Back It Up...

Okay, October recap day. A few days late. But Disney...and then a quiet day decompressing from Disney. But NOW now I'm ready to do a quick recap on October.

Okay, nationally, I know you aren't going to believe this but we are STILL at war with Iran. Though it's been fairly quiet lately. If you don't listen to the threats of nuclear bombing happening right after midterms that is...

And yes, today is the midterm election. We won't really know anything for awhile but that doesn't mean everyone is calmly waiting. I think we are all just super tense and unsure of how it will go down. There are a lot of good outcomes and a lot of not at all good outcomes and we won't know where we are for awhile.

One positive for me is that there were no MAGA hats or T-shirts at Disney this time. They are at least feeling like being public about their support is a bad thing again, so maybe?

PERSONAL!

Really took a step back from a lot of the tracking last month. Focused on what I was doing instead of how many times since I knew everything would change in November. The main thing that took the hit was writing. As you know. I've talked about it. I am swinging back and forth between just packing it in and not doing it anymore and putting on a full court press and seeing if it's just cobwebs. For the next two months I think it will just be random. Or more random. Or even Totally Random But...

Writing: I wrote 18 days including Dana's pieces. Which I published to the blog as well so 4 fiction pieces on here. Fourteen nonfiction. Which technically puts me at more days than not but barely. So barely that until I just now wrote down the actual number I would have sworn I didn't write more days than I wrote. So there's that. Which means technically September is the only month I've missed that so far and that was just by a day. We will see how the year ends up.

Reading: Six books, one nonfiction the rest fiction. For a hot second I was caught up with my goal and now I'm three books behind again. That's what happens when you pick up the long book you've been pushing to the bottom of your TBR pile. I read one book I own so still good on that. The nonfiction was Taylor Tomlinson's autobiography. I'm a fan of her stand-up and the book is funny, she's a funny woman so yeah, it's going to be funny, but it's not filled with joke essays. It was good, will be interesting to see what she has to say in another 15 years or so. Who you KNOW you are in your early 30s is often not at all who you end up being in your 50s.

Read a book that got 5 stars from me for something that a lot of the other people who reviewed it on StoryGraph HATED. I will say it's because I couldn't exactly figure out what was happening and I love a book that can surprise me. So if you want a mindfuck of a book Yesteryear might be your cup of tea. The other books I read were the next ones in series so enjoyable but familiar.

Workouts: Was good about getting in the gym three days a week and on the treadmill here two others. Lost a touch of weight, lost a few pounds of fat and gained a few pounds of muscle. So that's what I want. Increased some of my weights already and have loaded in a different workout plan for November. Brent has some goals he wants to hit as well so I'm matching my gym time to his, which means weights and cardio together most days and a five day body part split. It's what I used to do when the goal weight was Strong AF so we will see what happens doing that now, a FEW years later.

Disney (I'll write more about this later too) showed me that as good of shape as I am in I am still much older than I used to be and the wear and tear on the body is a real thing.

Stuck with the meditation book even though I'm doing it as much out of stubbornness as anything else. (It was good advice, Skippy, I just know I'd feel like someone was "winning" who wasn't me if I bailed, you knew I was off when you made friends with me. Or at least you should have.) Still doing language and still thinking I might stop that at the end of the year, but for now still plugging along.

Plans for November?

Settling into our new reality. We both felt like we were just on vacation (which we were) last week and that Monday morning that alarm would go off and he'd be back in the office. Tig still woke up ready to go. Time change and retirement mean NOTHING to his internal clock. I think it won't feel real for a bit. We've done a few sabbaticals after all and this is still in that time frame.

Also Thanksgiving and the start of that whole mushed up season is coming.

I'll see how reading, writing and working out hold against the urge to sit on the couch under a blanket and watch holiday movies.

So on to (all ready into) November we go.

Midterms are today.
Stress is high.
We have Disney candy in the pantry.