Wennebella

My favourite month has finally arrived! I woke up incredibly excited this morning, because despite everything else that’s going on in my life, it gave me a sprinkle of joy. Currently, everything feels dark and gloomy; mentally I am not doing okay at all, but it’s my physical health that makes everything a bit scary and unsure at the moment. All of that has the ability to ruin this month for me, but I am doing my best to not let it, and to make October cosy and lovely. And so I made myself a list with the things I want/hope to do this month.

• Read more: September was absolutely dreadful for my reading, with a very dramatic move, and lots of health issues going on I just didn’t manage to pick up a book. I want to change this in October and read at least one book a week. Today I will be starting Grim Tidings, and I already have some other books lined up as well.
• Be more in nature: being in nature always helps clear my mind a bit. I love going for long forest walks when my health allows me to do so, especially during autumn because I get so overly excited about all the leaves, the goodies that autumn gives us such as conkers and pinecones, and my husband will also tell you that I am that weirdo that will run to a tree to then say “OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE MOSS”. I really want to try to go for multiple big walks this month, but if that’s not manageable I will be just as happy to potter around in the garden.
• And with that, look after nature and wildlife: one thing I love about where we live now is that we are surrounded by little critters. There are so many birds, hedgehogs and other gorgeous wildlife. Yesterday when we came home we noticed a squirrel, a mama squirrel who was looking for food. I want to look after all of these darlings by filling up my garden with safe spaces and food stations for them all.
• Journal: I’ve always been a journal girlie, it calms my mind and it’s a small way for me to be creative at times as well. At the end of May I decided to throw out my journal because it was full of things that made me really sad, things I couldn’t handle, and things I didn’t want to be reminded of. When September came I felt the need to journal again, but didn’t see the point in buying a new one, so I grabbed a little grid notebook, and turned it into my journal for the BER months. I’d like to do some creative spreads, and journal about some real things as well.
• Pick up a new hobby: I am someone who is creative in many ways, but really fails at other creative things. I’ve tried to learn to crochet but could not for the life of me wrap my head around it, it didn’t make sense to me at all. While I will probably give it another go at some point, for October I want to pick up a hobby/craft that I’ve wanted to try since I was 16, cross stitching. This was my mother’s favourite hobby, she used to make the most beautiful ancient Egyptian cross stitch works, and I always admired her for that. In August I picked up a little cross stitch kit at Homesense, which is a bit spooky themed, so October is the perfect month to finally give that a go.
• Carve Pumpkins: every year I tell myself that “this is the year I will finally carve pumpkins”, and every year I just don’t follow through. This year my husband and I are determined to finally do it so we can put them in our front garden (and we will be the only ones doing that in our little neighbourhood). We are turning a table that we have in the garden into a carving station, so once we find our perfect pumpkins (we nearly bought some at Tesco yesterday but they looked dreadful) we will get to carving and proudly put them in the front garden.
• Decorate more: while my house is full of little ghosts and pumpkins all year around (because I collect both), I want to put in a little bit more effort this year for Halloween. I bought some decorations in August as well as September, but in wanting to make Halloween special in the new house, I decided to wait with putting those up until October. I have some beautiful bunting that I bought at (again) Homesense, and picked up some more bits and bobs including bats to hang up.
• Spooky movie nights: I don’t know what it is about this house, but everything feels more cosy here. I hardly ever sit down at my computer anymore because I love being in the lounge so much. Last night my husband and I decided to watch one of my favourite films of all time: Van Helsing, and we turned off all the lights and snuggled up, and it was the first time in a long time I felt like I had a moment of peace. So we want to do this at least twice a week, put on a spooky/horror film, maybe get some snacks, turn off all the lights, put away our phones, and just fully focus and enjoy the film.

I’m really excited for my goals and plans for this month, and I hope I manage to actually follow through with them. Of course I will also be busy studying, but I want to make sure to also spend time on other things that are good for my mental health.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am off to the garden centre to get some feeders for the squirrels. And to grab a cheeky vegan breakfast.