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October has been our busiest
month yet, but also one of my favorites of the whole year so far. It really just doesn’t get any better than
October, November, and December. I wish
every month could be as cozy and festive and fun as these! Here’s how we spent our month…
What We’re Eating This Week
Mon – Chick-Fil-A in the car
on the way to Jacob’s championship game
Tue – Slow Cooker Beef
Stroganoff, broccoli
Wed – Eggs, grits, bacon,
toast
Thu – Orange & Black
Halloween dinner! (Mummy Dogs, Blackberry & Cheese Skewers, Mandarin
Oranges, Candy Corn Popcorn mix from Trader Joe’s)
Fri – Out
Sat – Takeout during the Georgia game…
we won’t be leaving the house!
Sun – Sunday dinner at Momma
and Daddy’s as long as Momma cooks!
What I’m Reminiscing About
Being as how it’s Halloween week,
all of my memories from Halloweens past have been popping up in my Timehop
these past few days. B and I have had
kiddos to dress up for eight years now, but even before that, he and I would go
all out for Halloween when it was just the two of us. My favorite costume of all-time was most
definitely when we went as Mrs. Clause and one of Santa’s elves. Christmas is my favorite time of year, so to
incorporate it with Halloween was pretty much the best thing ever. Not to mention I got to wear red lipstick… I
love any excuse to wear red lipstick. ;o) If you’d like to see some of our other crazy
costumes, I did a blog post all about them a few years ago. You can see it here.
What I’m Loving
Olivia is a reading and
writing machine these days, and her new thing is writing notes on post-its and
leaving them all over the house for us to find.
I walked into my bathroom this past weekend to see these two notes:
And then I walked into my
office one day to find this one:
Well, this past weekend, B
said that he found a whole trail of them where Olivia was telling random items
that she loved them, and this is what they said:
LOLOLOLOL. I literally laughed out loud at the last one and
immediately demanded that B send the pictures to me so I could put them on the
blog. This is something I’ll want to
remember and be able to show her one day when she’s older. Our girl is hilarious, y’all.
What We’ve Been Up To
Gosh, this time of year just
flies by way too fast. I hate that it’s
so darn short. We’ve been doing aaaallll
the fall things this month and it’s been a blast – lots of fall baseball,
attending our school’s big rivalry game, playing in the leaves, going to the
mountains and apple-picking, visiting a lovely winery, making s’mores over the
fire pit, gem grubbing, touring around Helen, touring around Blueridge, dressing
up for homecoming week at school, attending our school’s alumni social and
homecoming game, celebrating my niece’s first birthday, taking a day trip to Atlanta
to load up on all of the fall goodness at Trader Joe’s, seeing Ray LaMontagne
in concert, going to the pumpkin patch, eating lots of fun Halloween meals, and
carving our pumpkin. Recaps are below!
What I’m Dreading
B is leaving town for a few
days in November for a work trip.
Sigh. I always dread when he’s
away because I don’t sleep as well when he’s gone. Fortunately it’s only for three nights, so it’ll
be short. And it’s times like these that
make me even more grateful that I no longer have a full-time corporate job. Juggling all of the kids’ stuff plus a
full-time job outside the home with no husband to help was always really hard.
What I’m Working On
This month has been so busy, I feel like I’ve pretty much just been living
day-to-day with not as much time spent planning ahead. That said, I have taken some time to start
planning for Christmas, but I’ve definitely neglected my October Goals list
other than the fun family stuff. Here
are a few things that I’ve been working on this month, and I’ll get into more
detail in Friday’s November Goals post.
- I finally finished uploading all of the kids’
old clothes to Poshmark and I’ve sold quite a few pieces now. Next up, posting my old maternity
clothes! You can follow along here
if you’d like.
- I finished gathering all of the donations for
our school’s fall carnival. The
carnival was supposed to have been last week, but we postponed it due to
the weather.
- I’ve been working on planning the Halloween party
for Jacob’s class. We’re going to
have some snacks and I’m also going to help them do a craft, so it should
be a fun day tomorrow!
- I went through all of the Christmas gifts that I’ve
purchased so far, organized them, and made sure they are all accounted for
on my Christmas gift spreadsheet.
Staying organized is key so we don’t overspend or duplicate
anything.
- I’ve been working on a few different posts for December
so I can try to get as ahead as possible.
I want to be able to be as present and available for fun stuff as
possible in December, so I’m trying to knock out as many blog posts as I
can before then. So far I have a
big one (our yearly recap) three quarters done, I’ve completed one post,
and I have a couple of other posts in the works. Woo hoo!
I’m also, of course, blogging day-to-day and here are some
highlights from this past month…
What I’m Excited About
There’s so much to be
excited about right now as it’s my favorite time of the year! Immediately on the horizon is, of course, Halloween,
and I’m looking forward to a day and night of fun – Halloween parties at the
kids’ school, a fun Halloween dinner at home, trick-or-treating (praying the
weather cooperates!), and our Halloween tradition of watching It’s the Great
Pumpkin, Charlie Brown afterward. We
always let the kids stay up late to watch it after we trick-or-treat, and it
makes for the best evening with my favorite people!
