Tis’ the season to come home to yourself. To savor the season of comfort. Blankets and candles on nightly, layered knits, testing decadent recipes, tuning into Sinatra and Cash. It’s time to game plan how—even amidst the busy schedule, parties, plans— you’ll take the time for you, too. I think it’s a nice time to re-group and ground ourselves so that when the holidays come up, we feel clear, content, fully present to take it all in properly!
Have you noticed a little change-up to our monthly note format? Reverting back to my old ways. One of the reasons I even fell into the digital journaling world, was I quickly learned I loved to tinker with design. My dad’s computer was something I looked forward to experimenting with on the daily back in middle school and into high school. I spent hours on my LiveJournal and AOL homepage, changing background colors and fonts, creating new logos, always redesigning. I don’t know where I picked this up back then because it wasn’t really a well-known thing—simply curiosity led and have loved ever since! It’s why I live for freshening up and fine-tuning my site and series often. Updates excite me! So hope you like it, too.
Anyway, it’s November, can you believe it?
On my calendar
A lot of fun and adventure to come this month. Wine country, I’m coming for you. I have three trips! Sonoma with the family to one of our favorite resorts, Calistoga with a few girlfriends, and then Sonoma for Thanksgiving week (a tradition we started last year… until our kitchen is remodeled, haha!).
I’m planning some artist date-type outings in the city and Marin. I’m starting to explore out of the East Bay a bit more than I have since we moved. I’ve been craving a museum date, or something of the sort—would love any recs if you’ve been to anything inspiring lately! I used to be a de Young member back in the day… missing those kind of solo dates. Also, is it crazy that I’ve never been to the ballet? Matt was going to take me to The Nutcracker in ’20, but all hell broke loose, so we didn’t make it. That’s on my list this winter.
And of course, in theme with this month’s note, some self-care. I am going to try out a local spa that I’ve had bookmarked for awhile. Needing to find a great masseuse who I can visit each month. Getting older is no joke!!! The back ache complaints are at a record high in my life. Pilates helps, though, too… which is something I’ve gotten back into like I was pre-pandemic.
Fun work projects coming up, too, that you’ll be seeing soon!
On my mind
Fall to-do list, tidying up | I’ve been focused on the end of year clean-sweep. Our home, my closet, the office, storage, my inbox (unsubscribe party begins now). Learning that with a house (vs. apartment) and a child—it’s so much harder to keep things tidy! But to have less clutter and fluff that we really don’t need helps a lot. If everything has a home, it’s just much more manageable. Working on this before we pull out the holiday decor in a few weeks!
Skincare | It’s hydration time. I can tell by the crisp air that it’s time to get serious about drinking extra water, swapping coffee for tea (testing this out), and upping the ante with moisturizing my skin.
TV | We started watching Zac Efron’s show and omg it’s so good! This is the kind of TV I like to spend my time soaking up. I love him—I remember seeing his 72 questions with Vogue years ago and thinking he seemed like such a lovely human… this show confirms it. Love educational and enjoyable docs like this so much! We started with the Paris/water one, highly recommend.
A quick side note on the topic of tv, if you haven’t watched The Patient show… I would say, don’t do it. The ending is so depressing and it further solidified that I just don’t want to be spending my time watching television unless I know for sure that it is worthwhile. Something that makes me laugh, brings inspiration, hope, or teaches me something new. There is definitely exceptions—for instance, I really enjoyed Euphoria… but I think because I admired how artfully executed it was. I guess sometimes you don’t know until you watch it… but things like The Patient make me want to do better research before I commit.
Getting outside the comfort zone more often | Something we all should do every week! And a priority of mine this month…
November saves of late
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