November 2024 Randoms + Quick 2024 Wrap-up

 My boss Meg sent me a nice little gift package as part of a recently started new branch of her company that I'm an inaugural member of.

My Facebook story on Halloween. Aren't I cute? 😄

As you can see in the picture on the right above, I finally figured out how to curl my hair. Literally about a week later, there was an article in The Wall Street Journal about how wavy hair is on its way out. What!? But I just figured out how to do it!

I disagree with this article—this is a classic look! And I'm going to keep making waves (in more ways than one! 😉).

A pretty twilight (twilit?) sky in my neighborhood. 

This is a beautiful room in my town library where I work. Before the library got renovated, it was one of the main rooms of the original library with bookshelves lining the walls. I spent quite a bit of time in here when I was growing up. Now it's an open space conference/event room. 

Originally, it was as church. I bet you never would have guessed. 😄

The festive decorations were coming out in stores by mid-November, and it made me happy!

{I want to go to London and the rest of England so much!}

Here was one of the best things about November. When I was walking in the woods, I saw a beautiful barred owl up in a tree! This is very rare, and I was so happy to not only see it but to also be able to get a picture of it! 😍

I snapped this picture from my spot at the Circulation Desk at the library when I was working there on a Friday afternoon. I took it because my co-worker and I had selected, printed out, and hung up the pictures of those book covers on the glass doors. I was proud of our work! 

The arched doors on the left lead into that big pretty room I mentioned earlier. It really is a lovely library, and I'm thankful that I get to work there! I'm still a substitute and it works really well with my schedule as an editor and mother.

Speaking of special places of learning, growth, and wisdom, here's the best one of all!

The temple bathed in the light of a new day—the best way to start a day!

A cute screensaver photo on my laptop. I wish it would let me save my favorites but I haven't been able to figure out how to do that.

A delicious mocktail drink from dinner out with two of my friends.

I was kind of tempted to get this fun ugly Christmas dress at Kohl's. It would be so cute with my Christmas leggings! Alas, I resisted and took a picture instead.

Here's a WSJ article that I liked. I'd already been thinking about getting a weighted vest so this article was helpful. I'm going to get one to wear when I work out on the treadmill and go for walks. 

"...sales are up, especially among women over 40 who are becoming increasingly aware of the advantages of staying fit as they age." Yup, that's me! ✔

Here I am in my blue-light blockers! I wear them when I'm working at the computer for awhile—they really do help cut down on eye strain. I got them on amazon.

And here I am without them!

This is probably my last post of 2024. I can't believe the year is already over; where did it go!? It was a good year, and these are the highlights that come to mind first: 

• it was my first full calendar year divorced and on my own
• feeling true contentment, joy, and peace on a regular day-to-day basis. It's been so nice to have the stresses that I'd been dealing with be gone!
•  great growth in my professional work:
• I conducted interviews for the first time and hired someone to work under me (I'm a literal boss! Of one person, but still!😄)
• I ran two virtual writing groups and did live office hours
• I helped get a bunch of op-eds published in newspapers around the country
• I became the editor for an additional website that I get to make many of the decisions for
• My writing was published in a local Boston-area magazine that gets sent out several times a year
• John got his mission call, received his endowment in the the temple, and left on his mission. This is one of my greatest accomplishments so far as a mother.
• going on a fun cruise with the boys on our own for the first time
• I tried something new that I'd always found too scary to do, but I ended up loving it: ziplining!
• I don't know how, but the pageviews for my humble little blog have gone waaaay up this year (some months it's been over 100K!)
• Violet passed away. That was one of the hardest things that happened this year.

I'm excited for 2025! Bring it on!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to any and all who are reading this!

Wisdom, Humor, and Inspiration in November 2024

In the order that I took them...

My ex-husband was (and very likely still is) a phone addict, and it contributed to his spiritual and ethical downfall and the sad end of our marriage. I'm doing everything I can to help prevent my sons from having the same problem now and with their future families.

Truth! I've experienced this, which is one of the reasons why I limit my time on it.

I stay off social media for at least half the month and don't have the apps on my phone during that time. I don't play any games on my phone.

Woods walks are one of my favorite things ever!

Finally! This is way overdue.

Living a disciplined life = living a happy life! It can still be lots of fun with lots of freedom--the best kind of freedom! Freedom of conscience and freedom from addictions and bad habits, just to name a couple.

✔

Good habits have helped keep me strong during the hardest times of my life.

John 😆

🤍

Wise advice from Deepak Chopra

I've done all the originals and most of the edited ones this holiday season! 😄

Crazy Times Scrapbook, November 2024

 Most of the "craziness" that I documented in November got put into my Election Night post. Here are the leftovers! Short and sweet/not so sweet.

Another conspiracy theory, proven. 

It seems like everyone was out for Trump. And may still be.

"Peace through strength" ✔ + I agree with the rest of this person's comment.

Secure borders ✓ A more orderly world ✓ Less inflation ✓ Fewer pronouns ✓ No males in women's sports ✓

I agree with many if not most if not all of RFKJ's health ideas, and I have for a long time, especially concerning the potential dangers of vaccines (too many of them and too many harmful things in them), and the terrible additives in our food. I'm so looking forward to him helping to MAHA (Make America Healthy Again).

I disagree with The WSJ in their statement on the lower right. There is evidence for plenty of the things RFKJ claims. Too many people have experienced and are experiencing side effects for there not to be.

Yup!

Around the House in November

 From Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas, many different decorations were happening in the house in November! Plus Olive and computer adventures. Read on...

This is one of my favorite Christmas movies on Great American Family Channel, and it happened to be on the day that I took down the Halloween decorations and put out the Thanksgiving ones.

The male and female lead actors are members of the church, too!

I miss Romeo, my sister's cat who lived with me for several months. He went back to stay with them for awhile, and now I've got Olive, my mom's cat who doesn't mix well with Romeo and my sister's dog Clyde. Olive isn't nearly as affectionate as Romeo, and she's pretty old, but she's a cute little thing and we've grown on each other. She liked this cat toy I put out for her to play with.

My trusty old desktop computer finally bit the dust. I held onto it for as long as I could, but I finally had to accept that while it had worked very well for me for many years, it could no longer do a good job, or even a mediocre one. So I transferred everything over to my laptop (which wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be), and then I wiped the hard drive clean and said goodbye. The monitor and hard drive are now sitting in my garage waiting for one of those green recycling days when you can drop off for your old tech for a fee. 

Thank you for your service to my life, desktop! I miss working on your nice big screen with the roses backdrop. But the laptop is working great, and I like my new set-up a lot more than I thought I would.

Sam and I put up the tree and decorated it the Saturday before Thanksgiving. One of the perks of having a fake tree is that you can put it up whenever you want. I still prefer a real one overall, but there are certain conveniences of a fake one that are hard to beat. This year I stood it up on a storage container covered by the tree skirt since it's a shorter tree than I expected. It makes a nice difference!

These are my new nutcracker candlestick holders. Aren't they cute?! I found them for $12 at Consigning Women on the Cape. I didn't have to pay for them because the balance in my account from consigning things took care of that. Win, win!

I decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving and took pictures of the things I tweaked from last year for my reference album; here are a couple of them.

I'm in the market for a new Christmas tablecloth. The one I'd been using for years had gotten a little too faded. So this year it's just placemats and a runner on the table. (And the new-to-me candlesticks!)

I even wrapped the presents I'd already gotten and put some of them under the tree. The Christmas season was off to a good and productive start!