Hello, happy Friday! My oh my it's been a week...it's also been a month. Actually it's been two months and I owe y'all a catch up!
October and November went by in a blur. With our move, some illness in my family, the Thanksgiving holiday, and a few new work projects on the horizon, I was often overwhelmed and anxious and very rarely calm and collected over these past two months. But I took a few unplanned hiatuses from social media, found myself a good therapist, and really focused on settling into the new space Q and I are calling home (pictured above), and I must say, things are looking up, and I'm feeling pretty stoked to be headed into December.
But before we barrel straight into Santa Land, a few final thoughts about November: I'm a generally inflexible person (literally and figuratively!) and disruption to plans makes me uncomfortable. But I was offered an opportunity to challenge myself this month, and I was reminded that sometimes life throws you a curveball, but that doesn't mean you can't knock that sucker out of the park. A sports analogy! Clearly I know what I'm talking about! Sports!
This curveball happened, of course, in the kitchen. I had planned to help my mother with Thanksgiving prep this year, with her taking the role of head chef. But because of aforementioned family illness, she was with my relative and wasn't able to be in the kitchen with me and I ended up doing the majority of the Thanksgiving dinner prep work. I roasted a turkey for the first time! Actually two turkeys! And they both came out amazingly.
Before last week, fully realizing a Thanksgiving dinner was an intimidating undertaking that I planned to avoid for the foreseeable future. Now that I've actually done it (with, let me be clear, a good amount of help Shoutout to my Uncle Danny for a bomb ass lesson on proper gravy making technique--we all know gravy is the real star of the show!), I see clearly that the food my family enjoys for Turkey Day each year, while voluminous, is actually quite simple and easily prepared. And it brought me so much joy to cook for, and with, my family. So here's to taking life's little hiccups in stride, finding joy in unexpected places, and all of the other platitudes that this little anecdote clearly elucidates!
Now, onto the links. Here are some things I've been reading, eating, and coveting over the past two months:
- Gift Guide Season is upon us! I won't be creating my own this year, but here are a few from around the web that I've been digging:
- Joanna Goddard of Cup of Jo knocks it out of the park each year with hers.
- The goop gift guide: outlandish? Yes. Does that stop me from perusing? Definitely not.
- I'm either currently coveting or already owning the majority of the items on this wonderful list.
- We had an unparalleled amount of leftover turkey after Thanksgiving this year (like I mentioned, we made two for some reason?) so I turned some into this and it was a hit.
- Oh my goodness--cannot wait to try this hack.
- I really loved this beautifully written piece about intuitive eating.
- A friend of mine turned me on to this website. "We exist to help every woman wake up to to a new reality: that women’s oppression of any kind can no longer be tolerated in silence." Yes. Yes. More yes.
- Speaking of settling in, I shared a little home tour on Instagram Stories this past month if you're interested!
Hope you're feeling as ready for December as I am! Let me know in the comments below!