November Goals

Rabbit rabbit rabbit! Bring on the facial hair, pilgrims, and turkey, because it’s November, people! November to me is like a new lease on that fall life, because you get to put your Halloween decorations away and enjoy fall in all its autumnal glory for one more month. The pumpkins can stay, and you can add just the slightest hint of holiday if you want to put out some nods to turkeys and pilgrims. But November is elegant, understated, and celebratory of neutrals. Listen, I know it can sometimes feel like the purgatorial bullpen of anticipation for Christmas and ski season. But don’t you dare start listening to that Christmas music until November, 25th, people. Do you hear me? November 25th! We’re not rushing our lives. Remember? By all means, if it snows enough, do hit the slopes though. Anyway, here’s what I want to accomplish this month:

1. Visit Mount Vernon. I’m ashamed to admit that I needed the Hamilton’s America special to remind me that we live half an hour from Mount Vernon but have never been. Oops. There is too much to do in and around the mid-Atlantic on the weekends! I would love to take my parents when they’re here for Thanksgiving.
2. Make my First Thanksgiving Meal! On that note, my family is coming to our place for Thanksgiving this year! I’m so excited to bust out our china and crystal, design a tablescape, and make the big meal! With Southern Living as my guide and Mom at my side, I’m tackling my very first Thanksgiving feast hosting on my own.
3. Get Back into Yoga. This is the time of year when Christmas to-dos start creeping in, the sun sets so unreasonably early, and the pressure can start to get intense. I plan to combat all that by exploring yoga studios around my office and apartment and taking a bunch of free and discounted classes before finally settling on one.
4. Send Christmas Cards. This kind of seems like a gimme, since we’re going to send Christmas cards no matter what. But the hitch is, this is in the November goals. If I can get these bad boys out before December 1st, I will be one happy lady.
5. Clean out Buffet, Living Room Dresser, and Under Guest Bed. …in preparation for hosting Thanksgiving. These are all the places I stash table linens, silverware and serving platters, and what better time to go through and re-organze it all than when I need to find things?
6. Decorate for Christmas. This is another gimme, but this is time-consuming so it definitely belongs on the list of things I don’t do every month!  I love nothing more than our apartment decorated for Christmas. Can’t wait! I may have Mom and Dad help with this on the 25th. I will share the results.
7. Visit Haley, James, and Scott in Houston! I’m planning to make a long overdue trip to visit my cousin and bestie and to attend a dear college and law school friend’s black tie wedding! So I’m visiting him too, but he will likely be pretty busy. Anyway, I’m so excited!
8. Make Cleaning Daily Checklist. Jenna sent me an idea about this that I think will be a great starting-off point. Then maybe I won’t have to spend an entire Sunday cleaning again like I did this past Sunday!

October Goals Update:

1. Do the Whole 30. Eeeehh. We were so good for the first week, and then the wheels fell off at our very first wedding of the season. Amateurs. I will have to try again. January is looking good.  
2. Go Leaf Peeping and Stay in a Cozy Lodge in Upstate New York. So awesome! See it here.
3. Switch Closets from Spring/Summer to Fall/Winter. Victory! I took everything out of both closets, put some things in a pile for the Junior League Tossed and Found rummage sale in the spring, and simultaneously made everything else I had to do this month look like child’s play. Clean and organized seasonally appropriate closets rejoice!
4. Post my First Outfit Post. Done, done, and done!
5. Teach Myself How to Do a Blow Out. It was exhausting, but I learned how to do it!
6. Go See a Play. Sense and Sensibility was so good!
7. Order Christmas Cards. Fail, but hey, just making this an October goal actually accomplished something. It put the cards on my radar with a sense of urgency that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, so maybe it will have an anchoring effect and ultimately result in earlier cards. Usually I’m just realizing this is a thing around Thanksgiving.
8. Throw our Best Halloween Party Ever! Ta-da! I think it was definitely one of our best Halloween efforts, and I threw the whole thing together Saturday morning despite my best efforts to prep everything Friday night! Win.

You can see all my goal posts here.