Today is the last day of the Summer Reading Challenge. I moseyed over to TheBookJunkie’s place for the closing ceremonies and found that people were posting their total number of books read. I went back through my blog from June 1st till now and found that I have read 41 books this summer.

Mostly novels. Mostly mystery novels, in fact. Not much of a challenge at all. I had hoped there might be some conclusion I could draw, as some of the others did, but there really was nothing there. I just read in my off time in the usual way. Zipping through the summer’s posts, however, I decided to make a little summer report for myself.

In three months, I had only four weekends off. Nonetheless, I completed two knitting projects and eight sewing projects. I put a lot of energy into supporting my erstwhile college girl’s transition to career girl, and kept up pretty well with normal life until mid-August.

The great failure of the summer was in the area of health and fitness. It was early in June that my doctor told me to be more rigorous with diet and exercise. At the time, I was doing an average of 90 minutes a week of cardio and strength training, and eating right probably about 80% of the time. Between then and last week, I gradually went down to zero minutes a week of exercise. With excessive work and the death of my refrigerator, I am now eating right (that is, eating only fresh produce, whole grains, nonfat dairy products and lean meat) about one third of the time. Specifically, when I have my breakfast of oatmeal and raisins. I don’t know what this has done to my lipids profile, of course, but I know it is not good for me. Add stress and lack of rest, and I am living like the average American, who is a very unhealthy person indeed.

For September, I plan to finish the sweater I am now working on and get back to Erin, a Fair Isle sweater I put aside in the spring. If it is too hot, I will alter that plan and make some small things instead. In sewing, I intend to make a three-piece suit this fall, though at the moment this seems like an over-ambitious plan. However, I have a book of directions on tailoring, and I will give it a serious try. I have not yet decided what to do in the way of music, apart from church choir. I will be getting back to my Tuesday night class and teaching Sunday School — both of those begin next week. I may join a Spanish class, perhaps instead of the two singing groups I am trying to decide between. If I find a tailoring class, I might do that instead. As of this week, I am back on my 90 minutes per week exercise, and I intend to bump that up to 120 minutes in September. As of next week, I will be more diligent about eating right. This is the first week of the HGP, so I also have that to keep up with. I have some other crafting ideas and must harvest and preserve my garden. I also still have a couple of kids at home and a husband to pay attention to, so I think I have a full autumn ahead.

That’s the plan.