July, Annotated

or, 36 Things I Loved During My 36th Birthday Month

Welcome to Ammie Annotated, a closer read on the life of a small business owner, art journaler, queer cutie, book lover, and Instagram story enthusiast. This bi-weekly publication will touch on what I’m working on, reading, journaling about, and all the small things shaping my days.

In this issue you’ll find a listicle (is that still a word) of all the things I loved and got up to in July! Birthday! Pool Reading! DQ Blizzards! Let’s get into it! Editor’s note: read this in the substack app for its full glory. Some links are affiliate links. Thank you!

July, or Joo-LIE with my accent, is my second January. I love the rebirth of a birthday, and with mine falling halfway-ish into the year, I get the chance to become someone new, 6 months at a time. I’m not sure I’m very different than I was in January, or even last July, but I like myself and my life a lot, and that’s enough for me.

Here’s a list of 36 things that made me happy in the month of July.

1. Glitter in my coffee

This is a silly tradition I started a few years ago thanks to friend Meghan Splawn sending me Fancy Sprinkles Glitter in the mail when I was going through a big dessert biscuit phase. My favorite glitter blend is Moonstone because it mixes perfectly into my coffee, making a starry spiral of joy, whereas some of the colored glitters aren’t as legible in the coffee and can come across as, “Is there something floating in my coffee??”

2. Playing Mahjong with friends

My friend McKenzie is a Mahj Hound and bugs the group chat every few days to play Mahjong, so we’ve set up a reoccurring Thursday game. Admittedly, my brain is a little too tired by Thursday evening to be any good, but it’s nice to reguarly see friends, old and new. My Mahjong set is from Sam’s Club and it’s SO cool. It’s circus themed and I’m in love with it- and the price.

3. I stayed inside all fourth of July and ate Zaxbys

and I regret nothing. It was exactly the day I wanted to have even if I’m too old to be consuming that many fried chicken fingers and fries. I worked in my Hobonichi too, catching up on THIRTY ONE pages of missed dailies. A few aren’t my best, but done is better than “This is worthy of posting on Instagram!” lol.

4. The World Cup

and all the reading I got done during it. We posted up primarily at our local spot and I was content to sit at the bar for a few hours with my Kindle. It was nice to be apart of something so big, but my disposition is too delicate for the losing team’s devastated faces.

5. Wasp’s Nest by Kat Stoddard

I requested Wasp’s Nest on Netgalley after reading only half of the description and it did not disappoint. This is my favorite kind of book- character driven but still with a plot, written almost as a play. There were so many sentences that surprised me, not in a shocking way. In, like, a way where the sentence starts somewhere and ends in a place I didn’t expect. Or like, in a way where she detailed an action that could have been left off the page entirely but it added to the understanding of the character completely. Below is an example. She didn’t need to mention the smoker’s tradition of flipping the last cigarette over for luck, but the detail instantly told me who Mitch was.

Additionally, for my film lovers, this book is inspired by The Philadelphia Story and it was really nice to watch the movie when I finished the book. The Mid-Atlantic accents! The impossibly tiny waists! The hair! Wow.