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Archive for the ‘31 Days’ Category

Day 6 – Shoes in the House

Posted in 31 Days, Cozy, Health, Resolutions, tagged , , , on October 6, 2026| 1 Comment »

Wearing shoes in the house.

Yes? 

No? 

Let’s discuss.

First, taking your shoes off at the door is the norm in many cultures. I (and you) should absolutely respect the rules and customs of anyone who is gracious enough to host us. It’s not that difficult to plan ahead. If I know the homeowner allows shoes in the house, that’s fine. But if I know they don’t, or I don’t know one way or the other, I assume I’m going shoeless once I arrive and adapt my footwear/sock selection accordingly. This is why I own so many cute socks. So thank you, friends with this rule! I do love a cute sock, and this gives me an excuse to buy more of them.

This is not a rule I use in my own home, though. Please feel free to keep your shoes on.

I know. I get it. I understand that shoes are gross and thus track their grossness inside as I am tromping through the house. But also…so do…

  • My clothes
  • My hair
  • My skin
  • My bag(s)

Multiply these elements times how many people live in or visit your home on a regular basis.

Include pets in this count, especially the ones that occasionally go outside (although inside-only animals can do their fair share of spreading some dirt and other particles). This doesn’t necessarily apply to me, as I don’t currently have a pet. And I love my friends’ pets, but they do track in a fair amount of detritus. I used to think I was allergic to dogs, but my reactions change depending on the seasons. So I suspect my sensitivities are more about all the irritants that are hitching a ride on the dogs’ fur after their walk rather than the animals themselves, which is a relief but also solidifies my decision not to adopt an indoor/outdoor pet.

[Aside – No, I do not want an animal in my home. Do not send me pictures of cute, sad animals that need homes. I mean, send me all the animal pictures all the time. I love them. Just do not expect me to adopt them. Your Sarah McLachlan tactics will not work on me. You will be disappointed, and your disappointment will be 100% your own doing.]

Basically, anyone or anything that goes from outside to inside has the outside all over it and thus gets the outside on anything it touches once it comes inside. Therefore, I feel like simply removing my shoes at the door of my home would only address a small fraction of the outdoor-to-indoor filth pipeline.

The main thing from outside that bothers me is pollen. And it’s on everything. During the first few weeks of spring, I absolutely strip down and immediately shower when I get home to reduce how much of the stuff lingers in the air of my apartment. I do enjoy breathing, after all. But this is only a seasonal habit. I only do it when it is absolutely necessary.

I could be a person who does this all the time – a person who deposits outside clothes directly into the washer/hamper, lovingly empties and cleans my purse each night, and not only removes my shoes at the door but wipes them down, removing all the funk they have accumulated in my travels that day. I could, but I’m not gonna. While the idea of consistently having separate outdoor and indoor clothing is appealing to me, it’s not a habit to which I actually aspire at this point in my life. In fact, I think I said, “That’s exhausting. I’m exhausted just reading it,” out loud and then had to stare blankly at the wall for a minute when I came to that chapter in Marie Kondo’s book (which I absolutely loved otherwise – highly recommend).

Also, even if it was just my shoes, what is the process? Logistically speaking, what do I do with the shoes when I take them off at the door? Do I remove them and then pick the filthy things up with my bare hands and take them to the closet? Do I figure out some way to move my whole gigantic shoe storage to my tiny entryway so I can put them where they belong right away? Do I just leave them by the door (real talk – the most likely scenario), thus resulting in the inevitable and constant pile of shoes at the door? None of these things seems like a practical solution that I would want or actually implement, and regarding my primary goal of reducing clutter, they are all inferior to my current process, which is to wait to remove my shoes until I’m in the closet where they belong.

So, for now, in my house…I don’t care, generally speaking. I’m going to keep my shoes on at least as long as it takes for me to walk from the door to where my slippers are, and you should feel free to keep your shoes in my home, too. 

I mean, if your shoes are extra dirty/muddy, take them off or ask for something to wipe them down at the door. Don’t track visible muck through my home. Don’t be that person. 

