Embrace in 2023: August

I suspect I'm not the only one who looked at a calendar this morning and realized that this is the last Monday of August. I swear this month just started! But with school starting for Mo tomorrow and the High Holidays coming up soon, I suppose I should not be shocked. Because it is the last Monday of the month, that means it's time to check in with my One Little Word and join the link-up hosted by Carolyn.

It's been a very busy month, so at first I didn't feel like I had much time to embrace much of anything. But then I changed my perspective and realized that what I fully embraced this month were my responsibilities. There were the usual things I needed to do for work and some weekend commitments, but my synagogue board responsibilities also ramped up quite a bit this month. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but in addition to serving on the board and the executive committee, I'm also serving on the committee conducting the search for our next rabbi. We are hoping to get the job posting up before the High Holidays, which are soon, so that meant a lot of work. I had several work sessions with two other members of the committee that required us to synthesize and summarize a large amount of information gathered from members of the congregation and put it into succinct answers to eight questions. There have been extra meetings related to this committee as well. And the Mister has been traveling for work, so that has meant single-parenting (though in all honesty, that's a lot easier than it used to be).

In the past, all this activity might have made me very stressed out, but I've noticed that I've handled it quite well. I won't say it hasn't been exhausting, but something about knowing that there was a limit to the busy-ness helped me keep things in perspective. I think continuing to work from home full time has also been a huge help because it's granted me much more flexibility. Last week, for instance, I had a project for work that was a rush and had to get done ASAP, so I brought my work laptop down to the kitchen and finished it up while dinner was getting ready in the oven, allowing me to keep working even though the workday was technically over and letting me cross that item off my list that day so I didn't worry about it overnight. The real test, of course, will start tomorrow, when we're back to the school year schedule, but I'm feeling good about things at the moment, especially knowing that the month ahead includes a number of celebrations.

How has your One Little Word treated you this month?