I am currently hanging out at a gymnastics gym in Fort Lauderdale (not our home gym) watching A learn her floor routine. The choreographer is amazing and A is a great dancer so it is fun to watch. AND, I got through all of YNAB!
(I manually review every credit card transaction every month by printing out each statement and checking things off line by line to ensure they are captured properly; this is also my chance to make sure everything is paid in full and to see how we are doing with our budget. Then, I create the next month’s budget using our estimated November income. I’ve been doing this for many years now and it’s tedious but I also kind of love it. Especially once I’m done.)
Speaking of . . . transactions, I bought these yesterday (yes, kids’ version – cost-effective to have relatively small feet in this case). I got them in sand and A got them in chestnut. I had been wanting a casual non-sneaker shoe to wear in cold climates forever and kept eyeing these. They feel like slippers on. I feel it is a good sign that I am already wearing them, one day post purchase.
I see them entering heavy rotation. AND I used a gift card I had been hoarding since my birthday, so they were ‘free’. Ha.
I have now completed Morning Pages exactly twice. They did take a solid 30 minutes! I do not see this ritual being all that practical on weekdays but for the time being, the time change IS on my side as I will probably wake up a little bit earlier. I remember dreading this time change when the kids were little, and now I actually sort of love it. I think it will be easier to put G to bed at a reasonable time and maybe everyone will be a little bit less grumpy in the mornings. TEMPORARILY, anyway.
I am still on call but the weekend has been . . . well, let’s not jinx anything. BUT I haven’t had a call weekend like this in a very long time! We will see what the rest of the day (and night) brings, but I’ll be done tomorrow morning no matter how things evolve, so that’s exciting.
I did all of my monthly planning yesterday except for setting goals, since I want to go through my seasonal goal setting process first. It IS tough when a season and month intersect! But I think the best practice is to just wait a few days on the ‘monthly’ items until the seasonal goals are set. I created my usual monthly calendar, which revealed November contains:
- 8 clinical days
- 1 S-call weekend (yesterday + today — though I haven’t had to do much — yet, anyway)
- 5 pure “work for myself” days
- 3 Best Laid Plans live days, including 1 Saturday (not counted in the above work days)
- 5 family-focused weekdays (Thanksgiving week, plus some medical stuff going on, don’t worry nothing bad – including G getting the screw removed from her elbow!)
- 1 J-call weekend
- 1 “regular” weekend (though we have a close family bat mitzvah to attend, so it will be busy)
- 1 half-weekend post BLP Live (I know from prior years I will be TIRRRRED, thankfully Josh is not working)
- Sat/Sun after Tgiving
Then, December starts on a Monday which is always fun.
As always, the number of “work for myself” days remains low! My main priorities are to work on book launch-related things, including preorder bonuses (almost ready, but need to finalize dissemination plan) and podcast guest spots.
I am also READY to jump into some 2026 planning! I tend to start reflecting on things during BLP Live, and then finalize in December.
And, hello to a few of you who found this blog on San’s list! I have never formally participated before, though I have had many months of daily blogging in the past. To those who commented, I am going to head over to your sites and say hi 🙂
That said, there is no way I will be perfect about commenting on everyone’s posts and I definitely don’t want anyone to feel obligated to comment here! You have my permission to only comment if you feel like it. (Not that you need it, ha).
13 Comments
I’m very jealous of your boots, especially after a muddy hike in my very poorly insulated sperry duck boots. But I don’t think they’d survive a month in Scotland! I sat down yesterday with a small notebook stolen out of my son’s stash and made a daily planner for the next 4.5 weeks (it was a very small notebook). I was feeling the need to really map out the hard landscape, and hopefully be a bit more realistic on when I’d fit everything in. I have 8 more nights away for teaching, 244 essays to mark, and assorted commitments, in addition to trying to figure out house move stuff. I’m on campus tonight so I think I’ll decamp to the library and see if I might pick 10 or so off that marking pile.
oh yeah they are NOT scotland (or out-in-the-snow-in-Montana) level. I have other much less cute (though sadly less comfortable) boots for that 🙂
Dorothy and I both have those and we have the platform slippers and yes I sure do also buy myself kid sizes– Nikes too!
these are a kids 4, which is like a women’s 6! it feels like such a sneaky trick when that works out (though I’m sure the companies are well aware of this repurposing!)
omg I had no idea a kids size 4 was a women’s 6. Realizing my 9 year old could share shoes with my mom (clearly she must be on track for my much larger feet lol). That is so wild!
My daughter wants these boots SO badly for Christmas. Good to know that Kids 4=Women’s 6. She’s a women’s 5.5, so this would work perfectly (and I don’t see her feet growing any more).
Not surprisingly, I still hate the price tag, but I doubt even with my frugal wizardry I’ll find these second hand. Stay tuned…
I do not like this time change at all. I was up at 4:30 which is just too early. I am having a lot of sleep issues so it’s bad timing to fall back. We pushed the kids bedtimes back all week so they woke at 6/6:30 which is wonderful. I always worry that adjusting bedtimes won’t help but it totally did.
Those boots are cute! I could not own such a thing in our climate with all our snow, slush, and snirt. But they look great on you!!
WHY are my feet sweating, looking at that photo of the fur-lined boots? Ha- I can picture myself wearing those on a “chilly” morning and then regretting it by 10 am.
I LOVE the time change!!! So much! Of course I hated it when the kids were little, but I’m not in that phase anymore. I’m looking forward to more daylight in the mornings.
Your month of November is way more complicated than mine- but I did do some planning this week. I thought of you!
Oh I can see why those comfy boots come in handy. It’s like being at home away from home with that coziness. I am wearing similar boots right now – but they are real slippers and I can’t wear them outside.
Happy wekkend.
Love the time change also! Got up at 6 and still had time to work out before heading to the hospital by 730. Slept 9h. My only sadness was having to work all day.
The boots look so cute. I’m happy with the time change and it will help get my kids on a better schedule since they’ve been staying up too late. I didn’t like it when I had toddlers and they’d start waking up in the 5 am hour instead of 6.
I have been surprised by how much I enjoy watching some of my kids’ activities, especially my 8-year-old’s dance rehearsals. It wasn’t as fun when she was 5 and barely following the instructions, but it’s so cool now to see her progress and gain new skills. I expect it will get even better! Almost equally surprising, Ugg boots are still going strong 20+ years later? Who would’ve known.
I always love when you mention YNAB because I’ve been using it since 2015 and it’s such a great budgeting tool. I rave about it to anyone who listens, so I am always glad to know other YNABers 🙂
Those Uggs are cute. I have some (high) boots like that and they keep my feet so warm 🙂
Oh, and I did want to say: I am super-impressed by everything you get done in a day/week/month. You’re so organized!