Hello everyone! Today, I wanted to share all the fun activities and hobbies I’ve done in October!

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It’s getting colder and colder here in northern Illinois, so I’ve had to deal with that this month! Plus, as a fun little update and sneak peak into my next post (the Life post), my phone broke! So that’s also been a contributing factor! Here is what I’ve been up to.

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My Lively

Creative Fun

DIYs

The two DIYs of this month have been so fun! We did a felt leaf wire wreath, which I didn’t finish in the class but brought everything home to complete on my own. That hasn’t happened yet but hopefully will soon. The second DIY of the month was wire and beaded pumpkins which turned out beautiful! I really enjoyed that DIY as it was easy and fast to complete but looks so gorgeous.

Bujo

I can’t believe how close to the end of the year we are now! I have already started on my November and December pages! I usually try not to work ahead by more than a month, just in case one month needs more pages but it’s so close to the end and I have a lot of extra pages already that I didn’t think it really mattered now.

I also did buy my bujo for next year, and I’m slightly stressed because that one has less pages than this year’s. My first year bujo was 196 pages, last year’s was 246 I think, and now next year is 196 again. I did think this year had too many pages, the first year was too little, so I wish there was something in-between. Unfortunately, there wasn’t so I opted for the smaller size. I mostly did it because the options for the smaller bujo were greater and the color I wanted for 2022 was only in the smaller version anyway. Plus, like I said, I struggled to fill the pages this year. I figured I can always add more pages by glueing in loose pages anyway if needed. Since I use my bujo as mostly a journal instead of an actual planner, it works for me!

Entertainment

Books

As always, I’m listing all the books I’ve finished since the previous Lively post below with their star ratings. All thoughts on them are saved for future (or even past!) Mini Book Review posts but those will be linked below if so. I won’t include any books that I didn’t finish although I’ll be sure to add them into the review posts.

This month I read 10 books! I’m trying to hurry to get to 100 by the end of 2021, and this brought my total to 89 read. I am still worried, next month is NaNoWriMo, which usually means I’m busy writing instead of reading. Then December is Blogmas, which means I’m also writing instead of reading. I am currently realizing that this means I might not make my reading goal this year!

• When a Toy Dog Became a Wolf and the Moon Broke Curfew by Hendrika de Vries*, 4.5
• The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan and Lauren Ver Hage*, 4.25
• Broke Millennial by Gaby Dunn*, 3.75
• The World As It Is by Ben Rhodes*, 5
• Living Simply by Sally NcGraw*, 3.5
• What Happened by Hillary Clinton*, 4.5
• Lobizona by Romina Garber, 3.5
• Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson, 3.75
• Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee, 3.75
• Loteria by Karla Arenas Valenti, 3.75

* Indicates this book was reviewed in Ten Mini Book Reviews Pt. 15

Movies

I had to watch Hocus Pocus this season! I watched it on Disney+ and loved every moment of it. That younger sister is such a savage!

I also watched Haunted Mansion this month on Disney+. I remember there was a time my sister and a cousin of ours were obsessed with this film so I wasn’t too surprised when I realized that I knew a lot of the lines by heart!

Another film I know quite well is Lilo & Stitch. I also watched this on Disney+ and tried to show it to my dog, Fox. I thought maybe he can relate to Stitch as they are both adopted and have to learn to be good boys. Unfortunately, he did not care about watching the movie at all and ignored the entire thing. My sister pointed out that this was probably for the best as he might think he’s supposed to be more destructive as Stitch is. He later destroyed a toy, so I’m thinking she was right.

TV Shows

I continued to watch the usual shows that I go back to. Madam Secretary and Gilmore Girls on Netflix, as well as, Schitt’s Creek, also on Netflix. All of these shows are some of my favorite and I just enjoy them! I also learned my ballet teacher is also a big fan of Madam Secretary so we’ve now bonded over that too!

I continued watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I’m a few episodes behind right now but I’m catching up soon! I think the last episode I watched was the third one (bread week maybe?) and then Netflix didn’t work properly when I tried to watch the next episode one night and I just haven’t tried again!

WandaVision is the next show I watched, on Disney+. I finished the Halloween episode and then stopped watching it again but I will get through it eventually! I do think that I’m sort of regretting watching all those Marvel films as now I’m kind of sick of it, but I did that so that I could watch this show so I really need to power through!

