November In A Nutshell: 2015

November is nearly gone. Unbelievable. This year has flown by. I'm sitting here in a bit of shock that the hubby and I are going to be putting away all my fall decor to make room for our Christmas stuff today. I feel like it was just yesterday that we were putting up last year's tree. I guess time flies when you're having fun, huh? 

The other night I found myself reading my old blog posts. Like, really, really old blog posts. Besides feeling a little sheepish at the quality of what I used to post, I found a blog theme that was left along the wayside at some point. And that theme was the end-of-month wrap-up. I found, for my memory purposes, that those monthly wrap-up's were some of my favorite posts to read. The hubby told me those were some of his favorites too. So, I think it's time to reinstate that tradition. Here's what the hubby and I got into this month:

Oh! And that top photo I took when the hubby and I took the nephews and niece to Buffalo Wild Wings on Black Friday. We had a grand time. The boys' expressions are priceless, aren't they? Haha.

The hubby and I ran our first mud run in November. We absolutely loved it, and it will not be our last. The shoes we wore that day have been specifically designated as mud-run-only shoes. Shockingly, none of our clothes were permanently stained. On to the next obstacle course!

My niece's birthday is coming up next month, and I wanted to make her something special. My mother-in-law has a locket like this one that my niece has been coveting for almost a year. She's getting older, so I thought she was big enough that she could take care of a necklace. You can open the locket and replace the charms, and I think there were about 20 charms leftover. She'll have lots of options for mixing and matching. The little blue-green gem is her birthstone. I'm so excited to give it to her, I think she's going to love it. The charms are pretty tiny, so the charms will be given to her mother for safe keeping :-)

We started off Thanksgiving on a gorgeous note. This was actually our last glimpse of the moon that morning. It went behind the purple clouds and we didn't see it again that day.

The hubby and I thought the kids were getting old enough that they would enjoy drinking sparkling apple cider out of plastic wine glasses. I remember loving that tradition as a kid. I imagined myself being a fancy lady from a big city, and that I was an adult drinking wine. Sure enough, the kids loved the idea. Especially my niece.

She's such a ham :-)

I grew lots of radishes in November. They grew so fast, and with almost no effort. I planted quite a few radishes on September 15, mainly as slug bait around the kale and spinach. Well, there weren't many pests in the fall garden. Not only did the slugs leave the kale and spinach alone, but nothing ate the radishes either. I found that I like the sweet flavor of radishes grown during cooler weather. Strange, considering I've hated radishes my whole life. At any rate, I'll be growing fall radishes again. 

It's deer season around here. They are everywhere. I decided I wanted to start feeding them, so in November I started putting corn out. I put out a bucket everyday, and everyday the bucket is gone. I get lots of strange looks from people around here who seem flabbergasted anyone would feed a deer they weren't planning on hunting. What can I say? You can take the girl out of the West Coast, but you can't take the West Coast out of the girl. I love seeing all the deer around the homestead. 

I also attracted a Red-Headed Woodpecker in November. I had her coming around for 4 or 5 days, and then I put out a different flavor of suet. Big mistake. She took huge offense and has not been back. Sigh. 

One afternoon I looked out the window, and I kid you not, there were 7 squirrels in the yard at the same time. They were all over the place, so I never got them all in the same photo but I caught a couple of their shenanigans on camera. 

As the four squirrels up top climbed all over the logs, this one tried to get into the composter. I had a good laugh, because if he only knew what was in there. Haha.

This one contemplated getting into the red-house bird feeder. I was hoping he would, but he ended up climbing down instead. I heart those furry, little, fluffy-tailed crazies :-)

As always, I cooked lots of food in November. The hubby and I pulled off a successful Thanksgiving dinner, our first holiday hosting. Here's a couple of my favorite recipes that I made this month-

Oktoberfest Stew

Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Peppers

Apple Cider & Pear Crumb Bars

image source: Amazon

My favorite book of the year was read in November. In fact, I was so inspired by the book that it motivated me to start writing my own fiction story. Think about it. How would your story go if a traumatic event caused you to lose your memory of the last 10 years? How would you change? Would you be at the same job? In the same relationship? What if you lived somewhere completely different? What if you had kids during those 10 years? Would you be proud of where you were? Or would you have regrets that had piled up, one after the other? The concept fascinated me, and I'm so glad it inspired me. I try my hand at fiction once every couple of years, mainly because I love writing fiction.  The huge, glaring problem I have as a writer is I usually lose interest in my fiction stories before I finish them. Yes, I'm one of those writers. I'm 4 chapters in on this story though, and new material is still coming. I'll ride this train as far as it will take me! Maybe this will be a story I actually finish? 

That's the plan! :-)

Happy November everyone! I hope you are all having a fabulous holiday weekend!