Journal | July 2019

Welcome to my July journal. Each month I gather my musings and the stories from the month to document our life. For me it forms a way of creating my own regular gratitude and journaling practice. Journaling can be achievable in small snippets, you don’t need to write long prose to remember your time. I choose to document our memories by taking photos that capture the moments during the month and write notes about the time we have had. There are no rules to journaling. It is writing space for you to document in whichever way you choose.

July has been a month of small celebrations, ends of chapters and the start of new ones. Here is my July journal…

…. As I write this I’m sitting in our new kitchen. It’s now my favourite room in our home. The space has been completely designed by us and has changed the feel of our home in so many positive ways. Navy blue cupboards, white walls and tiles, oak shelving, wood-look hardwearing floors, a free-standing larder unit, and antique brass handles and knobs have given our home a cosier feel, more suited to our style and how we want to live our lives. We made all the decisions about colours and materials and have seen that with thought and care our space can really feel special and our own. July saw the end of months of renovations in our home and the start of a new chapter. We’re so excited about our space and having a working and functional kitchen again.

…Organising our new kitchen space has been a real treat this month. After months of having the majority of our kitchen items boxed up we were able to finally unpack, sort and organise. We’ve spent time ensuring that each item in our kitchen is useful to us, has a home and is something we really want in our space. Kitchen items are organised and grouped in a useful way and each now have a home in groups. We’ve recycled and donated items that no longer fitted with us and it feels quite freeing. Over the past 11 years we’ve invested in timeless, simple and good quality pieces that we hope will last a long time, including good chopping boards, Le Creuset items, glass preserving jars and Cornishware storage.

…We reached the end of term for our Sing and Sign class this month. For 10 weeks we went to a class every Friday that brought songs, music and signing into our daily communication with our little one. There’s something about singing that lifted my soul, connected to Chloe and we’ve signed up again for another class.

…During this month we had a wonderful time away visiting our families and seeing school friends. Having spent a long time at home, organising builders and waiting in for work to be done, going away to family homes has given us a different summer holiday and a break away that I hope we can repeat again soon.

…Spending time with old school friends and uni friends has been so brilliant this month. I love that however long you’ve been away from each other there’s an instant click and lives are caught up on. It makes me realise and feel grateful for the strong bonds and closeness I have with friends as we move through new chapters in our life.

…We’ve made the conscious choice to spend more time in nature in the final few weeks of the month, taking late afternoon walks, enjoying our garden, and gardens in our parents homes. We visited Nymans, a National Trust house and gardens in Sussex and enjoyed the beautiful flowerbeds.

…I’ve been making plans and thinking about my return to work at the end of the year. After visiting a number of nurseries we found a wonderful childminding couple who have a creative and educational set up that felt like home and somewhere I hope that Chloe will thrive a few days each week.