Friday | October!

What a difference a week makes! The orange leaves have crawled up our maple tree since I shared a picture last Friday and we’re closer to a totally turned tree. We’re hoping for a drive into the mountains this weekend to see how much the foliage has changed since our last trip a few weeks ago but that might not work out. It’s okay if it doesn’t because there’s still a few weeks of fall left! But really – it was like the leaves changed in the blink of an eye this week. It’s startling! Today I’m sharing a few exciting things from this week, including a visit from a predator. No chickens were harmed in the writing of this post.

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We had a surprising visitor on Tuesday morning: a bobcat was sniffing around the chicken coops. This guy was about the size of a coyote, which is what I thought I was seeing at first. It took a second to register that I was looking at a CAT and not a dog. Totally unexpected! It prowled around quite a bit and I got a few pictures. I had an eerie feeling putting the chickens away that night but tried to ignore it, hoping that it had moved on because the chickens are pretty well-protected from predators. But then it came back on Wednesday morning! So we’re being extra careful with the kids playing in the backyard and with the chickens. No sighting on Thursday so I’m hoping it has given up on us.

We’ve had this week off from school and let me tell you – I didn’t realize how much I needed this break! The last two breaks we’ve had have been plagued with illnesses (covid and Colton’s bout of giardia). And it seems like we always get some kind of stomach bug for vacations and they never, ever seem to provide any rest. But I am so thankful that everyone has stayed well and relatively happy. It’s been a wonderful week for reading in lawn chairs under the maple tree and putting my feet up for a few minutes each day. I’ve really enjoyed our relaxed schedule with absolutely no (self-imposed) expectations and limited pressure on keeping up the house. And now we have six weeks until the week of Thanksgiving, which is when things will really start to pick up!

We had a rainy day this week and a bag of freshly picked apples, so I whipped up our favorite apple recipe, apple cake with brown sugar frosting. It feels good to be baking because it had been quite a while! Maybe I’ll squeeze in a batch of these gingerbread cookies today? I made them back in August and they were a hit.

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Enjoying thinking about:

• Your Work Matters. Build Your Schedule Accordingly – I’m working on an extra writing project and am trying to figure out how to reserve time for it while still keeping up with my blog and engagement here. Cal Newport always has some words of wisdom for me.
• Mason Currey’s newsletter, Subtle Maneuvers. Specifically his current series: #Blocktober. You might recognize his name from a couple of beautiful books he’s written, Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work and Daily Rituals: Women at Work. I’m a paid subscriber to his newsletter because I love being able to help support creators and thinkers like him. It feels so much better than scrolling through instagram and passively supporting influencers who get paid to post about products!
• Using my Zettelkasten system in a more efficient way. I’ve fallen behind on keeping up with Evernote and am slowly catching back up. I can’t help but think how awesome it would be to have actual index cards instead of doing this electronically, so that doubt sinks in and I fall behind. However, Evernote is much more efficient, tidy, and searchable. Evernote is the smart choice (for me), index cards is the aesthetic choice. I’m trying to convince myself to be smart!

Okay friends — that’s it from me this week. I’m planning to be back on Monday with my September Reading wrap up. I hope your weekend is full of exactly what you need. Take good care.