But overall, I want you, my guest, to feel welcome and accepted just as you are, so you do what makes you most comfortable (re: shoes or no shoes and attire in general, that is – this is not a free-for-all behavioral statement.). Additionally, I believe the way people attire themselves is an art form and expression/extension of their personality, and while it may seem like a small thing, taking off one’s shoes can mess up the whole ensemble. Embracing these principles is part of the hospitality from my southern upbringing (i.e., one element of my culture that I actually like and try to embody) that I want to extend to my guests.

I’m also curious about other people’s take on the subject. Would removing my shoes at the door of my own home really make that big of a difference in how clean it is overall? If flooring is a factor, I have all hard floors, not carpet. So my floors are both easy to clean and are cleaned frequently(ish). 

Feel free to drop your opinion and links to credible research in the comments. 

I’m writing about keeping house for 31 days. Click here to see the topic list!

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Day 5 – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Posted in 31 Days, Cozy, Getting It Together, Resolutions, Revolution, tagged , , , , on October 6, 2026| 2 Comments »

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It’s been the mantra of those who care for the planet and want to minimize the waste they produce for decades. It’s also three helpful hints for keeping house. Nothing gets stuff organized (or gone completely) faster than one of these actions.

Reuse is my favorite of the three. While my main goal for extraneous stuff is to get rid of it, of course, I also really despise having to buy something again to replace that thing I JUST threw away. I am the poster child for “But I might need it someday.” I really do often find uses for the random things I keep. So before getting rid of it, I look for ways to reuse it (stay tuned for Friday for some of my favorite things to repurpose).  

Reduce is my second choice, even though I think it is the best of the three. I wish it were my favorite. After all, the most efficient way not to waste the things that come into your home is to not bring extraneous nonsense into it in the first place. 

I’m just not very good at it. I mean, I have no problem with the things I’m super picky about. For example, I’m not going to impulse buy hand soap. I have the two kinds I like (one for my bathroom, one for the guest bathroom), and while I may stock an extra of each, that’s about it. Yarn, on the other hand…I may have an issue there. 

Reduction also looks different for different households. Take food prep, for instance. Ideally, all my vegetables would be fresh from the farmer’s market where the only packaging I use is the cloth bag I bring from home, and I would prep them for use the minute I brought them inside. But I got exhausted just writing those sentences. If that was the standard I tried to hold myself to, I would be constantly overwhelmed and end up in the drive-through more often than not, which creates the most waste with the single-use cups and utensils and wrappers (oh my). Getting most of my vegetables frozen is a compromise, but it’s better than the next likely alternative.

Recycling is the bane of my existence. I am committed to doing it. I know individuals can’t solve the major environmental crises caused by corporate greed and its inevitable consequences of environmental waste and bad practices and shortcuts (although we can vote with our dollar by not shopping with them whenever possible). And I know that a lot of what goes in the recycling bins (particularly the catch-all ones) ends up as trash anyway. But I adhere to the principle that if everyone did their part by throwing fewer things away, we could maybe at least keep the landfills under better control. I know we definitely can’t keep them under control if we don’t even try. So I’m going to continue doing my part, small as it may be, even though it’s among my least favorite chores. 

[Public service announcement – There are many things that need to be recycled or disposed of responsibly (i.e., not in the dumpster/trash bin), even if doing so is a pain, so please make sure you know the right place to take these items where you live.]

My beef with recycling most things is that it can’t just be done in-house. It involves a task and then also an errand. I hate errands so much. If I ever become inexplicably wealthy, errands are the first thing I’m going to outsource. I would actually hire a person full-time to run my errands for me if I could afford to do so.

If you live in a place where people will come and pick up your donations at your house for you? That’s nice. You should take full advantage of that. If I could just leave a box on the porch and have it magically disappear to a place I trust to use the items responsibly, recycling might become my favorite chore. So step one of recycling is to research the places near you that will do this for you. You may be surprised at how easy they make it.

But most of the local places near me that recycle used items don’t pick up from apartments. Alas. So I gather. And gather. And accumulate. And then…eventually…sometimes with weeping and gnashing of teeth…deliver to the appropriate location.

Maybe if I think of recycling as a quest it will be easier to keep up with. *ponders and plots*

I’m writing about keeping house for 31 days. Click here to see the topic list!

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Day 4 – Decluttering Games

Posted in 31 Days, Cozy, Fun, Getting It Together, Mental Health, Resolutions, tagged , , , , on October 5, 2026| 1 Comment »

A common characteristic of neurodivergent brains is that we switch attention easily and often. Some call it a short attention span. Some call it easily bored. Some call it multitasking (or if you’re me, rapid-succession unitasking).

