November is always a busy month for me, with the final preparations for the Turk-EA Trot taking up much of my time. After the race, I did some reflecting about how I can improve things for next year, specifically for my mental and physical health. I’m definitely a ‘black or white’ girl in terms of being ‘all in’ or ‘all out’ at any given time, and I struggle with consistent exercise during busy seasons. I’m often ‘all in’ when I’m working on something important, like the race or a house project, to detriment of exercise or healthy meal prep. Inevitably, a few weeks later, I regret letting those healthy (for mind AND body!) practices slip.
So, for next year, I’m vowing to ‘land in the gray!’
Yes, that is purple Sharpie, and yes, I thought we were past this. Thankfully, rubbing alcohol takes it right off and the Sharpies have been moved.
Maelle ran in her first kids’ race! I participated in my fourth Veteran’s Race downtown (and won AGAIN!) and this year they held a quick kids’ race afterward. So fun! Maelle was one of the youngest, and she actually finished as the first girl and in the top three (out of about 15 or so kids), if you don’t count the girl who was CLEARLY a little too old for this kind of thing…
For the fourth year in a row (!!!), I won First Female Veteran! The first time I ran the race was 2020, when it was separated into waves for the pandemic, and let me tell you, the pressure to win is BUILDING. Each year, I feel like some young chick is going to smoke me and my reign will be over. (And it will be OK.) But, until then, I’m thankful that there aren’t many female veterans AND that the race has a bunch of turnarounds, which makes it easy to see who’s ahead of me. (‘Veteran’ is printed on race bibs, so it’s easy to see who my competition is.) Side note: In this 500-person race, I was actually was the third female across the line, but the two who were faster than me were doing the 10K, so they kept going. Not bad for someone who isn’t training or running fast, like, EVER, these days.)
I also started our homeschool room prep! I decided to paint the trim a dark blue, and it’s definitely one of those ‘it looks worse before it looks better’ situations. I’m working off a very specific inspo photo, which actually hinges on the carpet, and I’ll share everything once it’s done!
We took Mr. Snuggles home for a weekend and enjoyed lots of time with him. He went to work with Maelle and Daddy and got to see lots of cool stuff, had a tea party and hit Kone King for some ice cream.
We’d already made plans to visit the Corning Museum of Glass, so Mr. Snuggles tagged along with us! We stopped at Tom Wahl’s for lunch on the way. The root beer is AMAZING, and you can even get a frosty glass.
I’ve wanted to make a glass pumpkin at the museum since we moved here..more than 10 years ago. So, now that Maelle is actually old enough to enjoy it and participate, Andrew made sure we did it. You get to blow air into the glass and choose your pumpkin colors. It was a fun enough experience I could see Maelle and me going back another time to make something else, like a glass snowman!
Maelle got her first haircut! I can’t believe we made it more than four years before she needed a haircut, and even that was a little subjective…she really just ‘wanted’ a haircut. It was good to get some of the frizzy ends snipped off, and I was so excited to take her to Miss Rachael!
When it’s warm enough to eat ice cream outside in November, YOU EAT ICE CREAM OUTSIDE IN NOVEMBER. Fall flavors at Rosie’s are THE BEST. (Pretty sure we rode our bikes here, too!)
November also means Christmas is right around the corner! I snagged some cute plates and cups at Target, so I decided to break out our Christmas jammies early. I usually wait until the day after Thanksgiving–I’m old-fashioned that way. (Although the older I get, the earlier I want to get it all out!)
With our house project scheduled to start (more soon, I promise!) later this month or early January, I didn’t do any decorating for fall and I’m not planning to for Christmas–it just doesn’t make sense to have more to put away on top of everything else we’ll have to pack up. We’ll get a tree of course, and have our stocking out, but that’s about it.
Thanksgiving was fast approaching, which (for me) means the Turk-EA Trot! However, just two days before, as I was helping with packet pick-up, Andrew tore his ACL playing basketball. Yes, you read that right. Not great timing, but thankfully my parents were coming for the weekend and arrived just in time to help him into the house that evening.
The Turk-EA Trot was the BEST YET! We had almost 600 runners, expanded our giving to an additional Boys and Girls’ Club and everything went off without a hitch. I was on cloud nine for days afterward.
After Thanksgiving, Andrew headed back to PA with Ben and went to the Bills game in Philadelphia before leaving from there on his business trip. I was a tiny bit jealous but glad he got to spend some quality time with his siblings and their spouses. (Also, I have ZERO photos from Thanksgiving this year–not sure why–so I guess it’s like it didn’t even happen??)
Maelle also started taking ice skating lessons this month! We have an outdoor rink here in East Aurora (What a treat!) that is open for skating, hockey and lessons. I’m so glad we got her into lessons this year, as she’s doing really well and I can see her improving with every week. She was off the ‘walker’ by the end of the first class!
thehealthypineapple 