the moon was huge yesterday when i left for work in the morning. a true “harvest moon” – the kind you see in spooky halloween pictures that’s larger than life and casts a golden glow. it even had some hazy clouds covering up pieces of it every so often. i was chasing it the whole way to work, hoping to get a photo but with no luck. but it made me happy nonetheless.
in my efforts to clean out my house and not add any more clutter, i didn’t put up my halloween/fall decorations this year. initially it was a relief, because i really do have more than i need in my little home. this is just another area of my life that needs a clean-out – my holiday decorations. how do they keep reproducing every year?? i’m verrrrrrry lucky to have a nice big closet at my parents’ home and they’re kind enough to let me store them there as long as i put them on the shelves and keep the closet neat [my home has very little storage space], but i do need to get rid of some because they’re a hassle to store, transport, put up, take down, etc. when you have as much as i do. and if it’s too much work to put them up or causes unnecessary stress [because all those boxes do stress me out] and i end up not putting them up at all, what’s the point of having them? that was my initial thought this year and the reason that i decided that i needed to pair down, when i have the opportunity to go through them.
so i decorated with some live pumpkins outside my front door and a few small tiny ones inside, plus a cute little fake pumpkin that i received as a gift this year. that was all. and at first, it was very refreshing. i liked not having to put away some of my year-round decorations to make room for the fall ones, and i also loved that the decorations were simple and natural and minimal.
but then i started to miss my cute little decos. the orange and black glitter, the creepy old family photos, the garlands and pinwheels. they get me in the spirit of the holiday and make me feel festive. especially with all the warm [hot?] weather we’ve been having [up until this week! YAY!], it didn’t really feel like fall at all. anyway, there are definitely some decorations that i could get rid of and i’m still planning on doing that, but i believe that i can find a happy medium between clutter/excessive holiday decorating, which takes a lot of work and time and space, and bare bones decorating, which isn’t quite as fun and just isn’t me. that’s my goal for next year – finding that balance.
{i did pull out my foiled gold bat leggings for lounging!}
in other news, i don’t know what in the world has been going on with me lately, but i’ve been strangely productive for some explicable reason. like really really out-of-character productive. these past few weeks, i’ve been checking EVERYTHING off my to-do lists, which is saying something because my to-do lists are a mile long, aaaaaaand on the weekdays, i’m cooking and cleaning and working out and doing culinary school homework and doing laundry and keeping my house neat despite going to class two days a week and hanging out with friends on the other days! [it’s normally out of the ordinary if i’m able to accomplish TWO of those tasks in any given week, much less all six.] i know, weird.
and this past weekend, i posted twice on the blog. graphed out some data for work. ran twice [despite the rainy weekend]. went to the grocery store. ate all my meals at home. did like 10 loads of laundry. edited tons of photos from my nikon. cleaned out the guest room closet, then decided that i was on a roll and tackled my closet and under my bed, too. got together a huge box of clothes and a huge bag of other stuff to give away. paid some bills. worked on my halloween costume. baked cookies. made catch phrase cards for a bridal shower next weekend. made pecan praline crunch. watch some aggie football. ran some errands, did some shopping. worked on culinary school homework. AND woke up to a clean house all weekend, which was glorious. i’m pretty much feeling like superwoman right now!
i don’t know what happened to the old jess, who laid around half the day scrolling through pinterest and struggled to get herself to the grocery store once a week, but i hope she never comes back. ;) but i’m just waiting for the shoe to drop, because this efficiency is just too good to be true! but for now, just call me the productivity queen. :)
{from one of my runs this weekend… definitely starting to look like fall now!}
hmm, what else? looking forward to time with family + a halloween party + a bridal shower this weekend, getting ready for my big week to be head chef at our restaurant at culinary school next week [major butterflies!!], and then some travel plans that i’m pretty excited about. the year is flying and will be coming to a close before i have a chance to blink!