Whatever you call this phenomenon, it can make menial tasks a challenge to complete (there is another beast called executive dysfunction that makes things hard to even start, but we’ll save that for another day). Most days, I don’t have a problem getting started on a cleaning project, but my follow-through often gets sidetracked by another task.

One thing I have found helpful in addressing this issue is to gamify decluttering/cleaning. I actually use this with most of the routine things that need to be habits (such as drinking water, remembering to eat, getting exercise, etc.), but it works especially well when it comes to housework, or anything that has clear start and finish points. When I turn decluttering into a game, it gives my attention span the challenge it needs to stay interested long enough to complete the given task.

Here are a few of my favorite games for keeping house.

Finch App

I loooove the Finch app. You have a character (specifically, a birb – mine’s name is Bandit). You can decorate its home and dress it up. You can send it on adventures. You earn the items you need to do all these things by completing goals, which you can customize. For example, some of my goals are:

  • Clean or tidy for ten minutes (x6 per day)
  • Drink 16 oz. of water (x5 per day)
  • Exercise for 3 minutes (x10 per day)

There are several more, and I change them based on the goals I am focusing on at the time.

In addition to getting to send Bandit on adventures and buy her cute clothes, I also use Finch to track my longer-term progress. For example, I track the number of days each month that I complete my 6 units of cleaning. If my history shows I cleaned for 15 or more days in a given month, I give myself a little pat on the back and possibly a small treat. Like, maybe I get a sausage biscuit instead of making breakfast one Saturday. Sometimes, though, just seeing progress is reward enough.

Decluttering Surges 

My brain likes brief bouts of intensity, and this game scratches that itch.  For a set period of time (a day, a week, but not more than a month, or I get bored and distracted), I perform a specific task once per a subset of that time. Sometimes there’s a preset task, sometimes there’s a preset time limit. The constraints are what make the game.

For example, on Saturdays when I am at home all day and have a lot of cleaning to do, I challenge myself to get up and tidy or clean at the end of each hour. For example, when the clock reads 1:50, I put down my book or put aside my writing or press pause on the show I’m watching, and see how much I can get done before the clock turns to 2:00. It’s a race against myself. It not only results in my home being a lot cleaner at the end of the day but also reminds me to get up and move occasionally.

Another example is the challenge I did when I noticed piles were getting out of control. For one month, I tasked myself with getting rid of one bag or box of stuff (or one item, if it was too big to fit in a bag or box) per day. It was simple but effective.

Spot Cleaning 

Sometimes stuff accumulates. Or it looks dusty. Or something is wrong that will just take a few minutes to put right. Sometimes my decluttering surges focus on one small area.

Take the shelf pictured above. It is designated as a space for mementos and knick knacks, but a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that it had also become a dumping ground for items that I was using in the area and just didn’t put away. A hammer and some nails, a hold sticker from the library, a coffee mug, etc.

So I set a 5-minute timer on my phone and got to work:

  • I removed everything from the shelf.
  • I dusted the shelf and each item that belongs there as I put them back.
  • I took the other items and put them up where they belong.
  • With the time I had left, I also dusted the shelf above it that holds the TV and moved the Christmas mouse figurine that was lingering next to it to my Christmas storage box (better late than never, I guess).

So in five minutes, I accomplished twice as much as I intended to. I won!

Spot cleaning is especially useful for those areas of my home that overwhelm me. I spot-clean my office a lot. It’s a small space that, unlike the rest of the apartment, I don’t use every day. It’s easy for it to become a dumping ground, and it doesn’t take long for it to look like it belongs on an episode of Hoarders. Such a sight makes me want to shut the door and run away. But I just got released to work from home three days a week, so it has to be functional. In the past month, I’ve made it my mission to spot-clean at least one shelf, one surface, or one square foot of floor per day, and the difference that has made in just a few short weeks is astounding.

It may seem silly to have to turn common chores into games just to get them done. But all I hear from that sentence is that they’re getting done, and any method that makes that happen consistently will always be welcome in my home.

I’m writing about keeping house for 31 days. Click here to see the topic list!