What I’m Watching/Reading
Watching – College football,
Gossip Girl, Friends (while I work), and B and I recently finished Chernobyl. I honestly didn’t think it was that great,
although, I do know that’s an unpopular opinion. We’ve also just started watching Living With
Yourself, a Netflix original show with Paul Rudd. So far I like it a lot. It’s definitely an interesting concept, and I
also just really love Paul Rudd. We’re
also watching This is Us, A Million Little Things, Modern Family, and Shark
Tank now that they’re all new again.
Reading – I picked up One in a Million again (finally) to
try and get it completed before I have to return it to the library, but I’m
still having trouble getting into it. I
don’t know if I’m just not in the mood to read or if the book really is just
that slow? I may end up having to send
this one back before I finish it.
What I’m Listening To
The Lumineers released a new
album earlier this month so I’ve been listening to that a lot, and also, give me all the old standards and jazz this
time of year!! Cozy weather season
has finally reached Georgia
so I’ve had Steve Tyrell, Rod Stewart’s songbooks, Michael Buble, Miles Davis,
and my favorite Cocktail Jazz albums by Beegie Adair on repeat. I also love the Jazz for Studying station on
Pandora. I listen to that a lot while
the kids are doing homework and I’m cooking.
I tell ya, there is just nothing that makes me happier than the old
standards music and jazz… well except for maybe Christmas music! This Friday, it will be on!
What I’m Wearing
Praise the Lord, the fall
weather finally reached us here in Georgia earlier this month!!!! The month started out excruciating (in the
hundreds), but the cool weather has finally come sweeping through and I’m here
for it!! Yes, we’ve still had a few days
near 80 recently, but goodness gracious I’ll take that over 101 any ol’ day.
Since the weather has
finally changed, I’ve been incorporating some of my fall and winter clothes –
lots of cardigans and layers and closed-toe shoes. It hasn’t been cold enough here yet for thick
or heavy sweaters, but we have had a couple of days where I was able to wear my
boots. :o)
What I’m Doing This Weekend
The Georgia vs. Florida game is on Saturday at 3:30 so we’ll
probably have a day where we never leave the house on Saturday. We tend to have days like that a lot during
football season, but I’m not sure that we’ve had that opportunity this year yet
because we’ve been so darn busy… I can’t remember! So anyway, we’ll be having all the downtime Saturday
and probably drinking all the beers to calm our nerves during the game. Haha.
This game is going to be a true test for our Dawgs as we’ve been
struggling as of late. I’m most definitely
terrified, but after our loss to South
Carolina I’ve pretty much made my peace with the fact
that this year probably won’t be our year to bring home a Natty.
What I’m Looking Forward To Next
Month
Every single last bit of it –
football games in Athens, another concert in Atlanta with my favorite, fall carnival at the kids’
school, a play in Atlanta,
decorating for Christmas, Winterfest at our local university, seeing Frozen 2
(EEK!), celebrating Thanksgiving, and kicking off the Christmas season with my favorites! It is truly the most wonderful, amazing,
fantastic, happy time of year!
What Else Is New
A couple of things, actually…
on a sad note, my parents had to say goodbye to their dog, Lily, a couple of
weeks ago. She was a rescue pup, so they
didn’t know exactly how old she was, but the vet estimated her age when they first
got her, and we think she was somewhere in her mid-teens when they had to let
her go earlier this month. She’d had
several strokes and was completely blind, and she was at the point where she
wasn’t functioning very well, so my parents made the decision with their vet to
put her down. It’s been really hard on
my family, especially my Momma, so please keep them in your prayers as they
heal. Lily had a good, long life, and I
know she’s probably happier in heaven with our old dog, Bill, now instead of
suffering here on earth.
On a much lighter note, B
and I celebrated our ten year anniversary in our current home earlier this
month. I cannot believe we have lived
here in this house for ten whole years.
I honestly don’t feel like I’m even old enough to buy my own house, let
alone have owned one for ten years. Most
of the time I still forget that I’m an adult.
And a lot of days it’s still weird to me that B and I have kids. Haha. #ForeverYoung
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| Our lot before they started building |
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| Me standing it what eventually became our front sitting room |
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| Framing and insulation |
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| Brian standing in what eventually became our master bedroom |
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| Brian standing outside of what eventually became Olivia's bedroom |
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| Looking downstairs from the second floor |
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| View from our now living room and Brian is standing in what is now our dining room |
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| I wrote this on the wood over our fireplace where the mantle is now |
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| Siding in and brick going in |
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| Drywall is in on the main floor - looking into our now living room |
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| My girlfriends stopped by to see the progress one evening after margarita night! |
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| Siding is painted, brick is in, and shutters were added |
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| Kitchen cabinets going in |
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| Banisters and stairs going in |
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| Tile work in our master bathroom |
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| All done! This was just days before we closed and moved in! |
Happy Wednesday, y’all. <3
