Living Unabridged

July is always one of those months that just flies by. Here's a quick peek at the highlights of our month.

Posts from Living Unabridged:

• Curriculum Clean Out (some of this is still available so check it out if you're shopping for homeschool books)
• Four Playlists for Labor and Delivery - where I shared the music that helped me during the recent birth of our youngest
• "Not Back to School" Curriculum Plans
• Nine Lessons Learned at Camp 2015
• "Not Back to School" Student Life

Words on Wednesday posts (quotes to inspire and reading lists):

• Intellectual Belief or the Will
• Benefits Without Disciplines
• Only the Past Can Instruct
• Healthy Societies

What Happened:

Celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks one night and a cookout / swim day with family the next day. We also celebrated my dad's birthday.

Went swimming with friends. Spent a week at church camp. Attended a Reds game.

We took a mini (very mini: one day) vacation to a nearby city and Children's museum.

Went swimming again.

We took the little guy to have some pictures made.

Made plans for the new school year and some of us finished the month with a one day trip to a game convention.

What I've Been Reading:

Some more series mysteries but the little guy is also sleeping enough these days that I'm able to work on some longer fiction and nonfiction. Right now I'm readingThe Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williamson my Kindle, and a few other things from my book stack.

As always, if you want to know more about what I'm reading now, check my Words on Wednesdays posts and if you want to see mini-reviews on the books I've finished this year check out this page:

What We've Watched:

FuryThis one was very violent, including within the first few minutes of the film. I couldn't watch it. My husband thought it was pretty good and there aren't many WW2 tank movies but, for me, no. I can read about it but I can't watch it. (Probably because of that whole "HSP" thing.)

The JudgeThere's a subplot that could be cut without hurting the movie at all, but otherwise, this is a riveting take on a family tragedy. Definitely not for children but adults will probably find it compelling.

Jupiter AscendingChanning Tatum is an awful actor and this movie is over the top ridiculous, but if you like over the top sci-fi (and we do) it could be fun.

Begin AgainClever. Lots of bad language (the "f word" is their favorite adjective) but otherwise a nice change from predictable plots.

ChappieMy husband watched this one while I worked on blog stuff. Kind of ridiculous, from what I could tell.

The Theory of EverythingGive Eddie Redmayne & Felicity Jones all the awards. The acting in this by the two leads is amazing and the supporting cast is good as well.

The EqualizerExtremely violent (I couldn't watch many of the scenes) but Denzel Washington is as great as ever. At some point it becomes kind of like an extended Lowes or Home Depot commercial (if there were a commercial about all the ways you could kill someone in one of their stores) and my husband and I actually laughed that it was like Kevin from Home Alone grew up to write a how-to book for hit men. But, like I said: Denzel Washington is a great actor that I never really get tired of watching.

We also watched several episodes of The Crimson Field and Poldark. Of the two, I am sad there won't be any new episodes of TCF, because I liked it and I don't care about Poldark any more, even though it's already been renewed. My husband actually watched an episode without me because I'm over it.

We've also gone back to watch more Call the Midwife, now that I'm not pregnant any more. (I couldn't watch it while I was pregnant.) We got pretty behind on this one so we have lots of episodes to catch up.

My husband and I also went on a date to see Rifftrax Live: Sharknado 2. It was awful and hilarious (and some of our real life friends were at the live broadcast in Nashville so we were hoping to see them on the big screen too).

We took the baby but he slept through the whole thing. Terrible disaster movies mocked by three middle aged men (I'm being charitable) must not be his thing, even if he is smiling a lot more these days:

He has this huge grin and all these sweet little smiles and oh. my. word. as if I didn't already love him to the moon and back, I seriously could just eat him up these days. (He still has his fussy moments, don't get me wrong. But somehow the smiles make those seem not so bad.)

That yawn is how I feel after describing our July and I think I only scratched the surface.

So, what did you do, read, or watch in July?