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Day 3 – October 2026 TBR

Posted in 31 Days, Books, Bookshops, Cozy, Resolutions on October 3, 2026| 1 Comment »

At any given moment, my book collection is either the most organized part of my home or the most out of control. There are just so, so many of them. I love being surrounded by books, but if I’m not careful, I’m tripping over them just as often as I’m reading them.

All my bookshelves have a specific purpose. For example, most of my nonfiction belongs on the large metal bookshelf in the office. Library books and other borrowed books share a shelf with music collection in my bedroom so that they don’t get mixed in with the books I own. Fiction, memoir, cookbooks, short stories, and poetry – all my beloved genres have a specific place they belong.

The challenge is getting the books to where they belong, especially when they’re new. While I’m really going for a home library that is full of anticipated books, some of which I recognize I may never read, the decision to keep a book is not automatic. I have monthly subscriptions at a couple of independent bookstores (specifically, Deep Vellum in Dallas and Fantastic Strangelings through Nowhere in San Antonio), and I frequent library book sales and yard sales where I 100% judge books by their covers, so it’s anyone’s guess as to what I will actually bring home. I always seem to be obtaining books, and not all of them are ultimately meant to remain in my personal collection.

Of course, this means that they’re already in my home before I vet them and decide they need a permanent place there. The shelf by my reading chair in the living room is devoted to this purpose. It houses new-to-me books that I’m not sure I’m keeping yet. It also keeps the books that I’m planning to read next stacked in a neat little pile for my convenience.

This month’s TBR is loosely inspired by that shelf.

Aside from my book club reads, many of the books listed below are hanging out on this shelf – in limbo, awaiting a decision on their final destination. Hopefully, my reading this month can make a dent in deciding which ones to keep and which ones to pass on to someone else.

[Disclaimer – I am a Bookshop.org affiliate – I get a cut of the sales from most of the links below.]

Book Clubs

Cozy(ish) October Vibes

Cozy horror is an odd category. I’m drawn to it. In fact, it may be quickly becoming one of my favorite genres. 

Most genre-ists define it with elements of gentle supernatural components, low stakes, lovable/misunderstood monsters/creatures, and maybe a quirky, small-town environment with a smattering of snarky talking animals. It is likely to heavily feature a coffee shop, bakery, or niche store that caters to a granny hobby.

I do love books that fall into that definition of cozy horror, and my definition certainly includes them, but it is also broader than that.

I define the genre as horror…but make it funny. Many of the descriptions of the books I place in this category contain phrases like “darkly humorous” or “charmingly gruesome.” The ending may not be happy in the traditional, sunshine-y sense, but it will probably be satisfying, and that’s just as good.

October’s an especially great month for cozy horror. Or dragons. Or both.

Reading Challenges

I’m not actively working toward my reading challenges that I have left, I’m finding at least one prompt that fits almost every book I finish. So I have another one that lacks one more prompt and a few more that I anticipate chipping away at this month.

  • Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – Not only to finish this series and put it behind me but also to finish up the Overeducated Women With Cats challenge with the prompt “set in a fully invented world.”
  • “A book about books” is the October prompt for Read Your Bookshelf. I have so many; it shouldn’t be hard to find one. Possibly even on that shelf of to-be-curated books.
  • The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas – Originally planned for January/February, this satisfies the prompts “a diacritical mark on the cover” and “gothic fiction written in the last 10 years.” Gothic fiction often intersects with cozy horror, so it’s at least theme adjacent.

Where do your books live in your home?

I’m writing about keeping house for 31 days. Click here to see the topic list!

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Friday Five – Microtasks

Posted in 31 Days, Cozy, Friday Five, Home, Resolutions on October 2, 2026| 1 Comment »

Day 2 of Keeping House is a list of small things that can make my house look like I cleaned a lot.

The main reason that cleaning and tidying get away from me at home is time. There never seems to be enough of it for everything I want to do. On busy days, I just want to come home and stare at the wall. I don’t have the bandwidth for anything else once I’m finally finished for the day. But even at the end of less busy days, I want to spend the energy I have left doing creative things or reading or maybe seeing a friend I haven’t seen in a while.

Housework is often at the bottom of the priority list. After all, I’m usually the only person it affects, and most days, I just don’t care about it nearly as much as my raising would indicate I should. It’s the easiest thing on the to-do list to brush off. After just a little while, though, that brushing off really adds up, and I suddenly and desperately want a quick fix that significantly improves the overall state of my home.

Enter the microtask.

These are things I can do with a short amount of time (10 minutes or less) without using every single scrap of my leftover energy that still make a noticeable difference:

  • Laundry – start a load, move it to the dryer, or even put it away. Any of these smaller tasks can be accomplished in less than 5 minutes (well, maybe a little more on the third step if there’s a lot to be folded, but it’s still relatively quick).
  • Clear off a flat surface. Even big surfaces don’t ever take as long to clear as I think they will. For example, my dining table gets cluttered fast, and I put off clearing it because I think it will take too long (and thus psych myself out). When I actually clear it, though, I’m always surprised by how quickly I can do it.
  • Do a cup sweep. Are there coffee/tea cups lingering throughout the apartment? (Answer: Yes. Perpetually) Move them to the kitchen.
  • Speaking of the kitchen, wash all the dishes in the sink and put them away. What if there aren’t any dishes in the sink, you ask? Then it is truly a miracle day, and the microtask becomes a hearty pat on the back for a job already well done. Thanks, Past Suzanne!
  • Take out the recycling or trash. Somehow, there is always at least one box or bag that needs to go out, or several small bits that I can consolidate into one. 

Completing these microtasks isn’t going to fool anyone into thinking I have my domestic life together. But it does serve two important purposes – they get something done, and they remind me of how easy it is to get something done. 

And that, too, can really add up.

I’m writing about keeping house for the next 31 days. Click here to see the list.

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31 Days of Keeping House

Posted in 31 Days, Cozy, Getting It Together, Home, Mental Health, Resolutions, Roots, tagged , , , , on October 1, 2026| 15 Comments »

When I chose cozy for my theme this year, my home was one of the main focal points of that goal. What I quickly discovered is that the cozy elements were already there – the comfy linens, the coffee and tea nook, the fairy lights, a little reading nest in every major room, etc. Unfortunately, they were often hidden behind clutter or overshadowed by household chores waiting to be done.

Before I could have a home that I (or the occasional someone else) could experience as cozy, the issues blocking all my carefully curated comfort zones had to be addressed. I’ve spent a lot of time doing that this year.

This month, I’m talking about keeping house. Not the pristine clean of my childhood, where you could eat off the kitchen floor with no adverse consequences (other than my mother yelling at you not to mess up her clean floor). But a reasonable level of clean. What most people would consider clean. The tidy kind of clean that instantly calms me when I walk through the door.

To be clear, I am not naturally good at this. I’m prone to stacks and piles and items left wherever they landed when I got distracted by another task. I have books and journals not only piled precariously high on the table by my reading chair but also stacked on the arms of the chair itself. I often have dirty coffee and tea mugs scattered everywhere. I have a chair in my bedroom that I usually cannot sit in because it’s full of discarded clothing. I organize files for an hour only to realize that, instead of organizing, what I have actually done is create 4,321 more piles of paper.

Even so, I deserve to have a home that feels cozy and peaceful. Even if keeping house doesn’t come naturally to me, I can still maintain such a home with a few handy tricks and routines.

This is not a do-this-for-a-month series. This is a talk-about-and-plan-it-for-a-month series. This is too daunting a project for me or anyone who identifies with my struggles to be successful in just 31 days. Also, we can’t just do it for a month and call it quits. Unfortunately, no kind of cleaning, tidying, or decluttering is a one-and-done deal. It’s a lifestyle. Apparently. This is an offensive fact about adulthood and physics, and I stay mad about it.

I am writing this series because focusing on cozy this year has worked. I have become a little better at cleaning and tidying this year, and I want to celebrate that a little bit. 

I also want to share the things I’ve learned in case it does not come naturally for you either. There are the things I’ve done throughout the year to reduce the overall clutter in my home and make it a cozier place to live. For the things that seem to have become routines, I will include how often I have to do them to maintain what I originally accomplished. 

While I myself am far from being an expert, there are those whose wisdom on the subject I consume voraciously, and I have several favorites. I find their books, websites, and other resources delightful. It turns out, I absolutely love reading about cleaning and tidying. People who really nerd out about it both fascinate and charm me. I will drop links in posts where their signature advice is mentioned.

Taking care of a home is often seen as fundamental to being a functioning adult. On this particular critierion…I’m alright (most days). I suspect that a lot of people can relate to that. That’s my main target audience for this series. Let’s learn together! 

I also would love for people who are good at keeping a clean, decluttered home pretty consistently to read and chime in. Teach us your ways!

You can subscribe to follow along day by day, or just come back occasionally to this post, which I will update as a table of contents as each day goes live. As with any general, prescriptive advice – take what you need and leave the rest.

[And yes, all the pictures in the series are of my actual home.]

All the posts to date:

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October 2025 TBR

Posted in 31 Days, Books, Mental Health, Reading Challenges, Resolutions, tagged , , on October 1, 2025| 2 Comments »

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

This is the first October in a while that I’m not even attempting a 31 Days project. A few days ago, I mused on what I could do, but I dismissed the thought pretty quickly. I feel like I have enough projects underway. I’m satisfied with the number of goals I’m already working toward at this point in time. I did entertain the idea of talking through the process of taking a project from idea to completion, but…I don’t wanna. At least not right now.

I have a ridiculous number of library books checked out and on hold. I console myself with the knowledge that I’m returning about the same number as I check out each time I go. I’ve been reading up a storm lately – the streak continues! I don’t know if it’s due to an actual increase in focus or if it’s comfort-seeking due to the state of the world. Either way, both are typical anxiety responses for me, so that’s where I’m at.

Here’s what’s up next. I’ve started a lot of these already, so I should be able to complete quite a chunk of this list this month. 

Book Clubs

Two of my book clubs are reading books that I read with other clubs previously, so it will be fun to hear what a different group of folks has to say about each one. Ah, the joy of multiple book clubs!

  • The Women by Kristin Hannah – probably won’t re-read but excited to talk about it with this book club!
  • James by Percival Everett – ditto on the probably not re-reading it (although the audio was pretty great – maybe I will give it another listen at some point), but I’m also excited to talk about it again
  • Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado – fulfills both the choose-your-own-adventure spooky selection for book club and a Libro.fm prompt (see below)
  • Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell – this month’s theme is colorful covers!
  • On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen – reading with my financial literacy community – fantastic so far, although some of the chapters are more heavily focused on women with children than I expected. I may not be the primary audience, but I’m still learning valuable things from it.

The end of the year is nigh, and I’ve got some reading challenges to finish up! There are so, so many prompts left to finish, but hope springs eternal. This month, my goal is to at least make an impressive dent in what I have left of Nowhere’s Book Bingo (including bonuses) and the Libro.fm Listening Challenge. 

Nowhere

Libro.fm

  • Listen to an audiobook by an indigenous author – Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
  • Read an audiobook about a historical figure and/or event – Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell
  • Listen to an anthology or a short story collection – Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
  • Listen to an audiobook from an independent press – The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter
  • Listen to an audiobook by a transgender author – Nevada by Imogen Binnie
  • Listen to a banned book – A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

I recognize that I’m probably not going to make it through all of these this month (unless some generous benefactor wants to pay me to read so I can quit my job and devote my whole life to it – I’m open to that), but I enjoy having a plan mapped out, even if it blatantly ignores all semblance of reality and the sticky construct of time.

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Day 31 – Hope’s Beautiful Guises

Posted in 31 Days, Books, Food, Health, Hope, Mental Health on November 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“An open bakery in the morning is one of hope’s most beautiful guises.”

Nina George, The Little Village of Book Lovers

Today, I enjoyed this lovely pastry from The Market by Clark Bakery, our very own on-campus bakery. It was flaky and messy and awesome.

Just like life is sometimes.

This year, there have been good days and bad days, but very few days have been all one or the other. Days I remember fondly were still usually hard. Most days this year have been meh overall.

But even days that were super traumatic had a little spark of hope in them. Sometimes, that’s all that saw me through.

The comfort of a friend.

Actually being able to taste a cup of coffee (which was a rare treat during chemo).

A cool breeze.

Sharing cat pictures.

Coming home to a care package in the mail.

A flaky, messy pastry.

Likewise, every book I’ve read this year has played some role in helping me push through to the other side of whatever was going on while I was reading it. No matter how hard something was, the stories were always there. When I didn’t have the energy to do anything else, I could still read. When I got tired of repeating updates about my health, books gave me something else to talk about.

