Hi friends! I hope you had a fantastic July. I have been having the most amazing and crazy month. I will be moving to England in just 8 days, and there is so much that needs to be done!

I started the month in Maryland with my best friend at her family’s farm, celebrating the Fourth of July. It was a long weekend filled with laughter, good food, and so much happiness. Her brother made Armenian shishkabob, and it may be one of my new favorite dinners.

The early part of the month was spent clearing out my room, donating items, and organizing all of my yard sale boxes. I’m only taking one suitcase with me to England and keeping 4-5 storage bins in the USA, so everything had to go!

I also received my grad school reading list, which is so long and extensive that I don’t know how I’ll read it all.

Yard sale weekend happened in the middle of the month. It was hot and rainy, but I sold a decent amount of things. I’m so sentimental about my belongings that it was hard to let everything go. But, now I have room for new things in my new life.

I spent a week teaching ESY (extended school year) to an autism support kindergarten classroom. It was such an experience. If anything, it reaffirmed my wish to teach secondary school.

My sister and aunt threw me a surprise going away party with family and a few friends. I felt so special and loved the whole day.

The last few days have been spent getting coffee, lunch, and dinner with friends and family that I want to see before moving. I am loving all this time, but it’s making me sad to leave everyone.

Heading into August, I’ll be continuing to visit everyone before my move. I have a few more things to accomplish before I fly out on August 8, but I’m pretty much ready to go. I’m getting a little nervous, but so incredibly excited at the same time.

Without further ado, here are some of my favorite things from the month of July.

The Selection by Kiera Cass
I have been tasked with reading as much YA fiction before my grad school program starts in September as I can. I picked this book based on the cover image, and I fell in love. Definitely a romance-type novel, but also a bit dystopian. It felt like the Hunger Games met the Bachelor. It’s a series and I can’t wait to read the other novels.

Find it here.

Skype Bingo with Liam
I saw this idea somewhere online, so I had to try it with Liam. We skype every night, so we are pretty familiar with each other’s habits and quirks. We each made a list of 15 things the other person might do on a skype call. (Making sure that we kept it a secret from each other.) Then we randomized the order and placed them into a 4×4 grid on excel, adding a random free space to bring the total to 16. You could do more things to create a standard bingo card, but we didn’t want to. We decided on a night to play, and started tracking our spaces. It took a few nights to complete the board, but in the end Liam won. I only had two spots left on my card. It was a fun date night activity for us to do long distance.

Jersey Bralette Top from Old Navy
I’ve been loving these new bras from Old Navy. No underwire and incredibly comfy.

Find them here.

Downton Abbey on Netflix
I am absolutely obsessed with this show. I’ve watched The Crown and Reign before, so this is right up my alley.

My New Apartment
My lease started on July 1, so Liam went down to get the keys for me. I cannot wait to move in!

Amazon Fire Tablet
I decided to get a kindle or tablet for reading, since I had to get rid of all my physical books for the move. I didn’t think I’d like it at first, but I’m actually so in love with it. It’s small and easy to hold, and I like that I can highlight the pages.

Find it here.

Sushi Dates
I am going to miss Sushi Tomo in Pittsburgh. It’s basically my favorite sushi restaurant in the area, so I’ve been making sure to eat there as much as I can before I go.

And that’s it for July.

How was your month? What are some of your favorites from July?

See you next month xx