My Mom has been staying with us for the past week and a half as I’ve transitioned back to work, which has been absolutely wonderful! (SO THANKFUL!) We are doing our best to soak up time with her, which means my time for blogging, reading, and goal progressing has been a bit more limited than usual, as you’ll see below. No complaints here, though — just a few more items than I expected rolling over to November!

P.S. I love using PowerSheets to track my professional goals (and sometimes personal ones, too). The new collection went on sale last week and it is awesome! The one year goal planners will likely sell out before the new year, so scoot over and get yours soon if you’d like one for 2019!

On my calendar this month:
— A fun regional alumni event for our alma mater
— Voting!
— Date night to Hamilton!!!
— Thanksgiving x four (Thanksgiving-themed Articles Club, early Thanksgiving with the Thomases in Virginia, Thanksgiving Day with the Terhunes, and Thanksgiving weekend with my family – whew!)

What I’m loving right now:
— As someone who loves travel, interior design, and entrepreneurial endeavors, the Netflix series Stay Here gets two thumbs up from our house! The episodes are only half an hour and so fun.
— My Allbirds (I have the Tree Skippers in navy) are in heavy rotation right now – comfortable enough to wear all day and good looking with lots of outfits!
— I haven’t added a subscription to my Feedly in over a year, so the fact that a new-to-me blog — The Fashion Magpie — has recently earned a spot is worth a mention. Jen describes her blog as a “literary fashion journal,” and despite the fact that most of the fashion she posts is wildly outside of my budget, we appear to have SO much in common. I think you might like!

What I read in October:
— The Coddling of the American Mind: I am only a few chapters into this book but it has me nodding along like my head’s going to fall off. We might need to have a longer conversation about it once I’m finished.

Revisiting my goals for October:
Prepare well for returning to work
Frame new family photos for Shep and June’s rooms
Host a pumpkin painting workshop, with proceeds going to Hurricane Florence relief (We raised over $1,500 and had such a fun night!)
Watch Won’t You Be My Neighbor? on Amazon (Beautiful!)
Order supplies and finish Halloween costumes (Yes, I made those wings, and yes, I am proud of them! :))
Take down June’s pelmet and replace with curtains, creating a reading corner
Order our Christmas cards (using newborn photos!)
Work on Shep’s baby book and update June’s
Clean out our coat closet and donate anything we no longer need
Organize June’s art supplies

November goals:
— Write one thank you note per day (a campaign we’re doing along with our church family!)
— Organize our loft (the one spot in our house that just WON’T be solved)
— Do lots of Christmas shopping, taking advantage of Black Friday sales
— Share gift guides for ladies, gents, parents, and kiddos
— Order Christmas cards and Christmas newsletter
— Work on Shep’s baby book and update June’s
— Take down June’s pelmet and replace with curtains, creating a reading corner

So many things to discuss, but I’d love to hear: have you seen Won’t You Be My Neighbor? What did you think? What stuck with you? I keep thinking about how he said we should tell our children, “today was special just because you were in it” every night, and I was also struck by how sloooooow he moved and spoke and responded to questions — in a good way.