Monday

A beautiful fall day. Camera club. Read on the sofa after work. Not a bad day.

My friends have been in France for five days. “Send lots of pictures!” I said. After five days, I finally got a picture.

Tuesday

Dreary, misty. Had plans to see Katie but plans changed. All the stuff for my Halloween costume arrived! But did I work on that? Nope. I read on the sofa.

Wednesday

Misty, rainy, dreary. Camera club outdoors in the mist. Finished up Halloween costume with Katie’s help. Said a sad goodbye to her as she leaves NY tomorrow 🙁 I’m grateful I got to spend as much time with her as I did.

THURSDAY

Halloween! My morning was spent running around getting pictures of all the staff costumes for the costume contest. Then photographing the Halloween party. It’s a cute, but exhausting, day.

friday

Finally, no rain. Work is a little chaotic as our wine tasting fundraiser is Saturday night.

And oh yeah, it’s NOVEMBER!!!

SATURDAY

Maddy Guttierez is raising money to help provide families in need with full Thanksgiving dinners from Hello Fresh and you can help! Read the full story here.

Our annual Wine Tasting fundraiser was tonight. I take pictures. I get pain. Same old story. We used a nice selection of camera club pictures as silent auction items. I didn’t see at the end how they did, but several people told me how great the pictures were and how pleased they were that the adult clients had this new activity.

SUNDAY

This, truly, is my day of rest. I’m sore and exhausted from last night. I should shoot an outfit later if I feel energetic enough, but it’s not crucial. I should go to the market – my “no sugar” regime has become much more loosely defined over the past two weeks cuz I haven’t been to the grocery store…and Halloween…and Katie (when possible, blame everything on your kids).

So I might just lay on the sofa for a couple hours and read a book that hasn’t really grabbed me yet…but which right now sounds better than vacuuming, cleaning the litter box, steaming capes, grocery shopping or shooting an outfit.

I had totally missed the fact that Daylight Savings Time ended last night. I can never remember – is this the time of year it’s EASIER to get up in the morning…or harder? It is going to start getting harder to get outfit pictures outside after work as it will be almost dark by the time I get home.

Also, how did the world series take place and end without me hearing a single word about it? Not that I care, but…I really do live under a rock, I guess.

I’m thinking about starting a “plus size over 50” Facebook group. Not for “bloggers” sharing blog outfits, but for real people just trying to get dressed! “What would look good with this skirt?” “Has anyone seen a soft, oversized plus size camel turtleneck that’s not $200?” “Does this dress fit okay?” “Loft is having a 50% off sale!” Etc. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Since a relatively small group of people ever comment here I don’t really know who all is reading this. Is it mostly plus-sized women? Over 50-ish? I don’t know. Would anyone here be interested in joining a group like that? I would probably limit membership to some number…50? 100? Not sure, but I have a hard time in really large groups. I can’t keep up, I don’t like feeling like I don’t “know” everyone there. Thoughts?

Well, laying on the sofa reading turned into laying on the sofa looking at Instagram so I have no second book to share with you. The one I’m currently feeling meh about is “Breathing Lessons” by Anne Tyler, about which I’d heard so many good things, but…I’m going to keep trying to power through in case it’s one of those that doesn’t really grab you til much further in, but…it really makes me appreciate the books that have me from the first sentence.

And I will say goodbye…it was dark here at 5:00pm today, which…ugh. Sigh. My back and legs have ached all day and I keep meaning to get up for some tylenol or something but then I get distracted by THE INTERNET. But I’m really going to do that now. So, goodnight and goodbye.

What I read

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure. I’m going to borrow Malcolm Gladwell’s quote, “A beautiful and elegant account of an ordinary man’s unexpected and reluctant descent into heroism during the second world war.” I don’t know how “beautiful and elegant” it was, but I love the line “[an] account of an ordinary man’s unexpected and reluctant descent into heroism,” because that’s exactly how it was. It was a very good story. When I first started it, I got just one chapter in and sort of felt like, ohhh, do I want to read another difficult story about WW2? And that put me off picking it up again for a week (I was also pretty busy last week)…until yesterday…and then I couldn’t put it back down. My only criticism would be…they were little bits of “modern trashy novel” interspersed here and there, as though Belfoure’s publisher had said, “It’s too serious! Sex it up a little bit!” That just didn’t feel genuine given the time frame and the world at that time, but…it was only a few bits. I noticed them, rolled my eyes and kept on reading. I give it a solid 4.