Finally, a slow month with a good amount of reading!
I finished six books in November, which made it way more productive than October. I started the month off with a horrible cold, but luckily, several holiday weekends and some flights to and from Texas gave me plenty of time to knock several books off my list.
It’s CHRISTMAS SEASON!
I haven’t really been a huge fan the past few years, but having Ryan and Yukon in my life makes the season a little better.
I was gone for most of the holiday season last year on a long-term work assignment, so it’s really nice to be physically here in Flagstaff for ALL of the holidays.
Ryan and I put up my shoddy little fake tree last year while I was home for Thanksgiving, but this year, I knew I wanted to get an actual tree.
So, earlier this month, I bought a Christmas tree permit from our forest, and this past Saturday, Ryan, Yukon and I spent a day down on the Mogollon Rim Ranger District picking out a tree.
I’m starting this with a FULL disclaimer: It’s STILL fall and I’m STILL not ready to put up Christmas decorations… but with that said, I am big on doing my holiday shopping early and planning ahead. So here we are!
Also, it’s been a while since I’ve made a gift guide!
I’ve been pretty meh on gift guides for the last few years. They’re typically just laden with affiliate links* to the same four products at Nordstrom, and a lot of the stuff is pretty generic. Like, I really want my gift to be something the recipient will actually like, you know?
*OK, yes, there are some affiliate links in my post below. Look — Flag rent is getting EXPENSIVE! But this isn’t a cash grab and I didn’t solely post things just because they’re affiliate links. I genuinely put some time and thought into this post, promise!
Ryan and I didn’t give each other gifts last year because my flight home from my work assignment in California was pretty expensive… and he wasn’t working at the time, so we just spent our Christmas weekend together.
But, this year I’ve been spending a little more time perusing the internet (I was just sick for like, a full week) and I found a few cute things I wanted to share.
Especially now that holiday parties are a thing again.
October wasn’t as productive reading-wise as the past few months. I’d like to formally thank the Vegas fiasco (part 1, part 2) for that.
Two back-to-back weekends in Vegas — plus my birthday party the weekend before — didn’t really leave a whole lot of time for reading.
But, I did read two books this month, at least. Which, honestly, isn’t too bad. I think it’s actually the goal I set at the beginning of the year.
IT HAPPENED!
After an awful last weekend in Vegas, I was soooo cautiously optimistic because I didn’t think it would actually happen, but it did!
Ryan and I just got back from an awesome weekend at the When We Were Young music festival at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds.
IT WAS THE BEST DAY OF MY SAD LITTLE EMO LIIIIFEEEE.
We had our first hard frost (and a low of 22 degrees!) earlier this week here in Flagstaff, which means our gardening season is effectively over.
I’d hung up some plastic sheeting last week to try to get my tomatoes to ripen while nighttime temps were flirting with the 30s, but lo and behold, nature had other plans. The plastic sheeting fell down while we were in Vegas, and that was it. It dropped down to the low 20s, and my lone three remaining vegetable plants — the tomatoes, pickling cucumbers and zucchini — all died off.
So, I wanted to take a second to recap my very first gardening season here in Flagstaff.
Ughhhh this is the SADDEST, most DESPAIR-FILLED, EMO post EVER.
I just got back from a weekend in Las Vegas, which was supposed to have been spent moping around in the best way — at the When We Were Young Festival.
INSTEAD, the festival was canceled, and I ended up wasting thousands of dollars moping around in the WORST WAY — not at a music festival, but instead, crying and walking along the Las Vegas Strip wasting away a day doing practically nothing.
IT WAS AWFUL AND I AM SO LEGIT DEVASTATED.
It’s a fire season of a different kind here in northern Arizona.
Instead of lighting up with amber flames, the sides of the San Francisco peaks are blazing gold with the colors of autumn aspen leaves.
It’s truly gorgeous.
I’m pretty sure the end of September/ start of October is the longest straight period I’ve ever worked, but I got to undertake a really cool work assignment on the weekends which made it totally worth it!
I was fortunate enough to spend the last weekend in September and first weekend in October working out on the neighboring Apache-Sigtreaves National Forests (A-S) to help with the annual A-S Women in Wildfire boot camp.
(You can read the stories I wrote here and here.)
It was SO fun.
Well. September was… a LOT of books.
I cranked through three books alone while I was out in Albuquerque for my work conference. I couldn’t really do a whole lot since I drove an agency vehicle out there, so while a lot of my cohort got to brewery hop every night, I spent most nights reading in my hotel room.
My goal for the month was five books, which I easily reached two weeks into the month… which is great, because I’ve been SO busy with a work assignment this and last weekend that I haven’t touched a book in a few weeks now.
However, I did end up reading six books in September: mostly a combination of historical fiction, thrillers and modern romance novels.
This month was a lot of 4/5 star books, which seems to be my default. If you have any suggestions for 5/5 star books, I’ll gladly take em at this point!
