Keeping track of the good things has made a big difference to me this year. If you haven’t started your own tiny flourishes list, I encourage you to give it a try.
Here are ten things that enhanced my life in August:
Monet Immersive Experience
This was on my list of things to do this summer. We went to Cincinnati early in the month to see it. I love Claude Monet’s work and this was a really interesting way to experience it.
Birthday cake under the tree
We celebrated Jim’s birthday in August and had birthday cake with everyone under a tree in the backyard.
Our new porch construction started
This isn’t really a tiny flourish. It’s a big project and we’ve been saving for a while. Construction started at the end of August and I’m hoping it will be finished before September closes out.
Making Applesauce
My youngest daughter called one evening to say a patient at the dental practice where she works brought in a bunch of apples from a backyard tree. She had the idea that we could make applesauce with them and that’s exactly what we did.
It was a fun, spontaneous project that tasted great! I used this recipe, but cooked it on the stove to make it faster. I also didn’t have apple juice, so I used water instead and substituted maple syrup for the brown sugar.
Jazz in the park
This was another thing on my summer Anticipation List. I took my sketchbook and did some drawing while we listened. We had a nice evening.
Seeing Adam’s Rib at Kentucky Theater
And another item checked off of the Anticipation List. It was fun to see this classic movie on the big screen.
Hiking in Red River Gorge
Our oldest son asked if we wanted to go on a hike with him and his dog. He suggested a trail that he promised would be pretty easy and would involve no scrambling or climbing. Hmm….his idea of easy and mine are two different things!
The five mile hike was full of adventure, involving quite a lot of scrambling down a steep, rocky slope. We saw bear scat (didn’t see the bear), came across a copperhead, which my son stepped on without even realizing it! It startled me as a came around the corner behind my son and saw the snake in the path. Luckily, it didn’t bite any of us.
Jim did get bit by something, probably a spider, which caused his ankle and foot to swell up for a few days.
The hike was challenging and at times a little scary, but it was a fun day and I felt very accomplished in finishing the hike.
Liverfest
My uncle and aunt host a party they call Liverfest each year, where the main event is eating liver and onions. I didn’t partake of the liver, but we did have a good time catching up with extended family.
New traveler’s notebooks
I love using paper planners, notebooks and journals. I have a planner I keep by my computer, but I wanted something to help me keep track of my days and that I could carry around the house. Since I work from home and I’m my own boss, I find that I sometimes need to reign myself in and get control of my days.
I had an old traveler’s notebook cover and ordered new inserts from Yellow Paper House on Etsy. I ordered their quarterly planner, a daily docket and a blank dot-grid notebook. This combination is working really well to keep me focused.
Eclipse glasses
I saw an article the other week about the upcoming eclipse. It’s not until April 8, 2024, but I remember those eclipse glasses got very expensive back in 2017, so I bought four pair on Amazon as soon as I finished reading the article. Planning ahead!
We live in the area of 95% eclipse coverage, but we may need to drive into the totality to really experience it this time.
What are your tiny flourishes?
I’d love to know what tiny flourishes have been enhancing your life lately! Leave a comment and let me know.
First, good idea to buy the eclipse glasses now, but I have a funny eclipse story. My husband was on his way home from Florida when the last one happened. He thought he would stop in Nashville, have some lunch and watch the eclipse then get back on the road. The clouds moved in literally seconds before it happened and no one saw anything. Then it took him 9 hours to get home from Nashville because so many people had driven to that area to see it. So be careful driving to the center, it could be crazy.
Second, I love keeping track of the good things that are happening. I’ve always been a big journaler and one year when I was going through some really tough times with my divorce, I stopped journaling the daily happenings and Only wrote the best thing that happened that day. While it probably made me feel better and more grateful, I’m really sad that I didn’t write out my emotions about what was really happening also. I look back and those and I think, but what was I really going through? I know that isn’t what you are going for here with the small flourishes, but wanted to throw it out there for journalers.
Thanks, Donna
Donna, I hear what you’re saying about journaling the hard things. There’s certainly a time for that! I wonder though, about being sad that you didn’t write out your emotions during those tough times. Are you sad because you don’t have those feelings to look back on now? Or that you didn’t record what you were learning? I think a lot of the usefulness of journaling is in that season and not really meant for later on. For myself, the journaling helps me process things in the moment in whatever way I need to, but there’s not much use for me to go back to it later on. But that’s coming from someone who occasionally tosses out old journals, so take that with a grain of salt.