Has anyone else looked up, so sure in their knowledge that it's still March, only to be jarred with the fact that it is in fact October? Goodness.

And yet time proves to us that it marches on. Our daughter was born; she was a mewing, sleepy newborn and now we have a shrieking, wide-eyed six-month-old. The boys grew older and taller. Roller blades were mastered. (Well, almost.) A wrist was broken (Cedric's). Week in and week out we have seen every day of 2020 thus far. And what full days they have been! Full of the boys playing, of holding the sweet heaviness of a baby, of making snacks and meals, of trying to find a handful of quiet, uninterrupted moments, of Facetime and Marco Polo, of scrolling Instagram, of consuming the news, of fretting over decisions. Some days have been so full of worry. Others have felt like the best days we've ever had.

I'm starting to ponder how to close out 2020. What lessons will I have learned from this crazy, hard, magical year? What will I feel proud of? What will I hope to leave behind? That last one feels tricky since we have no control in leaving behind the pandemic which is what we most want to move past. I hope at least by early 2021 we will be preparing to witness the transition of a new president and there will be news of a forthcoming vaccine.

backyard in progress

I'm so thankful that at least we'll be closing out this year with pleasant weather. Here in Gilbert we are enjoying the outdoors again. At least more so than before. It's still kind of hot haha. We decided to go ahead with the backyard improvements we've been planning for a couple of years and now we have more patio space. I've been having coffee with Chris while nursing Maeve on our new back patio and I look forward to it every morning. Everyday small joys like that are what gets us through 2020.

Big things happening in October:

+ Fall break. The boys have the next week off of school! Luckily the weather has "cooled" off to the 90s and I'm looking forward to not worrying about school assignments for a week.

+ Falliday. The fall holiday I made up! This year I'd love to create the perfect day of fall food that I shared in Fall Extravaganza. I bought the boys new long pajamas and I'm treating myself to flannel sheets which I've wanted for years.

+ Halloween! Although it does seem like trick-or-treating can be done safely we're planning to skip it this year. Instead we're planning to have a family Halloween celebration at my sister-in-law's house.

October goals:

+ Daily fiction writing challenge. As part of my 2020 goals I'm working on the very beginnings of a novel draft every day in October. I made this a goal at the beginning of the year thinking that by October I would be starting to have some creative time coming back into my life. This is true but not to the extent that it would be if the boys were in school. However the bar for what counts as daily writing is low. Some days I've only been able to open up the document, read through what I have, and add a few sentences. But considering all that 2020 has brought I'm okay with it!

+ Catch up on photo organization. I backup all photos from my phone to Google Photo. Then I select photos that I want to include in our annual family photo book and save those to an annual album. I also create a photo book for the first year of each of my children's lives so I need to update Maeve's album as well.

+ Create kitchen renovation spreadsheet. We are planning to renovate our kitchen in 2021! We've started to get quotes and collect information. So far we've had a quote from a local construction company and a quote from Ikea. I want to get them organized into a spreadsheet so that as we plan I can compare apples to apples, easily see what things cost, and identify what information is missing.

+ Bake salted chocolate chunk shortbread cookies. This is an item from my 20 for 2020 list. 

+ Buy November birthday gifts. My mom's birthday, a dear friend, and my nephew have November birthdays.

+ Vote! We'll be voting by mail. I'm very hopeful that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will win which will make me feel like we can shift the direction of our country towards a more equitable, sustainable, prosperous, safe, and respectful future.

Happy October, friends!

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