Daybook: August Is Already Turning

 

Monday, August 10, 2026

There are only a few clouds in the sky this morning, but the ones that are there are interesting enough to make me stop and look at them.

The birds are everywhere. I can hear crickets doing whatever it is crickets do—cricketing, I suppose—and somewhere in the distance I’m pretty sure I hear ducks. The locusts are definitely here now, although they don’t seem nearly as loud in the morning as they do at night.

There is also a beautiful breeze, which feels like a gift because this is August in the Midwest. Heat. Humidity. Corn sweat. All the things.

And yet, I can feel the season beginning to turn.

When I get up at five now, it’s still dark.

That’s always one of the first little signs.

I drank my coffee inside this morning because of it, although I eventually found my way outside. The coffee itself was disappointing. I think I’ve finally decided the Veranda Blend is just too bitter for me. Ryan gave us another coffee that I tried in the Bunn and liked much better, so I’m going back to that.

Life is too short for coffee you don’t particularly enjoy.

Especially when my favorite coffee-drinking season is just around the corner.

September. October. November.

Give me crisp mornings, jeans and a hoodie, leaves changing, something warm in my hands, and I am a happy woman.

There are only a few weeks left before we begin moving toward that time of year, and I am more ready than usual for it.

Maybe because I love fall.

Maybe because this year I need the reminder that seasons change.

Around the Yard

The yard is telling me very clearly that we’ve had plenty of rain.

The grass needs mowing again already, and last week’s windstorm left branches scattered everywhere. Before we mow, someone needs to walk the yard and pick them all up. I can probably tackle that myself as long as I coat myself in bug spray first.

The blueberries look fantastic.

The pink lilacs I planted at the end of the shed are doing so much better this year than they did last year. I think they are finally taking root and getting stronger.

The lavender looks good. The potatoes, unfortunately, appear to be finished.

The peppers and everything else growing in the metal raised beds are basically a hot mess, but the zucchini and squash are at least doing something. I’ve picked a couple of each. Not exactly an overwhelming harvest, but I’ll take it.

The raspberries, on the other hand, are going gangbusters. We are definitely going to have to transplant some of those. I even spotted a few strawberries, including some growing inside the tube.

The herbs in the little containers on the deck are thriving.

And then there is the lemongrass.

It looks glorious after a good rain and considerably less glorious after several hot days without one. I originally planted it around the deck to help discourage mosquitoes. Chat tells me that simply having lemongrass plants sitting around probably isn't doing nearly as much mosquito-repelling as I think it is.

I respectfully disagree.

I have five enormous lemongrass plants on my deck, and there are fewer mosquitoes.

I rest my case.

Sometimes I break off a leaf and wave it around near where we’re sitting to release the scent, which apparently actually does help. Scientific or not, I like my lemongrass and it is staying.

There are weeds and vines growing through our piles of mulch and wood that need attention too, although the birds seem to think we've created an excellent habitat for them.

Maybe I’ll call that intentional.

Praying Through This Season

Fall has been on my mind for another reason too.

I pray Rachel gets to enjoy it.

I pray the beauty of the season gives her little pockets of peace and joy and contentment while her body is enduring chemotherapy.

We know the hair loss is coming. Probably very soon.

And I know that may be a breaking point for her.

Her hair has always been such a part of how she sees herself, and there is no way for any of us to fix what is happening. We can love her. We can encourage her. We can try very hard not to say the wrong thing.

But we're human, too, and sometimes people say things because they desperately want to make something better when there simply aren't words capable of making it better.

So I pray for her.

I pray God sustains her when it becomes too much. I pray He gives her encouragement and protects her heart from careless comments. I pray He gives all of us wisdom to know when to speak, when to help, when to distract her, and when simply to sit beside her.

This morning I wrote my prayers out.

I'm trying to learn to pray more deeply and intentionally—not simply running through a list of names and requests, but really praying specifically for people and what they need.

Of course, what I think they need and what they actually need may be two entirely different things.

God knows.

The Holy Spirit knows.

I'm learning to trust that too.

A Homemaking Monday

Today is supposed to be a homemaking day.

Bathrooms. Dusting. Floors. Laundry.

All those ordinary things that keep a house running and somehow need doing again approximately twelve minutes after you finish them.

I intentionally had Rachel pick up the things we needed from Walmart yesterday so I wouldn't need to go anywhere today.

