...accounting for re-counting and re-consideration...

August did NOT run according to plan...nor to direction.

In fact, August ran contrary to every hope I had naively imbued it with in the final hours of July.

There were so many, many unforeseen hiccups and hurdles...and so many, many emergent diversions from the track I thought I had set my feet to.

And such is life.

So here I am...closing out the book of August and sending the calendar pages to the rubbish bin, and realizing how very, very full our August really was.  I tore those pages out of my planner earlier today and glanced at all the messy scribblings and thought to myself, "Well done. Look at all you did." Lovely thought, which lasted the whole five minutes until I went to pull our August Mood Board and August Bucket List off the fridge...and saw the empty boxes.

We're so often forced to reframe our hopes and expectations in the face of unexpected upsets.

Perhaps the appropriate reframing is:

Here was NOT my August Bucket List.

~rather~

Here WAS my August WISH List.

With that little rewrite, I can let go of the failure-feeling that focused solely on the unchecked boxes, and instead delight in the boxes that were checked...as I remind myself of ALL THE THINGS we saw and did and accomplished and overcame that didn't show up in prophecy or print.

And as to those unchecked boxes?  Well, who's to say I can't just roll them over as ongoing goals?

After all, September is but a day away, and full of empty spaces to fill and flourish.