October Rewind: Pumpkins Behaving Badly

I don’t know…I couldn’t think of a better subtitle.

Happy Halloween to all of you spooktacular readers. Yeah, it’s been awhile since I have posted, but the reality is I simply haven’t felt like writing, or what I wanted to really talk about I can’t talk about, well, publicly.

A much cooler, foggier beach run

This is the last weekend in October, and it has FINALLY felt like fall. Last week at this time it was in the 90’s, and Monday and Tuesday reached over 100 on the westside of LA. Ugh! But this weekend it’s foggy and in the 60’s. I LOVE this type of weather!

This month started off rough for the country as a whole with the shootings in Las Vegas. I was going to do a social media fast, but that stuff drew me in from the get-go, especially since there were a lot of local people who were affected.

Two women from neighboring Manhattan Beach were killed, as well as the cousin of a volleyball friend of mine.

That made my already bad sleep issues much worse, but, as the month went on, I did indeed ween myself from social media, uphold (for the most part) my nightly after dinner walk or swim, and modify my television viewing to much milder and even funnier programming like Everwood (plus, it has a young Chris Pratt in it) and Friends. I even cut off some of last year’s favorites: Chicago PD and This is Us. Is it me, or has This Is Us become a little too much of a downer?

Hanging out with my college roommate Tammy!

In the last couple of weeks my sleep has improved, although for some odd reason I’m still having (or remembering at least) some very crazy and vivid dreams. I have no idea why.

This month my net worth increased $4,933. Although it’s an increase, and my lovely commenters are always cheering any progress on, I’m a little disappointed in myself with my lack of discipline in both tracking AND saving money.

I mean I literally haven’t stuck with my budget in several months. The one silver lining I suppose is that each month my net worth has gone up, but I also know some of the goals I want to achieve, and going at it at a snail’s pace is not going to help me get closer to those goals.

And speaking of tracking, I also stopped tracking food in Myfitnesspal. It’s not that being overly-anal about calories is a make or break situation, but like tracking money, when you do it, you tend to avoid certain things which take you down the rabbit hole in a bad way. Meaning knowing I’m not tracking food has given me carte blanche to start eating work snacks and Halloween chocolate (and I mean a lot). When I track, I tend to NOT do that because I don’t want the hassle (and a little guilt) of having to spend extra time logging.

Birthday celebration

What also didn’t help, although it was really nice, was that my parents were in town for a couple of weeks, as well as my roommate from college, and it was also my birthday month.

Let’s just say this month involved a lot of cheese, wine, and chocolate. 

It was nice hanging out with them (I only really spent one weekend with them…the rest of the time they were off touring on their own) and my friends. I did eat some darn good meals!

Another big bright spot this month, is after I wrote last month’s post and talked about how I really wanted to take this one dance class at Yogaworks, but did not want to spend the money on either a class pack or membership, my former co-worker Carey gifted me a 3-month free membership that she had laying around! Thank you Carey!

My plan is to put my Classpass on hold once I’m done with my current cycle, and do Yogaworks for three months, then go back to Classpass.

I also went to see a couple movies this month. Battle of the Sexes, which was pretty good, and Only the Brave, which was also very good, and sad because it’s a true story. My hat’s off to the seriously brave and heroic men and women who battle fires!

November

This month I’m really, REALLY going to try and stick with my budget and track money AND food. 

My dad and stepmom

I also have a mud run coming up (that I already paid for) in Irvine, and participate in a Thanksgiving Day 5k run that I’ve done every year the last several years.

I also really need to start thinking of what I want to accomplish next year. To start zoning in on what I want to add, and subtract from my life. What went well and what didn’t. I think this year I was faced with a lot of distractions and some interesting forks in the road.

I’ve never mentioned this on my blog before, but I’m no longer the head of the video department where I work. I took a step back in early July. Managing people was just not for me and I wanted to get back to more creative work. It’s definitely been a lot less stressful.

Well, that’s all from me! How was your October? 

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