October is so crazy at our house. SO CRAZY. I always forget this when I’m planning stuff, and then about a week in, I think, Right, October. The crazy month.
Many factors contribute to this madness:
- Petra’s birthday is always A Thing.
- It’s National Cyber Security Awarness Month, so JC has to travel to nearly all of the offices his employer has in five or six states (PSA from your friendly security guy: Is your password “password”? Please change that. Also learn what 2-factor authentication is and use it, especially on Google and Amazon.).
- The Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale is usually the first weekend of October, and JC is often very involved with the huge breakfast for that.
- Figuring out Halloween costumes. Need I say more? (no)
- New this year: University plays are ready to be seen in October, after rehearsing through September, so I’m traveling for KCACTF to respond to them.
- Always some other random thing!
This is our calendar for October this year. Note, we only write things on the calendar if they are not our normal (so, this is in addition to classes that I’m teaching, JC’s daily work schedule, etc):
By my count, there were only two days in October that didn’t have something “extra.”
Some of these things were SO FUN. JC and I went to a 10,000 Maniacs concert at the Birchmere and were so glad we did. We had our niece come for a sleepover last night and Silas loved having her here. We had meetups at the park with friends. I saw some amazing shows for KCACTF and my mom came along for the trip.
Other things were a little annoying: Both kids had annual checkups, JC was out of town a lot and put plenty of miles on the car, we both had lots of meetings. We were very rarely all at home at the same time.
The stuff we’re doing is all good stuff. I love seeing college shows and responding to them, hearing from the students about their process. JC enjoys his job, and in October, he gets paid to try to physically break into offices where no one knows him. Many of the meetings I had were for church, and I love the work I’m doing for my church. I’m blessed with great people to meet with, too. And I love celebrating my daughter growing older and helping my kids devise their Halloween costumes!
But wow, October is just a lot.
JC and I were talking one night about how we hardly see each other in October. It just feels like one long chain of kid hand-offs. So I said, “Let’s decide to just say no to things in November. Some people do ‘No Shave November,’ but I think we should do ‘No Things November.'”
“Nopevember,” he said.
The next day, I got an email looking for people to go respond to a few plays in New York, in November. It sounds like fun. But you know what sounds like more fun? Spending time with my family. So…nope to that. Maybe I’ll pick up a show or two in December.
We’re still planning on hosting a few friends for Thanksgiving, but that’s something we absolutely love doing. We do it potluck, so it’s not a super intense thing. We’re going to try to figure out a dinner date with our besties, because that feeds our souls.
I still have plenty of commitments that I will of course honor. I’ve got church meetings and we both have work. But in between, we’ll just say nope.
And then I realized that the only thing that would make this better would be if we paired it with watching our favorite episodes of one of our favorite shows.
So maybe it’s Knopevember!
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