Five things in July

So funny story! I was going to proudly put the fact that we got through the school holidays relatively smoothly in this list – we are getting just a little better at the juggle every set of holidays, and I imagine we’ll have it absolutely locked in around the same time Amelie becomes a teenager and wants nothing to do with us anymore – but then I turned to my nightly gratitude list that informs so much of these posts and the entire middle of July is missing. Because it was the school holidays. And I guess I was too wiped out every single night to do it. So maybe we’re still working on it…

Even with two weeks missing five highlights were easy to find (even though the last point isn’t exactly a highlight). And I didn’t even include our holiday! Obviously that was incredible. And besides that, there were the following good things…

1. Getting lost in old videos on my phone

There was one night this month when I was looking back at photos from a few years ago for some reason, and I ended up finding a whole lot of short videos of Amelie as a toddler. I’m sure I’ve watched them a million times before but that made them no less delightful. I don’t think there is any video of me as a baby or toddler – we didn’t have a camcorder in the ’80s – and I just feel so lucky to have these little videos to watch now, and remember what she was like. It serves as a good reminder to take more video now as well! None of the videos I watched are of anything particularly special – Amelie eating, Amelie playing Duplo, me trying to convince Amelie to say ‘blue’ – but seeing those little slices of life is just so very special to me (and one day I’ll feel that way about watching video of her as a five year old as well). She was a very very cute toddler, by the way.

2. The Dropout

Another month, another mini-series. I really enjoyed The Dropout. I knew the basic story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, but I didn’t realise how much harm she had actually caused. As someone who has had many a blood test in my past, I definitely found myself thinking how amazing that technology would be – I can see why people got excited about it – but man, what a piece of work! I thought this was also so well put together, and Amanda Seyfried did such a good job acting the part (I haven’t seen her in a lot before and I always remember her in Mean Girls as my main ‘Amanda Seyfried point of reference’, so this is quite the contrast).

3. Armchair shopping

I’ve been having some fun planning our future furniture needs. We’re not ready to buy anything yet, but browsing is enjoyable! There’s one spot in the house where, at some stage, I think we might need an armchair, so I was deep into the armchairs this month. I’ve been looking absolutely everywhere online. I’ve found lots of very ugly armchairs, a few nice ones that are ridiculously overpriced, an armchair that was perfect! – then I realised we already have it, and some actual contenders for the spot. I also took a look at TradeMe (it’s like eBay or Gumtree but in New Zealand) and managed to find chairs that looked just like those in my family house when I was little, some that I swear were identical to what my aunt had in her house, and – to complete the trifecta – the same ones my grandmother had. Just to be absolutely clear, I won’t be buying any of them or anything even a little bit similar, but there was something pleasing about the fact that chairs of that era are still kicking around.

4. My feet are ready for summer…

…and therefore it can’t be too far away, right? Right? I had a pedicure the other day, just for fun, and even though my beautiful nails are still hidden away in sneakers and boots for the most part, when I do see them I’m reminded of summer days and sandals and sun and sea…all the good things. After my pedicure I wandered around a few shops and ended up buying these very cute sandals on sale at such a good price. I was happy.

5. General gratitude

We have been having some problems with the house extension. They are definitely not great problems, and we are not enjoying them, but at the same time, I know we are lucky to have the problems we have. When I think about all that we have and all that we could lose if we weren’t so lucky my blood runs cold. We are healthy; we are all here; we are loved. I am so, so grateful for that.