I started watching The Haunting of Bly Manor this month on Netflix and I’m trying hard to finish the series by Halloween. I likely will, but then my next goal is to watch the next series after that one but I know I’ll miss the Halloween deadline for that one! I am enjoying this series a lot, and it’s cool because I’m not comparing it as much to The Haunting of Hill House as I thought I would. I do really like how the backstory is being revealed slowly while still not distracting from the current haunting that is affecting Dani and the children. Also, the character of Flora is just too cute!

I did finish the first season of Only Murders in the Building on Hulu. I loved it! I first saw it promoted on TikTok and got curious. I was super excited to watch Selena Gomez act in it and the rest of the cast is amazing as well. I actually didn’t expect to like it as much as I did because I am not really into the true crime stuff, but it was super well done and is such a great show! Plus, I think that my problem with true crime is that it makes me uncomfortable how creators treat the actual people in the case they are covering. I do understand why people are into that genre, especially since I did love this show, but I do much prefer fictionalized true crime to real stuff.

Ballet

I wanted to mention that October 19th was World Ballet Day! In celebration of the event, a ton of professional ballet companies did livestreams or put up snippets of rehearsals and classes on their YouTube channels. I always enjoy the Royal Opera House’s livestream and they have put it up for people to still watch (as well as past year events) so I would recommend you check it out or just search “World Ballet Day 2021” on YouTube to find other ballet companies!

Video Games

Can we talk about the Nintendo Direct for Animal Crossing New Horizons??? It was amazing! I love the game and honestly hadn’t been expecting too much beyond Brewster for the direct, but then the event started and kept going… and going… and going??? There was so much jam packed into that 20 minutes and it was honestly a little overwhelming. A few minutes into it I literally thought “they just… created a whole new game for us to play?” and then the DLC was announced! I am so excited to check out the new features! Anyway, I had literally just cleared two spaces, one for a makeshift vineyard with the purple hyacinths and grape hats, and then one for makeshift farmland, but it seems those will be reused now for actual crops! I also did say goodbye to Caroline for Kody, a jock villager. I haven’t had a jock in ages, so it’s a pretty interesting change!

I also started playing Sky: Children of the Light, on the Switch. I saw it promoted on TIkTok as a cozy game, and it was free which was great! I don’t really get it though so I haven’t progressed very far at all. Plus, I couldn’t figure out how to save so honestly I might have to start all over next time I play if it didn’t autosave!

Writing

I’ve been prepping for NaNoWriMo! Honestly, I haven’t prepped enough, which I am sure I’ll regret soon. I know I want to edit my book from earlier this year, so I’m not worried about reaching 50,000 words as that draft was 80,000, but I am worried I’ll just end up rewriting it without making it better.

Active Life

Tai Chi

We moved tai chi indoors this month! I do tai chi through my library once a month. I really enjoy it and we’ve started to get a lot of regulars! This has been great as I remember the first class I was the only person attending! But it’s a lot of fun and I’ve really come to enjoy that time.

walk

As always, I try to take at least two daily walks with my dog. It’s getting colder now so I’m sure it’ll transition to one walk unfortunately, but we’re trying to take advantage when we can! Fox still isn’t a huge fan of walks, as he will either walk really slowly or just not walk at all, which can be frustrating. Also, when he does walk he will pause to try to eat random stuff on the ground, which is also not great! Still, we try to make the best of it.

ballet

Ballet has been amazing as always! I’ve loved going to class and I do feel really confident in my dancing now. I think something that really helps is how supportive the dancers all are in class. They often push me to the front to be first because they tell me I’m the best so they can watch me do it. I’m not great but it’s such a nice confidence boost! We have been prepping for pirouette turns though, which is also a great boost in confidence as I’ve finally managed to do one or two pretty successfully! In general turns are getting easier for me and I’m more consistent with them, which is great! Another great thing about this class is that this session is longer, so we’re able to progress to more difficult stuff by the end of the class. Also, since a lot of us have taken classes before, we can progress faster in that way too. Of course, it’s always good to go back to the basics, which always need work!

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So that’s what I’ve been up to this month! Let me know what you’ve been up to and please leave encouragement that I’ll reach that reading goal for 2021 of 100 books!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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