podcasts OR have one CD and listen to it on repeat for just driving to and from church or errands. Right now it’s Matt Maher’s ECHOS – and has been for about 4 months.
Watching: what was that documentary – i’m super intrigued. I just read “This is how it always is” which is definitely emotionally manipulating, but has gotten me thinking a lot about gender, trans-issues, and our culture. I want/need to read more perspectives to help form my opinion and understand Church teaching.
Reading: you are one of the best kept secrets – but it wasn’t me who nominated you… I’m off to read more of the people on all of her lists!
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Oh man! I felt like I spent too much while traveling this last month too (though nothing crazy). I do not have the desire or patience (or thankfully the need) to keep track of every transaction (tried YNAB), but I do want to start paying off debt faster. Felt pretty adult putting most of my tax return towards college debt!
Nice! I have a couple cd’s, and a short playlist on my phone that are my go-to’s.
The documentary was “Gender Revolution” with Katie Couric. It’s such a volatile issue to address if you’re not 100% on board with popular opinion. But I think there are probably many people out there who have no idea what to do. Maybe I’ll write on it sometime since I find controversial things so fun… our faith has a lot to say!
Well, thanks. I started writing my own list of best kept secrets for this post (including you), but it’d be too long or I’d forget someone! Thanks for sticking around – it’s so fun to follow people for a long time!
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Enjoyed your updates!! Was happy to see your blog, mine, and AnneMarie’s on the Sheenazing nominations!! I’ve been wanting to see The Greatest Showman just b/c everyone raves about the music! Budgeting is such a fascinating topic, I’ve been wanting to do a ‘real’ one ever since we got married but still haven’t done it. I think our biggest goal is to live within our means with no credit card debt (currently only ‘debt’ or loan is our house mortgage and we hope to keep it that way but who knows with kids now…could wipe out our savings with emergencies). We also don’t spend very much individually just b/c we know we can’t on his ministry income and me staying at home. I save a ton by getting mostly all our clothes second-hand and a lot of garage sale stuff. But we also treat ourselves here and there with eating out or books and such. I think so much of a budget depends on your personal spending/saving priorities. Okay, now I’m turning this comment into a blog post, haha!!
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Yay!! The Greatest Showman music is pretty great, I have to say.
Sounds like you have very healthy money habits! I think it’s so interesting to hear about too, and am going to work on forming good habits. I honestly don’t really get living outside one’s means and racking up credit card debt, so that’s thankfully not an issue for me either (currently have student loans and a car loan). I’m generally a frugal person too with secondhand things – that would be an interesting post to read by you!
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Oh! And I thought that was so great that you and AnneMarie were nominated too. The awards are so fun!
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It’s so delightful to see you on the Sheenazing nominations! Congrats 🙂 Those pictures of Guam are GORGEOUS and I’m so glad that you had a good visit! So I don’t really listen to music in the car anymore except occasionally the classical music station or sometimes I’ll pop in a CD of Switchfoot or chant, but some of my favorite music to dance/sing along to at home is stuff from Disney movies and stuff from musicals. Also, I really enjoy “old” Taylor Swift (her music that came before whatever sad and depressing transformation she went through in recent years).
We have a budget, but we don’t sit down and record every single purchase we make (I know some people do this and think it’s great, but we just haven’t made that kind of commitment). We do review our budget together from time to time which is helpful, though. One of the things that is probably most helpful to me with budgeting is that we set aside a certain amount of “fun money” for each of us each month. I’m a very frugal person, so it wasn’t until we started setting aside this money that I could really feel comfortable buying the occasional takeout or coffee.
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Congrats on being nominated too! Oh man, the trip was great.
I like Tswizzle’s (does anyone else say that? because it’s hilarious) old stuff too, but don’t have it on any device. I love stuff from musicals too, but need to get that on a device! Disney is always classic. I also turn on KLOVE sometimes, but it gets boring to me. Kinda depends on the day, but I have a playlist of a few songs on my phone (currently rocking Lauren Daigle’s Trust in You). CD’s are great because they don’t depend on any fancy technology to work!
Oh man, I don’t track everything either. I tried out YNAB at one point, but just didn’t like it. The one thing I do have a set budget for is groceries/household things, which I take out cash for each week. I think doing the same for “fun” money would be great! That helps a lot. Otherwise, I check in every so often to put some in savings and some extra payments towards loans, but want to be more organized in how I go about it. We’ll see! Cool to hear other’s habits.
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