October was all about survival. It was about sleep, doing what needed to be done, and really not a heck of a lot much else.

Why is this? Why is it that whenever there’s a certain amount of momentum and equilibrium, something happens that makes it completely impossible to get anything done?

In early October, my partner and I took a trip to the local home improvement store. We bought ourselves a nice shiny new dishwasher… Considering that ours is definitely no longer operational. The downside? We would have to wait 6 weeks to get it, and possibly longer if there was some sort of a shortage. But it’s paid for, for which I am extremely grateful! It’ll get here when it gets here, but for the meantime, two people who hate doing dishes… have to do dishes…

The kitchen spent most of October in a state of chaos. We cooked as many one pot meals as we could think of, ate out more than we should, and discovered the absolute amazingness of paper plates. 75 of them. months ago, I placed a Costco order and in order to get free shipping I decided that hey why not, paper plates might come in handy at some point. My partner thought that I was completely irrational, but I think I’ve been proven right. Those 75 paper plates, including ones that held our Thanksgiving feast, have definitely made dishes considerably more manageable… Score one for thinking ahead!

Other than the disaster area that is our kitchen, not a heck of a lot got done in October. When it started to get cold in mid-October, I brought my hammock in from outside. I’m not ashamed to admit I may have cried a little bit. That same week, I ordered an exercise bike so that I could maintain my fitness when the weather was too cold or it was too impractical for me to go for a run. My partner spent an aggravating Wednesday afternoon putting it together while I was working, but it is now together and I’ve spent probably more time in the workout room, where the stationary bike sits along with other fitness equipment, than I think I’ve spent in the last 6 years. Here’s to more time on the…. road? I don’t know, how does that work?

Every morning, for most of the month of October, I would inexplicably wake up at 2:00 in the morning. I would be awake for anything from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. This basically meant that my evenings were spent resting, and the ability to get things done was absolutely non-existent. If it wasn’t immediately necessary, it didn’t get done. November, be kind to us. Bring us our dishwasher, bring us some sleep, and bring us back to some semblance of normal, whatever that may look like right now…