Life has been a weird adjustment, going from visiting Grandma each day to now missing her like crazy. I thought it would be better after the funeral, but instead it's gotten worse, because then you start to miss her. Lately my brain hasn't accepted she's gone, and every time the doorbell rings, my soul thinks, "oh! That must be Grandma here to visit us." We went up to visit her old house for the first time in a while, and as I wrote here, there were touches of her everywhere. 

I was pretty prolific on the blog this month, surprisingly! I posted a total of 9 times, and most of those posts were about writing. I participated in A Novel Idea more than ever this month, as well as introducing you to Blade via my Beautiful People post. In addition, I talked about Decker & Beau, the writing process, Astrid, Cobie, more of my writing process, and, most recently, almost the entire Petrichor cast.

In other places, I wrote about being both smart and pretty on Radical Notion. This wasn't in August, but since there was no recap for July, I'd like to link you to my piece about my grandma on Grafted Magazine as well. I was able to have this article read to Grandma before she died, and I can't express how much that meant to me. It was also read at both of her funerals. It's a piece incredibly close to my heart.

I started Petrichor back up again after a long wait on August 3rd. I returned to it with a firm resolve to not work on anything else and to finish that baby up. I have written a total of 16,717 words in it during the month of August. Before that, I had a wordcount of 45,747. Now it's 62,464, and it will probably be somewhere in the whereabouts of 100k by the time it's finished.

In addition, I've worked on collaborations with friends, as well as plotting out future novels for myself. Recently, I got a fresh wind for my novel Something About Summer and I'm now developing that. I've also been helping get Issue 3 of Grafted Magazine together (I'm now their submissions manager! Woohoo!)

I also found the wonderful site that is Wix, and have been making websites to inspire me for my writing projects. (Because having Pinterest boards apparently just isn't enough.) Also on the design front, I was able to design a blog for a friend which was really fun and definitely a rewarding experience! It felt really good to design again. You can check out the design, and the blog, out here.

I've started to make monthly playlists, so lucky for you I have some rec's. I was introduced to so much new music by my brother this month, so you may blame this all on him.

My brother and I also sang a lot of Shake It Out by Florence + the Machine, and just tonight I introduced my sister to Wannabe by The Spice Girls. (It's a classic song, okay? I love that song and sing it loudly. Not ashamed.) This month was also when I discovered Sleeping at Last, particularly their song Saturn, which you can read about here.

I fully expected my Instagram usage to decline due to the death in our family, but I actually posted pretty decently this month. Here are some of my favorite shots.

Lost declined extremely in season 6, so my brother and I are watching it veeeerrrry sloooowlllyyy. As mentioned, I started Breaking Bad. The writing on that is genius. Also, this month I fell even more in love with Parks and Rec.

movies: I don't watch enough movies to make it into its own category, but I watched "What About Bob" with my mom and sister, "Red" with my family, and "Authors Anonymous" by myself. All of them had varying degrees of success, but I'd give them all an average of three stars. (And no, I still haven't seen Guardians of the Galaxy. GAHHH. But Chris Pratt. ♥ And Marvel!) I also rewatched 13 Going on 30 with my mom and sister, and it was just as good the second time. I love Mark Ruffalo. Seriously.

books: I'm also trying to get back into reading, so I put a ton of books on hold. I read Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel, and GAH! That one was amazing. You can view my review of it here. Up ahead on my reading pile are quite a few Sarah Dessen books and some really great reads I'm excited to dig my teeth into. You may read more about said books in September's recap. ;)

Overall, August, as well as the year of 2014, has been a roller coaster. I won't say it's been good, exactly, but it's drawn us closer together, and, as my mom said, has strengthened us. Thanks for being on the journey along with me, blog readers. ♥

And now, September. Onward.