Monthly Musings: July discoveries

It’s hard to believe that July has been and gone, and there’s only a month before the arrival of spring. But before we get carried away in anticipation of spring, here are a few of my discoveries in July.

• Booknook and Bean opened in Topham Mall around the corner from work, and it’s my new favourite place for a hot chocolate, a pre-loved book, or a little yummy treat (or all of them together!). On the pre-loved book front you can donate books or buy them (there’s an honour system – just pay what you want between $2-$7 per book). All profits from the books are invested through Kiva, providing micro-loans to people around the world so they have an opportunity get out of poverty. What a great idea!

• My recent reads: The Grand Paradox: the messiness of life, the mystery of God and the necessity of faith by Ken Wytsma Heading Home: my search for purpose in a temporary world by Naomi Reed and Booked: literature in the soul of me by Karen Swallow Prior (I didn’t set out to choose books with such long titles but they’re all worth a read).

• I came across this beautiful song “Light” from Gungor about their daughter who was born with Down Syndrome. They named her Lucette which means light, and if you need a little light right now watch this video (oh, and you might need some tissues too!). The full lyrics and a little more of their story is on the You Tube page (Light).

• I also discovered that the service at Apple is pretty impressive. I’ve had my iPad Mini for about a year and love it. Unfortunately it stopped working about a week after I arrive home from holiday. I took it into the Genius Bar at the Apple Store and they ran some tests, determined there’d been a hardware failure and swapped it for a replacement on the spot. You’ve gotta love that.

• For the last month I’ve been trying out the Bullet Journal system, and so far I’m finding it very helpful to have one place for recording tasks, events, phone calls and meeting notes. All you need is a notebook and a pen. I’ve tweaked it a little for my own needs, particularly at work, where I keep it open on my desk and also take it to meetings.