Hi, friends! I said "hello" to you in September and then was immediately subsumed by the very full season we've been living in. For the most part it's all been good things! For that I am thankful and keep reminding myself of that. But I'm also ready to catch my breath a bit, which I think I'm getting a chance to do. Just in time for Halloween and then the holiday gauntlet, right?

In September and the first two weeks of October I dedicated a lot of time to my first Everyday Habits, Routines, and Rituals workshop -- and it was great. I'm really proud of the workshop I created, I really enjoyed interacting with participants, and I received wonderful feedback that the workshop was really impactful for people. I plan to run the workshop again next September so if you'd like to be notified join my workshop email list.

Over fall break we celebrated Maeve and Dash's half birthdays! 4.5 and 11.5!

Overlapping the last two weeks of my workshop was the kids' fall break. This year fall break coincided with Chris and myself being busier than ever before with our work and with an especially hot early October, meaning that outside play was not an option while all the kids were home. The heat really dragged my mood down too! This summer was SO long and broke records for how hot it was and how long the heat lasted. Ugh.

Each day of fall break Chris and I would need to coordinate to figure out who would be on kid duty and how we'd get work done. I tried to be a fun mom where I could and took the kids out to lunch, said yes to a lot of trampoline parks, and hosted play dates. We got some relief from babysitters and family help which I'm so grateful for. We did a good job in a very busy stretch of time. And also, it was kind of stressful and I'm glad it's behind us!

A weekend in Nashville

I spent last weekend in Nashville with my cousin who is also a dear friend. I always enjoy our time together so much! We ate a lot of delicious food including tacos at Ladybird Taco, pastries from Brightside Bakeshop, and dinner including pizza and icebox cake from City House. We also enjoyed walking through her East Nashville neighborhood, chatting about finances, and keeping up with her two year old.

Catching my breath

I've been so consumed with prepping for and then running my workshop that I'm learning my "usual" work routine anew. This week I've been taking care of some home administrative stuff – getting a quote for new tires on our car, making sure we all the Halloween events in our calendar and that we know who is going where, and restocking us with household consumables. Honestly it's been really nice to take care of things like that that were on the back burner for a while. I love feeling on top of home admin stuff.

Sometime this week or weekend I would also like to sit down and map out the rest of the year (!). We don't have any more travel coming up which sounds great to me. We traveled so much this year and had great trips. But now I'm happy to be home, especially for the holidays.

October "witchy" book club at Erica's house, perfectly decorated for fall and with a delicious spread.

Election anticipation

In two weeks the election will be over. Thank goodness. We'll be casting votes for Harris and considering a Trump win gives me anxiety. Living in a swing state as a progressive Democrat in a conservative area is...not fun during an election year! Every day I drive by signs that say, "Child Traffickers for Harris," "Pedos for Harris," and my personal favorite, "Idiots for Harris." It's really awful to feel so much hate when I'm just trying to drive my kids to school or go to the grocery store. There are also Harris-Walz signs, more signs for a Democrat candidate than I think I've ever seen in our area, so that must be saying something. But the political division and anger feels palpable.

I'm leaning towards repeating our 2020 election night which included turning off our phones in the afternoon and not checking the news at all until the next morning. It seems very unlikely a winner will be declared on election night, or even in the following day(s??). I'm feeling that I'd rather have one more politics-free night before riding whatever post-election day roller coaster awaits us. If I thought that a winner would be called on election night I would be more inclined to stay up to watch. But I'll never forget how awful it was for me in 2016 to stay up late to watch the results, and then to be exhausted and emotionally wrung out the next day.

I'm so curious, if you're American, how will you spend election night? And if you aren't American, how closely are you paying attention to our presidential race? It's always fascinating to get a perspective from outside of your country.

I'm going to wrap up there friends before I am off to preschool pick up. No podcast version of this post right now just so I can get it published.

Friends, how are you? What are you up to? I've missed writing here and am so glad to be checking in!