mistressofmuses

Welp, it sure is almost the end of the year.

I was planning on sharing a "Top Ten" favorite pictures, then remembered that last year I did fifteen... so fifteen it is again!

Well... thirteen of mine, plus two "honorable mentions" that Alex took, but that were definitely among my favorites of the year.

As with last year, there's pretty obvious theming: it's almost all my dogs or various insects, usually with flowers. (There is also one spider, and one frog.)

( My favorite fifteen pictures of the year: )

Ophelia II wishes you a lovely Halloween, the day on which she is most festive. :)

(She is VERY ROUND. The first time I fed her, I gave her two crickets and she caught one. This time I figured I'd give her three in the hopes she'd eat two, and instead she caught all three within about forty minutes.)

-

Our Halloween was... a bit depressingly lowkey. I took this week off of work specifically because it's Halloween week, my favorite holiday, but... we had errands to run, and Alex didn't feel well. I watched Over the Garden Wall, which is my must-watch for the holiday, though Alex fell asleep. I think part of the problem was me and my mood - I just felt mildly irritable all day, in a way that I wanted to shake, but struggled to. We had a good dinner, and our Halloween candy (despite no trick-or-treating in the building), and are watching a horror movie, so it's not a total loss.

-

I tried again to really appreciate the season, and met with mixed results. I've tried most years to do sort of an "October Devotional," where I attempt to do something every day of the month that lets me appreciate the autumn season in general and Halloween in particular. It's an attempt to be mindful, and to keep the season from disappearing as quickly as it usually seems to. This year we were gifted an extremely long and beautiful fall. We only had a handful of particularly cold days, with most days still being pleasantly warm. The leaves have been really pretty (and we even have some that are still green!) I'll take that over the years where an early freeze kills everything off before the season even starts.

There were definitely many days where I didn't have any particular moments of enjoyment or attention, but probably more days than not where I did.

For some big things: we visited Hudson Gardens, where we got to look at all their carved pumpkins; we went out to view the Northern Lights; I caught and adopted Ophelia II from my mom's house; we went up to Estes Park, in part for Bella's FastCAT competition, but also enjoyed the beautiful fall weather and scenery; we got to view the comet; we went to the Butterfly Pavilion, and got to see their annual spider exhibit; we went to a haunted house.

More "medium" things: we went out to see a horror movie (Smile 2); we watched some horror series (American Horror Stories and Archive 81); I've been rereading The Southern Reach books, which are among my favorite horror media; we went on other smaller walks through the local park, which has had beautiful leaves this year; Alex and I made a cute little spider-themed "wreath", though this year the apartment sent out a nastygram telling us we aren't allowed to decorate our doors the way we usually do, so no one else got to see it; I did buy at least some Halloween type stuff for myself (a cute bat-shaped faux-neon light, a fluffy blanket, a pair of plushies).

For small things on some days: I made myself a lot of pumpkin spice chais to bring with me to work; I wore Halloween-themed socks; I used Halloween- or fall-themed layouts in my habit tracker.

I didn't feel as engaged with the season as I'd hoped, but it wasn't a loss either. It was still a nice October.