I’ve enjoyed sharing a small portion of that with you this month, and there are many more quotes I had lined up that I hope to write about in the future. I encourage you to keep a quote journal, whether it’s to jot down things that inspire you in the books you read, in articles from your favorite cultural icons, or even in memes that catch your eye as you’re scrolling through your social media feeds.

Look for hope. In all its beautiful guises.

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Day 30 – Readathons Gone Awry

Posted in 31 Days, Books, Getting It Together, Health, Home, Joy, Quiet, Seasons, tagged , , , , on October 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »

“One doesn’t need magic if one knows enough stories.”

“I was delighted to sit in the corner with my food and a book and speak to no one.”

Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

This past weekend, I participated (loosely) in Dewey’s 24-hour Readathon. The official time was 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday (EST). But I (and various others in the Discord and in the Facebook group) rarely actually stick to the time of the event. My goal, for example, was to simply read a collective 24 hours. I think the Dewey’s team is on to us – instead of hourly challenges, they just listed a handful of challenges to complete “at any time during the readathon.”

I completed no challenges.

I didn’t read a full 24 hours.

I barely remembered to post the picture of the stack I was choosing from (see above) on the group’s social media pages.

I carried on with plans to attend my favorite yearly Halloween party and Spiderdead, brazenly cutting into the hours I would usually set aside on readathon weekends to read.

I finished three books, but only one of them is actually in this stack (Fang Fiction – pretty cute!).

What I got out of the readathon was still pretty magical.

I got to tuck into stories about found families and books and several other favorite themes. I ate good, simple food, so I rested better (weird how that happens) and thus felt more refreshed when the weekend was over (despite it being a “busy” one). I embraced my full homebody self without the usual twinge of guilt about what a person who lives alone should want to do on the weekend.

These twinges are getting smaller and less frequent as I age. One reason for this is that I’m accepting who I am more and becoming less apologetic about it with each passing month. Another reason is that I get so much joy and restoration out of my alone time that there is little to no room left for feeling bad about it.

At any rate, I had a great weekend, and I look forward to many more like it as the season changes.

Reading more makes me want to write more. I’m reflecting on my reading this year.

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Day 21 – Thunderstorms and Fairy Tales

Posted in 31 Days, Alive, Books, Church, Health, Hope, Resolutions on October 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

(This is a little aggressive for a Monday morning, Dove. Calm it down.)

“There’s a thunderstorm brewing inside me and I think it will break soon.”
Stephen King, Fairy Tale

On Saturday, I walked the survivors’ lap at the Celebrate Life 5K. It turns out, the survivors’ lap was a short jaunt around the grass near the starting point for the race, for which I was grateful. I was already up early; I’m not sure I could have done much more.

And we didn’t. We walked our circle to many, many cheers and then just kept walking out to our cars to go get breakfast.

Recently, I haven’t felt like doing a lot of things. This is not to say that I haven’t wanted to, though. I very much wanted to run the full race on Saturday but I am just not up to it yet. I wanted to clean my apartment on Sunday but barely managed to finish the laundry before I was worn out and needed to rest.

I noticed this morning that I am now in the practice of going through my calendar at the beginning of every week to see what I can remove from it, just in case. I have question marks beside things I printed in bold, assured letters just a month ago. It’s a little disappointing. I had hoped to be feeling a lot better by now, but more extended rest is needed.

This may be the calm before the storm, though. I feel it brewing.

To be fair, I always feel a surge of expectation in October. The end of the year is in sight, and the beginning of the new church year is a little over a month away. I hold off on posting hopes and plans for the upcoming calendar year until the end of December, but I’ve already started musing to myself about what those will be.

(It’s gonna be good. I’m pretty excited about it.)

(Assuming all my test results in the next couple of months are what I want them to be.)

For one thing, I turn 50 next March, and I plan to be extra…everything…about it. Several friends have reached/are reaching this milestone before then, and I’m excited to celebrate with them, too.

The main thing, though, is that I want to live in ways that make me feel better – feel alive and vibrant – no matter what happens. Storms come whether you are prepared for them or not. I want to be more prepared.

And as for the thunderstorm building inside me…let it come. It’s time.

I’m reflecting on the books I’ve read this year. Click to see the list!

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