Observing October

October 31 - Happy Halloween!

Another month whizzed by!  To close it out, here is the full moon from the 16th.  It was kind of a cloudy night and I love the way the moon was peaking out.

Here's my selfie for the month:

Busy in my craft room working to get some more things made.  I am participating in two Holiday Boutiques next month.  The first one is on the 14th at St. Robert's.  I went to grammar school there and I don't think I've been inside Hennessey Hall since I graduated from 8th grade!

The second one is at All Souls:

I'm really hoping that I can make a few sales this time.  I am trying some new ideas for products geared toward Christmas giving.  

The hubby and I went to Reno for the weekend and stopped at Black Bear Diner on the way up.  First time I had been to one.  Cute bears.  Good food too.

And, last but not least, I finished the Alchemist and am starting a new book, Moriarty.  I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan and this author has been approved by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate as someone who is faithful to the memory of the Great One.  

Tomorrow I am starting a project with a Facebook group I'm in for the month of November where we share 30 cherished memories.   I have a list made but I'm not sure which one I'll start with yet.  Hope you'll come read the stories.  

Observing October

October 22 -

My sister would have been 74 today.  She and I were the most alike of the four of us girls.  I'm sorry I didn't spend more time with her.  She was 12 years older than I so until I was an adult we didn't hang out much, although I did babysit her two kids a lot.

Jo Anne

Me

She's been gone fourteen years now, but I still miss her a lot.


In other news, I finally finished the book "A Thousand Days," about John F. Kennedy's days in office.  It was very interesting, especially in this heated election year.



My next book is going to be:

I'm counting this for my "The first book you see in a bookstore" category because I got an email from Barnes and Noble and this was the book that was pictured.  They were having a special so I got this and two others.  I have heard of this book before from several other people and am looking forward to reading it.  I am thinking it won't take quite as long as the last one, since it only has 179 pages, as opposed to over 1000.

Since this is only book nine in my challenge, I'm probably not going to beat my last year's number of 17, but I'm still reading, which is the point.  How about you?  How far ahead of me are you?  Go ahead tell me, I can take it.

Observing October

October 15

I blogged earlier this year about the renovations we did on our house, new roof, siding, gutters, the works.  You can read about that here:

Last night we had our first real rain fall.  It was so nice not to have to worry about looking for leaks and not having to duck the down pour coming from the broken gutters.  

My husband is in Oregon again helping his mother and when I told him it had rained, his first question was "Any leaks?"  When I assured him there were none, he said, "I paid for gutters and down spouts.  I want to see them working!"  I told him that I hadn't thought about taking pictures for him.  He was kind of disappointed I could tell.  I went out and took some for him.  

What have you been observing this October?

Observing October - Simulcast

October 10 - Columbus Day

A holiday for some, a lighter work day for others.  It is giving me a chance to run a test blog.  I recently read a post by a blogger I started following through the A to Z Challenge.  His name is John Holton and his blog is called "The Sound of One Hand Typing."  Given my profession as a medical transcriptionist, you can see how the title would grab me.  He blogs every day and a lot of his posts are about music and writing, two other interests of mine.  At any rate, in one of his most recent posts he talked about simulcasting his WordPress blog with his Blogger blog, so that he only has to type it once and it automatically posts on both accounts!  What a concept!

A while back I set up a WordPress account because some of the blogs I started to follow were on WordPress and I found it was easier to comment on them with the same account.  But, I never wrote any blog posts on the WordPress account because I had already started a lot of posting on Blogger.  However, I noticed that if someone went to my WordPress site from the comment I left, they were taken to a page which said "Under Construction" or something generic that WordPress uses when there is no content available on the page.

Hells Bells I say!

Fortunately, one of the posts John did for last year's A to Z challenge detailed how to simulcast the posts, so I had to try it.  This, then, is a test simulcast.  If it works, then I'm going to try it the reverse way and see if I can post on WordPress and have it land here.  The "recipe" is from a site called IFTTT (If This, Then That).  How clever is that?  Since I am NOT at all behind the scenes tech savvy (which is why I have always used Mac products for their simplicity), I like practicing new things that make me appear tech savvy, get it?  

So, let's try this test simulcast, shall we?  Oh, and by the way, do check out "The Sound of One Hand Typing."  John's a very interesting guy!

Observing October - 2016

October 2 - September sure whizzed by it seems.  I managed to keep up pretty well with the Blog-Tember challenge until we went to Boulder Creek on the 23rd for our annual golf getaway.  My husband has been golfing in this tournament for 20 years, but we actually went to Boulder Creek on a romantic vacation in 1985 so it has been a favorite spot of ours for 31 years!

We look about the same, don't we?

To wrap up the month, here is my September Selfie and the full moon from the month of September:

My face is a little red from being in the sun all day at a craft fair.  It really wasn't as bad as it looks.  

So now we are on to October.  I haven't decided what theme I'm going to use yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something!  Happy October!