October is one of those very contradictory months for me. With it comes great energy and a feeling of being hyper-alive. In feeling that way, I make a lot of plans, and then end up canceling half the plans because I’ve overloaded myself and feel terribly overwhelmed. This year was no exception. Things I signed up for and/or planned but skipped altogether:

• the Animal Defense League 5K
• Siclovia (a street festival here that I adore)
• an autumn party that my cousin and I were going to host
• Readathon
• NaNoWriMo prep (since I’ve decided not to participate this year after all)

On the other hand, I still managed to have friends over a few times this month, throw a birthday party, visit with family I haven’t seen in quite some time, host a dinner party, crochet most of a bedspread, and head to a nearby corn maze with my brother and my good friend Stephanie.

<– There’s Jason and me in the corn. More maze pics at Instagram, if you want.

For the more introverted of my friends, you’re probably thinking…um, just the things you did is enough to cram into one month without the other half you planned…and you’d be right. It’s always this way for me. I just want to do All The Things in October, when the temps just barely start to change here and it finally starts to feel like fall. Might as well take advantage of the energy to do everything I can while I feel like it, right? Even if it means canceling a few things for my mental health along the way.

In anticipating November, I’m likely to take things a bit easier. As stated above, I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year, so that won’t be the manic focus of my month. Instead I’m going to focus on my health goals, on finishing a couple in-progress crochet projects, on getting all the Christmas shopping done, on taking the family for a group hike, and on my most-anticipated book of 2017 (Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson, which releases on Nov 14th).