October, Revisited, Plus November

I'm a woman of my word (or at least I try to be), so when I posted some goals for October I said I'd publicly hold myself accountable. Honestly, this post is probably more for me than anyone else, but I already wrote the whole thing. So here we are:

1. Learn to turn the water main off- Nope! The weird noise went away and I stopped obsessing about my house flooding. I attempted to look at some pictures online for about three minutes, but I got bored.

2. Take Sawyer to do something autumn-ish- Yup! We went to a huge pumpkin patch with some friends, the Homecoming Carnival at my school, and then the fall festival at the place where he used to go to PT. 

3. Make plans to see friends at least once- Yup! I also had to reschedule some things from this month for next month, so I should be out and about quite a bit in November. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm one of those people that needs to interact with others. 

4. Do yoga or Piyo at least twice a week- Sorta! I've been pretty good about going to yoga on Saturdays and I've done Piyo like twice. Better than last month, but still lots of room for improvement, especially if I'm going to run again. 

5. Make a charitable contribution- Yup! A favorite colleague at work is doing a charity run, so I donated some money towards what he needs to raise. 

6. Leave at least 100 blog comments- Probably not! I started off really strong at the beginning of the month, but definitely tapered off as things got crazy. 

7. Make a new playlist- Yup!  I love seeing what other people are listening t, so, for your amusement/judgement:

8. Walk 80,000 steps a week- Yup! I was up around 90,000 once or twice, too. 

9. Hang you with my husband more- Sorta! I decided that every Thursday I'd play videogames (just the silly Lego ones) with him after Sawyer is in bed, but the past two weeks I was tied up. It's not like we don't see each other or anything, but actually putting down our phones/tablets and designating time to hang out is something to work on.

10. Do things to de-stress at work- It's complicated. But I love my students very much and I enjoy what I do. No job is perfect and accepting the things that are hard along with the things that are great will get you far... most days. 

I'd say that October was a much better month than September, although there have been some bad days and a moment or two where I thought someone had knocked me upside the head with a two-by-four out of basically nowhere. But anyway, I do have to say putting things down like this made me prioritize better and just work harder on certain things. And because I was able to do that I felt happier in general. Naturally this must be replicated.

So, things to work on for November:

1. Read five books- I haven't been reading quite as much as I'd like lately (do we ever, though?).

2. Eat at a new restaurant- We used to do this once a month. Then the child happened; there's no reason we can't still. 

3. Less Diet Coke, more water- Nooooooooooooooooooooooo. But yes. 

4. Make a new recipe a week- I'm in a cooking rut. I try to cook five nights a week, so this has made meal time a bit of a chore.

5. Start (lightly) training- While I'm not going to go balls-to-the-wall on half marathon training it's would be a joke to assume that I'd go in without some sort of base mileage. I want to be that person, who just goes for it, but I'm not.

5. Blog 17 times- I just pulled that number out of my ass, but ever since this school year started my posting has suffered a little bit.

6. Really try to finish NaNoWriMo- Who the hell knows what will happen.

7. Find some sort of not-lame Christmas craft to make- I don't have a ton of Christmas decorations, but I tend to think simple, homemade ones are the nicest. This will unfortunately mean a trip to Michael's, which will take a year or two off my life.

8. Reevaluate my fall/winter wardrobe- Last year I was trying to finish losing pregnancy weight and the year before that I was actually pregnant, so I'm frustrated with my closet. It won't exactly be freezing here, but I do need things and to get rid of those articles of clothing I won't wear anymore. 

9. Go out without Sawyer- We're long overdue for a night out without the little munchkin. My birthday is this month, Scott's is next, and our anniversary is next week, so maybe we can lump it all into a night out in the next few weeks. 

10. Throw out or store a bag of junk a week- I'm a minimalist and with the holidays approaching it's time to downsize.