Of course, the thing most likely to derail that plan is Rachel deciding she needs to get out of the house.

And right now, if she asks me to go somewhere with her, I'm probably going.

The bathrooms will still be dirty when we get home.

In this particular season, helping her keep her head above water matters more.

We also officially have cats.

Aaron's cats, Stormy and Maisie, arrived yesterday and are beginning their transition into our household. I could smell the litter when I came downstairs this morning, but it wasn't terrible.

I am choosing to consider that a small price to pay for having Aaron here with Rachel.

John has always wanted a cat anyway.

I will try to learn to love having cats—or at least peacefully coexist with them—as long as everyone does their part with feeding them, watering them and keeping the litter box clean.

Those are my terms.

Thinking About Hyfield

It's hard to believe that in just a few weeks we will own eight acres.

I still can't quite imagine what that will look like.

John and I don't plan to actually move there or do anything major until Rachel is through treatment, and that could be close to a year. So there will be this strange in-between time when the property is ours, but we aren't really there yet.

I wonder what we'll do with it in the meantime.

Walk it, certainly.

Dream.

Make plans.

Probably change those plans seventeen times.

This weekend I had to give Josh some news I knew he probably wouldn't love. When he came over Saturday and asked about the property, I explained that we've realized eight acres simply isn't enough to reasonably sustain six separate living units.

The vision has changed.

The property will be permitted for Josh and Christina's home, eventually a second residence for John and me, and then more of a family mini-camp for everyone else.

He didn't argue or push back, although I don't think he loved hearing it.

Sometimes a dream has to change shape to actually work.

And maybe another piece is already beginning to fall into place.

Sarah is talking to Matt, the finance guy, today to find out whether she might qualify to buy Josh and Christina's current house.

Without overthinking it too much yet, it seems like it could be a remarkably good solution.

Josh and Christina wouldn't have to put their house on the market. Sarah would get a home she already knows, in a location that works fairly well for both her children and her job.

She could even have chickens.

Although I did warn her that chickens are considerably more work than Christina makes them appear to be.

Christina is home every day. She feeds them, cleans things, keeps their water fresh and does all the little jobs that make chicken keeping look effortless.

It isn't effortless.

Christina just makes it look that way.

We'll see what comes from today's conversation.

For now, I'm trying very hard not to get ahead of God.

More Than a Blog

I've also made another decision.

For now—again—I am going to migrate my blog to WordPress.

The recent mess with Blogger, where people have suddenly found their blogs blocked because an algorithm decided they'd violated community standards, shook me. Some of these people have years and years of writing sitting there.

I've backed mine up.

But it made me think about what this little blog actually is.

It's not just a blog anymore.

It's a legacy.

I want one place for the recipes and stories. The Daybooks and journals. The family memories. The ordinary days that don't seem particularly important while we're living them but someday may be exactly the things someone wishes they could remember.

Maybe I can even add videos of myself reading some of our stories so the kids and grandchildren can hear them in my own voice someday.

I want to build a digital home for all of it.

And then each year, I want to print some of it into actual books.

Because no platform lasts forever.

WordPress won't last forever either.

But paper has a pretty decent track record.

Maybe that's the answer—not trusting one platform to preserve everything, but continuing to build the digital home while also creating something we can hold in our hands.

And suddenly all the work involved in moving the blog doesn't seem quite so annoying.

I'm not just moving a website.

I'm gathering our stories into one place.

Back to the Ordinary

It's getting warmer now, although that beautiful breeze is still here.

I don't really want to go inside.

But John will be up soon.

Breakfast needs making. Vitamins need taking. I need to put actual clothes on, and hopefully we can get a walk in today.

The bathrooms still need cleaning.

The laundry still needs washing.

The branches still need picking up.

The raspberries need taming, the hot tub needs chemicals, the grass needs mowing, and somewhere downstairs two cats are figuring out that this is home now.

Nothing extraordinary.

And yet, this morning, sitting here listening to the birds and crickets while August slowly wakes up around me, it all feels like something worth paying attention to.

The seasons are changing.

Our family is changing.

Our plans are changing.

Even this little blog is changing.

And perhaps the work isn't to keep everything from changing.

Perhaps it's simply to notice it while it's happening, tend what has been placed in front of me today, and trust God with what the next season will bring.