October

 I got on here and was thinking, oh, I did post in September, I'm not as far behind as I thought . . . forgetting there's a whole month between September and November, and it's my birthday month. 🤣

Anyway, what did I do in October?  Well, like I said, I had a birthday.  I decided to go back to the Lake alone for my birthday because I enjoyed it so much last year.  For whatever reason, it wasn't as enjoyable this year.  Maybe because last year I went for a longer time period.  I had Covid and went for 5?? days, this year, it was just a long weekend.  I took my hammock chair and a hook thing so I could sit in it.  I left the hook attached to the roof, and am excited that now I can take my hammock chair in the summer too.

I did stop at my sister's house (where my parents used to live, and I grew up) on my way through.  I was there less than 12 hours, but it was a hard day.  I was sitting outside watching the sunrise and was just really, really sad. I couldn't figure out why I was so sad, suddenly I remembered what day it was, October 4, exactly 3 years since my Dad died.  

I made a detour through Lind to "see" my parents.  I had been planning on doing it even before I remembered the date, but it made it harder somehow.  I had brought some flowers from home and left them.  I sat and cried and talked to them for a little bit.  It was just a sad morning.

We had a night of incredible northern lights.  We missed the big one in the summer so I was determined not to miss this one, and it did not disappoint.  Although, we could only really see it amazingly when we took pictures.

And of course we went to the pumpkin patch.  These are pictures we've been doing for years.  We started going to this pumpkin patch when Maddox was a baby.  The ones of small Maddox, he was 1 year old, I know there's some from when he was only 4 months old, but I couldn't find them in the time allotted to write this.  😊

And then of course, there was Halloween.

At the beginning of November Chris and I went to a Seahawks game.  It was my first live NFL game.  I had a lot of fun, but don't think I'll do that again.  I enjoy watching it on TV better.  I can pause, rewind, and hear the commentary.  But it was an experience I'm happy I did.

And that's pretty much what we did the last month.

I suppose I can talk about my running. I was planning on October being my highest mileage run month this year, but then I got a tooth pulled and quit running completely for a couple weeks.  I don't really know what happened, but in September I had upped my "long" run to 4 miles, and was working on getting my daily (and by daily, I mean the 3 other days I run) to 3 miles, but in October, I did no long runs at all.  I was doing hills 2x times a week, but then with my tooth I quit that.  I have struggled to get back into the groove of running (again).  Especially since it's now dark outside when I get home.  I did just get a lighted collar for Peanut, so we'll see if that motivates me a little more.