5 Things From My Weekend

So here's some real talk from me... Our September, and the first part of our October, was incredibly full. There were lots of important things happening and we made it all work. However, since about October 9th, we haven't been doing a lot. I know rest, and slowing down, is important, especially after a season of busy-ness. However, these past couple of weeks I have been feeling... flat... blah... grumpy... down. Generally, I've been struggling, and in a bad mood. And I don't like it.

I've mentioned before that November in Canada is rather dull -- we don't celebrate Thanksgiving this month, there aren't any breaks from school/work, it's getting colder and darker, and there's just not much to look forward to. (And I don't like getting ready for Christmas early so please don't suggest that -- it doesn't bring me joy.)

So I've decided to give my head a shake, realize I have a lot to be thankful for, and start documenting these things. After all, just because there's nothing big and monumental going on, doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of little things every day to be grateful for. So here are five things from this weekend that I'm thankful for.

1) Jr Youth Pumpkin Shenanigans

Dave and I are Jr Youth sponsors and on Friday night we had a fall event where we played with pumpkins. And fire! One of our Jr Youth sponsors is a young adult who is also studying to be an engineer and he likes blowing things up! Which is right up the alley of the Jr Youth :) So I had some more low key pumpkin experiments planned and then we put sparklers in a pumpkin, we exploded a pumpkin through a chemical reaction, and we just had a lot of fun and laughter!

2) Saturday afternoon with Rachel

 

Unfortunately, I had quite a bad headache on Saturday so it wasn't until about 1pm that I felt well enough to leave the house. However, Rachel and I walked uptown, found items for a DIY Hallowe'en costume, and got ice cream.

 

3) Rachel's Hallowe'en costume

 

Rachel and her friends went out trick-or-treating and decided to go as "party animals." Rachel was a bunny. We had to make bunny ears out of kids' mittens stuffed with leaves but she was pretty happy with her costume and had a lot of fun with her friends. And win for me: she didn't come home with a ton of candy. Yay!

 

4) Leaf raking

This week is when the city will come suck up all of our leaves, if we've raked them to the curb. So I spent about an hour yesterday raking our front lawn and then Dave helped me bag a few leaves in the back yard. I'll have to rake a few more times but the bulk of the work is done. Phew. I'm thankful it was a lovely afternoon for raking.

 

5) Pumpkin walk

 

A group in our town was hosting a pumpkin walk and I was curious to check it out. But none of my family was interested, so one of my good friends came with me. It was so cool! People drop off their carved pumpkins and then you can walk and look at them all. There were probably over 200 pumpkins and some were simply carved and others were more elaborate. Next year I'm absolutely making my family come with me!

Dave and Sam were up at camp for most of the weekend helping with the work weekend. They hauled a lot of wood from one end of the camp to the other and came home quite tired. But I think they had fun. I hope you all had good weekends too.