I can’t believe today is the last of the month. It’s flown! And while it’s been fairly good, I’m really looking forward to October, my favorite month of the year!

Reading
It has been a fantastic start to RIP month!! The month of course was dominated by the Ruth Galloway mysteries, but I read a few other fun ones as well. Altogether, I read 17 books, all RIP-related, and only 6 non-Galloway mysteries, haha! I think I loved all but one of the books from September, and my favorite goes out to Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw.

Watching
The new season of the Great British Baking Show has been ongoing this month, and recently the newest season of NCIS (a long-time favorite) began. And of course, my family went to see Downton Abbey in theatre, which was awesome. Plus football football football. Tis the season.

House
Simultaneous work on the kitchen and garden (chinaberry-killing) continued on, a state which I admit made me feel a bit like I’m in a perpetual nightmare, particularly in the kitchen. I pretty much just avoided going in there until the end of the month, when the majority of it was completed. Jason and I also began looking seriously at smaller houses in the area, despite our initial plans to wait a few years for that. This house is just so expensive, mortgage-wise and in utilities (never, ever get a two-story house in south Texas!!)! I did find a house that I really loved despite it needing some care, but the boys weren’t sold, and honestly I’m not up to trying to move everyone to a place where they’ll complain constantly. I also don’t want to move to a place I don’t 100% love, so for now, we’re just going to try to make this house as cheap and livable as possible. Which may mean more projects and more perpetual nightmare, perhaps, but we’ll deal with it.

(Just look at this porch – I want this house!! I wish my boys loved it as much as I do!)

Health
As the month began, it turned out that my insurance approved the higher dose of Ozempic for me. I was skeptical and wary, but I gave it a go…only to wind up with nausea and increasing attacks of hypoglycemia. I also had a lot of stomach pain that appeared the same whether I was nauseous or hungry, which doesn’t really work!! So mid-month, I stopped taking the injections. The medicine stays in your system for about five weeks, slowly getting less and less, but I started to feel better about 10 days after the last injection.  I’ve begun to feel real hunger, and less depression, and less problems with fatigue. I’m slowly reintroducing more complex foods into my diet after nearly two months of living on bagels and crackers and cereal. My weight has remained stable within a three-pound range during the entire time I was on injections that were supposed to help me to lose, and have stayed the same since getting off them as well. And as for exercise, I was unable to really do much while crippled by this medicine, and it’s felt good to get out and try some running and yoga and such again. I need to rebuild my strength and endurance. I just hope that October brings decent weather!

Highlights of September
When mired in an illness or health condition as I have been most of 2019, it’s sometimes really hard to see the positive. It doesn’t help that those injections I was taking really effected the efficacy of my antidepressant, making most of the last two months dark and miserable and hopeless. I still tried to remember the light as much as possible, and I’m thankful that I’m coming out of the darkness in the latter half of September. There have definitely been some good things this month.

• Downton Abbey advanced screening fancy party!
• our orchid growing a new shoot to bloom again
• Morrigan starting his first job
• discovering that I can still run a mile without stopping, even if it’s super slow
• first Halloween decorations (yoga skeletons!!), and finally making an outdoor ghost circle for the first time since 2004!
• some fun new clothes for the fall
• finally making some plans for my future career, and feeling really good about the direction I’m heading toward
• Ambrose was nominated for homecoming king!! My weirdo child, who wears his hair in curly pigtail bunches and his socks mismatched on purpose and who also wears either a purple or gold cloak to school twice a week, has been nominated for homecoming king. There goes the old stereotype, right? He’s got a good chance for ending up on the court, too. Everyone knows him, and people either love or hate him. The whole situation tickles me pink and makes a bold statement about how being confident in yourself can definitely take you places, even in high school.
• attending Siclovia with my friend Stephanie, and getting a free tree to plant while there

Coming up in October
My hope: cooler temps. September remained above 70 in the mornings and above 90 in the afternoons, sometimes above 100 (!!!), and I’m dying for a break in the weather. I’d really like to get back out to walking and running, both in my neighborhood and at my hiking trails. This is also the month of Halloween, Readathon, Morrigan’s 19th birthday, NaNoWriMo prep and meetups, and the second half of RIP. October is usually a month of happy frenzy for me, and I’m looking forward to it!!