First, here is a picture of our Halloween:

A Clemson Univ fan (isn’t she tall?) and a San Jose Shark hockey player (right down to in-line skates to add verisimilitude)

The kids “found” their own costumes since we weren’t sure if we’d even do Halloween with Sandy disrupting our week. Kit loves Clemson (especially since that’s where her favorite extended family live) … and HotRod just loves ALL sports, ALL the time. The pumpkins on the stairs are ones they carved all by themselves — first year NONE of them needed any help. [Kind of bittersweet for dh and I that they’re getting so old!]

BTW, Hambone decided he was too old (he’s 13-1/2) to trick-or-treat, so he and I stayed home and learned to play his new game: Dust Tactics

NOVEMBER … the 11th month of the year and the end of the liturgical year. Today is the Feast of All Saints — when we look to all the saints (whether big “s” saints or little ‘s” saints as our guides and models for living life; and tomorrow is the Feast of All Souls — when we pray for all those who have left this earthly-pale. These are BIG feasts which we’ll celebrate accordingly. This month, we’ll prep for the start of a new liturgical year, a year that starts on December 2nd with the first Sunday of Advent.

NOVEMBER … a chance for me to look at my life and see what needs improving. October ’bout near killed me with late nights, early mornings, working/teaching all the time. November will be different. I will not stay up so late and will spread my knitting-work design time across the day rather than trying to do it all at night (usually meaning way passed when all else are in bed). I will try to re-focus my priorities so that God and His Church, my family and work are done in that order … not spreading myself so thin, saying “yes” whenever someone needs something, being home more.

Along these lines, a couple of projects start today. These are projects that have definite start-end dates so I don’t try to do it all today … but spread out the projects across the month:

1. NaNoWriMo starts today … a project that “forces” me to a write a bit each day on a novel. Not that the novel has to be perfect and ready for a publisher, but just to work on one writing project for the whole month. I’ve always wanted to write fiction and this will encourage that by having a set goal of 50K words by November 30th. I’ll be posting my progress as I go.
2. NaKniSweMo is another project that starts today … a project that has me tracking the knitting on a particular sweater for the month. The goal is 50K stitches (basically a standard adult sweater) by the end of the month. This is just a fun project but one that I need as I’ve been trying to design/knit a particular design that I’ve had in my head for months now but never have the time to do. This project will help me with the bit-by-bit approach: rather than designing, knitting and finishing all in a hurry, I have all of the month to work on this one sweater; allowing me time for the smaller projects that crop up in the midst of a larger.

So these are just a couple of the ways I’m re-engineering my life this month … I’ll be posting other things as I can with no pressure other than the fact that I want to share what works for me (and, more importantly, what doesn’t). Some changes will deal with my design work … some with my homeschooling pedagogy and practice … some with my spiritual life.

All lots of fun and exciting to do new things.

What does your November have in store for you? What are you going to do to change things up for the better?

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