
So….October. Is it perhaps an indication of how the last few months have been that I’m just now posting about October? October is always a crazy crazy month for us. We see to try to cram in so much stuff in October it leaves my head spinning. I think I still have photos from last year’s whirlwind October that need editing, or blogging, or…something. This October was no exception to the rule – we kept it jam-packed, but were able to enjoy some fun things. But, I know I’m playing catch up a bit with some of the things I intended to post last year – but I’m starting where I left off and my intention is to stay more in sync with my blogging because it’s important to me.
I started off October with a ton of excitement and inspiration. I really want to take some time and try to capture what really hit me, and some of the things that spun out of that, but for now I’ll just focus on capturing the month itself. One of the things that I tapped into was Lara Casey and her newsletter. I’d been following her on Instagram for a little while, but I finally subscribed to her newsletter in October. The theme for the month was Clear October. She wrote in her newsletter about having a clear mind and really being intentional about the time before the holidays and the end of year craziness sets in. It really struck a chord with me too – I wanted not only to have clear intentions and clear ideas about my plan for the remainder of the year, but it also meant a clear heart. I’ve always been a firm believer that you have to make room in your life for what you want – if your life or your space or your heart doesn’t have the space to receive God’s gifts, how can you expect your prayers to be fulfilled? In an effort to do my own clearing in October, I started off the month by cleaning off the white board in my office. It literally took me about an hour. There were notes and diagrams on there that had been there so long I could not get them erased and I had to scrub at the words to remove them. My Instagram photo shows my clean and clear whiteboard – out with all the “junk” that no longer serves me and opening up a space to receive.
The rest of the month was, like I said, jam-packed with all sorts of things. We went to the State Fair, as usual, and I finally got to see the Chinese Lantern Festival at night. It was just as stunning as I’d imagined! Plus we got to see the Kildares play, which is always fun.
I spent a good amount of time reading in October, particularly the Beautiful Bastard series by Christina Lauren.
I did some baking – pumpkin bread and then my very first Italian Cream Cake for Eric’s birthday. We had amazing Thai food for his birthday dinner at one of our favorite local spots.
I finished up my memorial sampler for my dad at the end of September, and finally blogged about it over at my other blog.
I got a little “on the spot” award at work for the work I did on a project, and what better way to celebrate than with leopard pumps? You can’t go wrong with leopard.
We did some projects around the house, including installing some shelves in our media room to contain some of the things that came from my mom’s house when my dad died. We also bought a new rug and pouf for the living room. I am so in love with this rug, it is not even funny. My absolute dream rug – and Eric was won over by it too!
And we also spent some time with my niece in October. As part of that whole idea behind making room in your life, we decided that we definitely needed to make some room in our lives to spend more time with her. She came and spent the night with us, Eric made her pink pancakes for breakfast and we watched The Breakfast Club. She loved it! I also worked with her on designing her Halloween costume. This year she went as Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas – and the dress I worked on tirelessly was a huge hit!
As usual, October was a great, busy month. I’m looking forward to sharing November with you!