Aim Low; Achieve High: My June/July in Books and Life

Back in my Girl Scout leader days, I lived by one motto: Aim Low; Achieve High.

My daughter—and all her troop mates—were ridiculously busy. She had voice lessons, fencing, acting classes, Little League, and play rehearsals … all while keeping up with her older brother. I wanted Scouting to be fun, not just another item crammed onto a packed schedule. And selfishly, I was a busy, working, single mom.

So I took the easy road whenever I could. Like waiting for the Scout lottery to place us in the NASA camp for the Aerospace badge. When our number came up, we camped inside NASA Houston, met John Glenn, tackled activities designed by astronauts, and walked away with badges in hand. All I had to do was chaperone. Aim low; achieve high.

Fast-forward to last year. I realized I wasn’t reading nearly enough—a horrifying moment for an old English major. I knew I had to do something. My 2025 goal? Read more books. Vague, yes. Easy to postpone, absolutely.

I flirted with the idea of a book a week, which was concrete, but came with a lot of pressure. Not reading the first book in the month, and I knew myself well enough to know I’d tell myself I’d never catch up, and postpone the until the next month. Miss another month, and hello 2026 reading goal.

Enter Aim Low; Achieve High. Two books a month seemed doable. Surprise: I’ve blown past that every month—sometimes reading four or more books a month. June and July? Fifteen books. Busy months indeed.

And reading wasn’t all I did. Highlights:

• Vacationing in Hawaii and watching Kīlauea erupt in real time. Bonus: long flights = solid reading time. Also, it added to my natural-world bucket list: walking a glacier in Iceland, sailing into the Antarctic Ocean from Tasmania, and surviving a sandstorm in Egypt. Earth. Wind. Fire. Water. The four elements known to every witch and inspiration for the fifth one: Spirit.

• Hosting a 4-week Camp Grandma for a high-energy 7-year-old. I highly recommend the Balloon Museum if it comes to your town.

• Doing a little Swedish Death Cleaning. Farewell, 27 extra coffee mugs and 4 blankets.

• Writing The May Babies Ball, the third Wheel of the Year Mysteries.

• Creating audiobooks for Something Wiccan This Way Comes and Season of the Witch.

• Updating my website.

• Organizing my messy Canva graphic files.

• Painting my patio doors.

• Spending quality time on my patio with the animals, coffee, and my journal.

Of all that, only the first two were actual must-dos. Aim low; achieve high for the win.

Can I keep it up? Hard to say. For now, my only goal is to finish the draft of May Babies Ball by mid-September.

So, share with me what you accomplished this summer?