It’s my favorite time of year. Leaves have fallen, the air is brisk, and sweater weather is fully upon us. Normally I love spending October doing fun fall things and wearing all the cardigans I can before I really have to don a puffer coat, but this October was a bit different.

I had a tonsillectomy mid-way through the month, and with essentially a 2-week recovery period, right before heading off to Disney World no less, my fall activities were a bit limited this season. So while I’d planned for October to be all about - you guessed it- sweaters - I’ve made it instead about some of the fun & cozy rainy day things I did while I was recovering at home.

Side note: when I said I was getting a tonsillectomy at age 25, so many people told me how terrible the recovery would be. They were not joking. The ear pain alone was enough to make me want to just stay in bed all day. But I’m glad I got them out now and I’m looking forward to less bouts of annoying sore throats/strep/tonsillitis!

ANYWAY, tonsils are out, let’s talk about cozy things.

This Target blanket

If you have Instagram or Pinterest, I’m 99.99% sure you’ve seen this blanket several times on your feed. At only $10, it’s a great Target find and perfectly plush and warm! I hope they come out with one for the holidays.

NYTimes Crossword

For as long as I can remember, my pop-pop has done the NYTimes crossword puzzle in ink, every Sunday, if not every day. We always played a lot of word games when I was growing up, but the crossword has forever been my favorite. I like the mini-puzzles in the app (full puzzles too of course), or work my way through a crossword book - ink only, of course. It kept me feeling active (mentally, anyway), and entertained.

Holiday Meal Planning

It was really hard for me to eat anything while I was recovering, even on days when it should’ve been “easier,” I really struggled. Most days, I started out with a plain, room temperature scrambled egg, a packet of applesauce for lunch, and cold plain pasta for dinner. All this did was get me thinking about the flavorful, seasoned food I’d be making for the holidays. The past few years, Don and I have made a baked brie with fresh cranberry sauce for a Thanksgiving appetizer, but I think we may branch out and try something with goat cheese this year. I found a few new recipes I’d like to try on my Pinterest, feel free to browse here! And for what we usually make - we just take a small wheel of brie cheese, wrap it in puff pastry dough, brush it with egg wash, and bake it at 350 for about 18-20 minutes. For the cranberry sauce, we simmer down fresh cranberries, water, and sugar, in a 2:1:1 ratio, and season to taste. I’m also taking a crack at making slow cooker chicken pot pie soup for the first time, so fingers crossed.

Aside from that, now that I’m very, very slowly venturing back into the world of real food, I’m dusting off some of my old overnight oats recipes! Keep and eye out for them on the blog in a few weeks (and on my stories between now and then)!

Getting Creative

I got a new iPad at the beginning of the year, and started playing around with the Procreate app to work on my hand-lettering, and just to have a place to doodle. I really started to fall in love with it, but never had enough time to just sit and really get into experimenting with the app’s features or really practicing over and over again. With this time off, I was able to do just that, and I loved it! Even if what I’m making isn’t great, it’s so much fun to just be creative and do be so filled with joy over seeing your visions come to life.

During this time, I also upgraded my phone, so playing around with the new camera was something I wanted to be able to do. I love my DLSRs, but being able to get better at “iphone-ography” has been on my list for a while since I always have my phone on me. I mostly just took pictures of my cat (and started her an Instagram), but I also made it a point to try and post more “shot on iPhone” pictures while I was recovering. Getting better at this is something I really want to do, plus I got to really refine the presets I made and have been using on my Instagrams for the past year, so it’s been really helpful all around!

Plus, I recently reopened my little shop where I sell crocheted coffee sleeves (cute, eco-friendly, and functional), so I had plenty of time to just relax and crochet the day away.

Netflix + Online Shopping

Finally got caught up on my shows, movies, and anything in between that I haven’t been able to watch because life. I will say, that was probably the best part about being stuck in bed for so long.

Maybe not the most relaxing thing, but I did #treatmyself to a few new things, like a phone case from Pixie Cases for the aforementioned new phone, a coat and gloves from Anthro, the holiday version of my favorite fall tee, and a few other things. But more importantly - I got some Christmas shopping done.

As much as I didn’t want to have screen time, I had a lot of screen time - and these blue-light reducing glasses that I was sent from SOJOS eyewear helped reduce strain!

For some of the things I bought during my “time off,” check out my LTK page!