Tag: Recap

A Little November Recap

November was a very busy month, and December isn’t looking much slower.

Shane and I went to Atlanta to see Monet Immersive and had a great time. We discovered that Atlanta has several Super H Marts, and a bunch of other fun farmer’s markets that we got to check out. A few days later I headed back to ATL for a couple of days for work reasons. I ended up getting stuck there for an extra night because I would have driven directly into Tropical Storm Nicole and while my car is getting a bit old, I didn’t want to wreck. During my time there, I missed our 16th dating anniversary, but since we don’t celebrate much, it wasn’t terrible.

That same week Shane’s grandma died, which was expected but still very sad, so we packed up and headed to her funeral that weekend. It was nice to see his family, but the circumstances were unfortunate. I did learn that she really liked true crime tv shows, so now I wish we had watched those together.

Shane had a birthday on the 15th but his best birthday present didn’t come until that Friday – his best friend Matthew flew in from Portland for Friendsgiving. When we started our drive upstate, we swung by the airport and picked him up. I made the sacrifice of sitting in the back of the truck so they could have quality time. Friendsgiving was fantastic. There was a BBQ Around the World theme and we took banchan (naturally) and bulgogi. Everything was so delicious and it was so so good to see our friends. The majority of the group has known each other since college, but the additions this year were awesome people, and I hope we made them feel welcome and part of the crew. There was Matthew in from Portland, a couple in from NYC (Queens, to be exact), and one from San Francisco/the Bay Area. More locally, we came up from Savannah, and our other friend drove up from Columbia, so a lot of people made a lot of effort to be there and it was worth it (for me anyway). We dropped Matthew off at his brother’s place, then scooted on home. On Wednesday, we met up with them again to get Matthew, and I took him to the airport on Thanksgiving.

I insisted on a “real” Thanksgiving dinner, so we made some stuffed chicken breasts, devilled eggs, brussel sprouts (for Shane), carrots (for me), and mashed potatoes and gravy. It was super tasty. I think my goal of celebrating all the holidays was definitely met for the Thanksgiving portion.

We spent the rest of the month cleaning, organizing the garage, and decorating for Christmas. His mom and aunt rolled on November 30th (yesterday), since Shane has some days off.

It was an exhausting month, but full of so much happiness and good times. November 2022 was a solidly good month.

-S

January Wrap-up

What I Read

  1. Duchess by Deception ~ Marie Force {ARC from Goodreads}
  2. Alaskan Holiday ~ Debbie Macomber {ARC from Goodreads}
  3. Avalon ~ Mindee Arnett
  4. The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House ~ Stephanie Lam {begun, not finished yet}
  5. An Impartial Witness (Bess Crawford, 2) ~ Charles Todd {begun, not finished yet}

What I Watched

Movies:

TV Shows:

What I Cooked/Ate

  1. Hummus wraps with veggies and {a fairly mild} hot sauce. They also have cucumbers, onions, mushrooms, and banana peppers.
  2. Sweet potato hash with chorizo and eggs.
  3. Eggs Bennies, of course. We’ve been cutting back but it still happens.
  4. The traditional Steak n Shake monthly meal.
  5. We also had pizza twice and got Chinese take-out once. I’m trying to not eat out, but it was a rough month. This was not the total amount of fast food I ate in January.

What I Did

Image of a sunrise at the beach with a bird in the foreground

Sat on the beach with Shane as the sun rose on New Years Day. A super hopeful beginning to the year.

Visited Huntington Beach State Park with Shane and his mom. We went to see Atalaya again, since she’s never seen it. I love that park.

I also spent a weekend at my parents’ place. I stopped by on my way home from campus on Friday and left on Sunday morning. Shane even came and spent the night with me on Saturday night. This is big because my parents’ dog has a habit of biting at Shane.

I can’t talk abut a lot of stuff that happened this month, but basically it’s been a really rough month and I spent *a lot* of time sitting on the couch playing Solitaire on my phone.

Used a couple bath bombs from Christmas and they made the water look like Kool-Aid. Big fan.

Finally found a doctor down here. The appointment was rescheduled twice but 3rd times the charm. I really like my doctor and she’s super responsive.

~S~

October Wrap-up

What I Read

  1. I Remember You: A Ghost Story
  2. The Right Hand of Evil
  3. House of Ashes
  4. Christmas With You (will be up on the blog in December)
  5. The Twelve Slays of Christmas (will also be up in December along with the sequel)

What I Watched

  1. I am The Pretty Thing That Lives in The House (pass if you can)
  2. Malevolent
  3. The Conjuring
  4. Some Doctor Blake Murder Mysteries
  5. A full 3 Collections of Forensic Files

What I Cooked/Ate

  1. Chicken Bog – I used a rotisserie chicken instead of boiling mine, but it turned out amazing.
  2. Cheese Fondue
    • I bought a fondue pot for Shane’s birthday even though it’s not until mid-Nov.
  3. Broth Fondue
  4. Roughly 7 dishes to use up the leftover dippers from the fondue. Including a pizza topped with all the leftover cheese and veggies. It was delicious.
  5. Sushi from King Kong Sushi….repeatedly
  6. Sushi from the grocery store by my house because it’s actually incredibly good.
  7. Eggs Bennies from our favorite little diner. We go about once a week since they serve b-fast for me and lunch/dinner for Shane when he gets off in the morning.
  8. An insanely messy meal from Steak ‘n Shake (autocorrect made that Steak ‘n Shame and it’s not wrong).

What I Did

I’m about to be too honest with y’all, but here goes. This month we had a flea invasion (from an untreated puppy). I have spent weeks this month washing clothes then having to wash them again, having a hard time breathing from all the diatomaceous earth we had to put on the carpet, watching Tau to make sure the flea medicine didn’t kill him, washing more clothes/sheets/comforters, and so on and so forth. All while my hands were torn up from flea bites – I have a really bad reaction to them. I literally bandaged my hands and wrists like I had been in a fire so I wouldn’t scratch them. It was a nightmare. It’s been 3 weeks from the first bite and they’re finally fading. BUT there are no fleas in this apartment anymore. If there were, they’d be biting me. I’m a magnet. Tomorrow we get to vacuum up the diatomaceous earth and dust the entire apartment cuz that stuff gets everywhere. Last month was hurricanes, this month was bugs. Next month will be family (I kid, I kid). 10/10 will probably pet the puppy again. After I check that it’s been treated. I helped a twitter friend’s friend fix a WordPress issue at 11 at night while mostly asleep. Posted my favorite post of all time that literally no one looked at, but I’m still super proud of. Picked Laurie up and carried him a good ways from the bedroom to the couch without getting scratched. He’s a hefty boy and he usually struggles to get away from me so hard that I end up bleeding. He’s mellowing. I’m glad October is gone and I’m glad I’m starting November by cleaning up the wreckage and getting a fresh start to the month. ~S~