2021 Quarterly Update #2

   Long time no post! Due to my crazy schedule and a feeling of burn out earlier in the summer, I fell off the blogging bandwagon a little earlier than my normal summer hiatus, but it was probably a good idea to remove one more thing from my plate. My writing platform as a whole has felt fairly neglected in 2021 - which, speaking of, isn't it crazy that we're almost through another whole year? Time is flying at a concerning speed.

  WRITING

  Early 2021 I had quite a bit of success on the writing front, but the summer was, as usual, mostly void of writing. As it stands, I now have just 3 chapters remaining in The Promise, so I will soon be finished that and ready to start on a new project. I'm currently debating between a few so we will see what I end up deciding on. 

  MEDIA

  My reading picked up through summer (getting nine new books for my birthday certainly helped) and I just crossed the mark of my Goodreads goal of 25 books for the year. I'm excited to be able to go above and beyond that goal, and I've also been enjoying the books I've gotten my hands on this year. Summer was full of series: All The Wrong Questions, The Skinjacker Trilogy, and the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I've also even been reading a few very interesting non-fiction books, which is not usual for me. 

  Jonathan and I went through The IT Crowd series (a very funny British comedy), and recently started Community. I watched the Shadow and Bone show on Netflix and thought it was pretty good, though it did drift from the book a bit in ways I didn't quite understand the point of. Jonathan, my siblings, and I watched Loki in June when it came out (and loved it), and we went to three movies in the theater this summer, Black Widow, The Suicide Squad, and Free Guy. Prior to that I hadn't been to a movie in theaters since seeing Little Women in January 2020!

  LIFE

  Well, it was a crazy summer to say the least. Definitely not the best one I've ever had. There was quite a bit of tears and quite a bit of stress, but also some nice stuff mixed in there too. 

CAMP. We got a mostly full summer again since Alberta's covid restrictions were lifted for summer. It was my first year running the horse program at camp entirely and while it was definitely a cool experience there was a lot of stress involved, mainly because we were understaffed and there was a lot of pressure on me. Still, I'm glad for the opportunity and there were definitely cool God moments in the chaotic weeks.

HIKING. I only managed to get out on one hike this summer so far, up Mist Mountain to a small hot spring with some friends. It was a really cool hike cause we got to go swimming at the top, very refreshing after a hike.

NEW PONY. I bought myself a project pony in June to train and eventually rehome. His name is Nemo and he's a 6 year old, bay, Welsh cross gelding. So far he's been kind of a rascal but super sweet and easy to work with.

RIVER TRIP. End of June we went on an overnight river trip with Jonathan's family, camping right in the middle of the river on a gravel bar and canoeing/kayaking the North Saskatchewan. 

HEATWAVE. In July there was a week of horrible, horrible heat that just wouldn't stop. It was among the hottest temperatures I'd ever experienced. Even getting up at 5am to go to work, it was too hot by 7:30. My house wouldn't cool off at all, even lying on the couch doing nothing I would sweat. One of the days we took to the lake to try and beat the heat.

BRO-IN-LAW'S GRAD. Jonathan's youngest brother graduated which was kind of crazy to me, since he was only 10 when we first met. o_o Regardless though, it was a cool day and definitely awesome to celebrate this milestone with him.

BEYOND THE RIDE 2.0 I didn't get to attend the full week of horse camp this year, but that didn't hold me back from spending the time I did get to spend out in the mountains with the horses and many of the same faces from last year. Definitely a highlight of the summer!

GOODBYES. The biggest heartaches of the summer and 2021 as a whole was the loss of our beloved family dog, Willow, and one of the oldest camp horses, Nichi. We lost Willow around my birthday and Nichi in the middle of August, right in the middle of one of the camps. In both cases it was hard and sad and there were a lot of tears shed.

ANNIVERSARY TRIP. After camps had wrapped up, Jonathan and I had the opportunity to take an anniversary trip which was much needed after the summer we'd had. It was certainly a welcome break to head west and see some pretty sights.

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2021 Quarterly Update #1

LET'S TALK.

  How was your summer? Better than mine, lol? Are you looking forward to fall/winter? What plans do you have for this new school year? Let me know in the comments below!