What I Learned in August

1. NaN miles means "not a number."

We've done some online hunting for a small RV, and of course one of the things I keep checking in my part of the research is how many miles the rig has. I kept running across "NaN" in that area, and I had no idea what it meant. I was pretty sure it didn't men zero, given that we're not looking at brand new options. Turns out it means the mileage either wasn't reported or wasn't reported correctly, so the system spits out the "not a number" report. (For the record, that's really not helpful for those on the hunt!)

2. Curtains mean home to us.

We love our apartment here at WillowBridge so much. When we told people about our new job and told them we would be living in an apartment, we could see nervous looks in people's eyes. Apartments have a bit of a stigma, it seems. But this place is absolutely comfortable and adorable. It's not filled with cheap old cabinets, questionable appliances, and stark white walls. It's so very nice. But we learned when we moved in that until we added curtains, it just felt cold and naked. They'd never been put up before, and we didn't want to cause major damage to the walls, so we made small, conservative choices, but even adding simple sheer white curtains made all the difference in the place feeling like home.

3. Bachelor Buttons got their name from being a flower bachelors used to put in their lapels to indicate availability.

I've learned several things from reading Gigi's blog. This month I learned about Bachelor Buttons (the flower) because she and her children grow them in their garden...for tea! (I also had no idea you could make tea from this flower.) But she gave the background to the name of the flower, and that was news to me!

4. Many hands make light work.

I blogged about this a bit already, and to be fair, I knew this already, but I saw it in new ways this month. When the team came for the United Way Day of Caring, they were here for less than a full business day, but the amount of work they cranked out would have taken us weeks to complete. I wanted to cry (for real) at the enormous load they lifted from us by bringing many willing hands to pitch in!

5. I miss the Olympics.

They were supposed to be this summer, and I missed them dearly. I start looking forward to the Olympics at the closing ceremony of the previous one, and I missed them so much this year. Ryan reminded me (and rightfully so) that I probably wouldn't have had time to watch them this year anyway, with packing/moving/starting a new job, but I still missed them!

6. Cheetos makes a white cheddar chip!

When the Day of Caring people came to work, they brought snacks! And among them were little bags of Cheetos white cheddar chips. I love white cheddar anything. (Oh man - my mouth is watering for white cheddar popcorn just thinking about it.) But I had no idea these existed. Bonus: no orange fingers!!


And now...a peek at how we did with our goals for August!

1. Unpack and settle in.

Check!! While things will always be in a state of moving around/sprucing up, we are officially unpacked and settled. It's so nice to not be in boxes anymore. It's so nice to be able to actually sit on our down-time, rather than using it for more settling time. It's so nice to be home again.

2. Find a bit of rhythm with the job.

Half-check! Honestly I think we did the very best we could with this, and I think we made tremendous progress in it. I just don't think it's a learn-in-one-month activity. We have begun to find some rhythm. We know how the days are likely go to - in theory, anyway. We've begun to learn how to take breaks when we can since our work hours are spread out longer than a standard eight hours. We've been learning how to pull back on light days because there are always going to be heavy days. We're still learning this, though. It's harder for Ryan than it is for me. He's never had a job quite like this one. (I think my years of working from home and setting my own hours have worked to my advantage in learning how to take breaks.)

3. Figure out our boundaries.

Half-check! We are actually doing much better with this than we were at the beginning of the month! There is a delicate balance to be achieved when you live and work in the same space. There is also a balance to be achieved when you share a job with another couple. We are learning how to be present and available without being called upon all hours of the day and night (for non emergency situations). One specific thing we've learned is the importance of enforcing quiet hour boundaries. Ryan and I stay up pretty late, and for a while we were tending to answer the phone after quiet hours began - because we were up and not aware of how late it was. But our co-workers don't like to stay up as late as we do - and they have a baby who needs her sleep. Our tenants don't always know (or remember) which couple is on duty, so we really need to enforce those quiet hours - not only for our own boundaries, but for our co-workers as well! We have a lot of boundary-learning left to do, but we're working on it!

4. Get our mask game in order.

DOING SO MUCH BETTER! The number of times we've had to come back home for masks has gone down dramatically! We've placed some spares in all the vehicles we drive (our own and the WillowBridge vehicles) and I have several in my purse. We are also getting better about running through a checklist as we leave the house on foot each time. Keys? Phones? Work phone? Masks? ;)

5. Meal plan! Cook!

DOING SO MUCH BETTER! I've been working hard to have some healthy options on hand, and I've been trying to work ahead to use the slow cooker and grill more. We didn't do a perfect job of this in August, but we definitely made a lot of progress.

6. Work on some scrapbooks.

Done!! I am caught up in our current scrapbook - which is a feat, since there were a LOT of pages to make for the months of July and August! (I think I have close to 90 for the two months.) I need to get busy on our birthday trip book from back in May. I always like to have one trip done before we take another one - and our anniversary is coming!