October Goals

Happy Monday! I am so excited that it's finally October! October is one of my favorite months. There's so much to celebrate and so many things that I'm looking forward to this month. I don't know about you, but I come alive in October. I feel much more creative this time of year, especially during October.

I'm looking forward to celebrating my little sister's birthday, celebrating Halloween (all month long), watching all the spooky and scary movies, making a few Halloween treats, buying our costumes, and reading so many good books. I also plan to work on a few creative projects for this month, and I think I'm going to use a Moleskine pocket sketchbook to hold my projects/work. 

As much as I am excited about October, I have to say that September was a good month. It was a dream. We celebrated John's birthday. The boys, especially Raphael, were excited about the cake. John loved the gifts we got him. Last month marked a whole month of me working at my new job. So far, I have really enjoyed my new job. I did a lot of reflecting in September, which was really good for my soul. It was a great creative month too. I didn't work on too many projects, but I got a lot of ideas and was inspired by many things. I'm excited to put those ideas and inspirations on paper.

Recap of September Goals

• Read 5 books: I read 30 books last month. I read a few novels, novellas, and children's books. My favorite book for the month was The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I highly recommend it and definitely think it should be required reading.

• Read and review 3 books from Netgalley: I read and reviewed four books I received from Netgalley. I read Sidney the Lonely Cloud by Tim Hopgood, The Coat by Séverine Vidal, The Curse on Spectacle Key by Chantel Acevedo, and Tales of Whimsy, Verses of Woe by Tim DeRoche. 

• Try 2 new recipes: Once again, I can't remember if I did try any new recipes, so I'm going to assume that I didn't. If I did try some new recipes, they didn't "wow" me (or disgust me...so I guess yay?), so I guess it probably wasn't worth mentioning. However, it's more likely that I just forgot about this goal and didn't make try any new recipes.

• Complete 1 half-finished memory-keeping project: I didn't complete any of my half-finished projects, but I worked on a few, like my Project Life album. I'm still not caught up on my Project Life album, but I'm glad about the progress that I've made.

• Complete my Little Summer Joy mini-album: I completely forgot to work on this project. I will try to work on it this month, but I know I probably won't finish it. I have so many things I want to work on this month, and unfortunately, I know I won't have as much time as I'd like to work on my summer mini-album.

• Complete at least 5 prompts from the ALP's 30 Days of Showing Up challenge: This is another challenge that I completely forgot to work on. I really need to keep better track of my challenges. I also need to stop trying to do too many challenges and projects simultaneously. It usually never ends well, but of course, I still do it.

• Drink more water: Yikes! I did drink more water, but not as much as I should. I've definitely had a ton of hot chocolate, pumpkin-spiced lattes, and mocha frappuccinos. 

• Publish two personal pieces on the blog: I shared my monthly "end of the month" list, my monthly "If You and I Had Coffee" post, and the books I read for Buzzfeed's Summer Book Challenge. I'm going to count these three as personal pieces, but I hope to share a few pieces this month that aren't part of my usual monthly posts. I've been working on a few pieces to submit for a couple of publications, so I didn't have much time to work on content for the blog. Here's to hoping that I can do that this month.

October Goals

• Read 5 books

• Read and review 2 books from Netgalley

• Try 1 new recipe

• Complete 1 half-finished memory-keeping project

• Work on my Project Life album

• Work on my October memory-keeping projects 
• October Daily
• Here: Five Things course
• ALP's October prompts

• Publish 1 personal piece on the blog

• Participate in Exhale's October blog hop

What are your goals for October? How did you do in August?

Thanks for visiting!

Until next time...

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash