November 2021
Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a great November. It was a slow month for me, mostly because every day I had something to do. It ended up making time go by a little slower! I always appreciate not feeling like I’m losing time, so this month ended up being a very nice one.
I did so much this month that it’s hard to pick topics for this monthly post! I think I did my best, so let’s go ahead and get into it…
Matthew and his Girlfriend, Halo Infinite
Even though the new Halo, Halo Infinite, doesn’t come out until December 8th, the beta for the multiplayer came out this month. I’ve been looking forward to the release of Infinite mostly for my husband’s sake, so when they dropped the multiplayer I was very excited for Matt. Matt, of course, has been playing every day since it dropped.
Matt has a solid team, and we all plan on going to the first big Halo Infinite tournament in Raleigh, North Carolina in mid-December. The team was actually able to get sponsored by an organization. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be talking about it too much, but all I know is that he’s getting paid to play again!
Before I met Matt, while he was in high school, he was a professional Halo 3 player. Listening to him talk about how it was being in that e-sports world has always been fun. It’s a world that I know very little about, and it’s been really cool to watch him get back into the grind.
I believe right now the team doesn’t have enough Pro Points to be considered professional quite yet, but they are VERY close, from what I understand. It’s been inspiring to watch him follow his dream so passionately, so I hope that he’s able to make it to the main stage when we go to the big tournament in December!
Thanksgiving, Baby
Thanksgiving this year was very nice! We did our usual and went to Matt’s sister’s house. Her two youngest, the twins, remembered Matt and I for the first time (although they kept calling us “Ashley” and “Papa” from time to time, which are Matt’s other sister and his father, respectively). Once they figured out Matt and I’s names, they were attached to my hips like glue. Besides the food, playing with the little ones was my favorite part of the day!!
My dads and my sister came over on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and we had a very nice time just sitting and talking over all the delicious food we made. I see them pretty regularly, but not enough! We played Mario Party Superstars, and I took first pretty solidly. It was fun to play with my dad and West, his husband, mostly because my dad is super competitive and West is very calm and collected all the time. It was hilarious to watch my dad lose his mind over the game while West just shook his head at him.
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, and this year was really, really nice. It’s always a good time whenever family comes together, and I’m hoping Christmas can be just as wonderful as this Thanksgiving was.
Freya Best-Golubich and the Case of the Rotted Teeth
My lovely little baby cat, Freya, has always been stinky. She’s just a stinky cat. Last month, I noticed that her one fang was kind of…loose. Long story short, the tooth fell out into her food bowl and we made an appointment with a vet pretty much immediately. Freya has been stinky for so long because she had a rotten mouth! Many of her teeth were past the point of repair, and even though they did a very thorough job cleaning her mouth up, the vet had to take six of her teeth!
Before the vet, Freya was very indifferent to car rides. She was good enough that she could be out and about in the car, hanging out on my lap or in the backseat. After that initial appointment, I wondered if she would be cool the day I had to take her for surgery. I woke up really early for someone who works at 11am every day (I’m talkin’ 6:30am, which is normal for most people but totally not me) and took her to the vet to get her surgery done. She was not having it. I had to wrestle with her to get her into the carrier, and the whole five minutes there, she meowed. Freya never meows, so I knew she was not happy at all.
When we picked her up, the vet techs told us she was very uncooperative. It made sense…Freya is a Bad Cat most of the time, so it wasn’t surprising to hear that she was hard to get along with. They couldn’t take her bandage off because she was so mean! Later on in the night, after we brought her home, I had to take it off and it took a solid 30 minutes to even get her to come near me, let alone take off the bandage. Now, she’s got a cute little stripe where they had to shave her and put the IV in (we call it “The Boot” cause it looks like she’s got a little boot on).
She’s been very sleepy ever since the surgery, which makes sense to me because she’s healing. It’s been hard to watch her try and fail to eat hard food (I’ve been giving her soft food, of course, but she loves to eat MJ’s food). When she sleeps deeply, her tongue sticks out! And she drools a little bit more than she used to…but she’s healing well, I’d say. She’s not stinky anymore, either, which is nice!!
Driving Sucks
I made my driver’s license test appointment the other day! It’s in January, which gives me more time to practice driving in general. In general, I feel much better behind the wheel. It’s one of those things were I don’t really like it at all still, but it’s not as anxiety inducing as it once was for me. Of course, I’ll probably be a nervous wreck for my test, but that’s probably normal.
Not having a license hasn’t really affected me too negatively over these past years, but it’s been nice to be able to run down to the store real quick and not have to wait for the bus. I drove to my friend’s wedding in Dayton and didn’t really freak out until we were two minutes away (and that’s only because I didn’t know how the city roads worked and got turned around). I still suck at parking and maneuvering, but I’m much better than I was even just a few months ago.
Forcing myself to get behind the wheel and drive (almost) every day has been a good thing, long term wise. I have a feeling that driving will eventually be just another thing I do in my every day life. Being able to get over the anxiety that comes with driving has been a very slow process, but I’m proud of myself for making the driver’s test appointment and I’m proud of how much work I’ve done to get myself to the point where I could go take the test in the first place!!
Music Obsessions
I’m not going to lie…I haven’t really been paying attention to too much music news. I’ve been looking forward to “30” by Adele so much, that that’s kind of all I’ve cared about this month! It did not disappoint in the slightest. I knew I’d cry listening to it, but I didn’t expect to cry at the bus stop, or while getting ready to leave for the day, or taking a shower…the list goes on.
Adele’s voice is just so rich and emotional, you can’t help but connect with whatever she sings about. The fact that the whole album is about her divorce adds more emotional weight to everything she says. “My Little Love” and “To Be Loved” are definitely the most emotional songs on the album, in my opinion. Listening to her talk to her son, or monologue to herself, and then sing about how she has to put herself first and get out of the unhappy marriage she was in…it just took me out.
I put “Cry Your Heart Out” on the playlist this month because it’s my favorite song that doesn’t make me cry on “30”. I honestly had trouble filling out the rest of the playlist (“The Metal” was the only thing on there for at least two of the four weeks of the month), but I was able to flesh it out! There are some new-to-me songs on the playlist that my husband, as well as my best friend Erin, shared with me over the month. There’s also some of my old favorites from the past decade, a song by The Smiths that’s been in my head for a few weeks, as well as a few nice lofi tracks and a new-to-me version of “Bring Me To Life” from a recent Evanescence album.
If you’re interested in listening, you can do so here!!
That’s about it for the wrap-up this month! I hope you enjoyed reading about what I’ve been up to in November. If you’d like day-to-day every day, follow me on Twitter! Next month is the last month of 2021, which is CRAZY to me. Time just keeps moving along, no matter if we’re ready for it or not. I think I’m ready for 2022, but we’ll see how I feel this time next month!
Thank you for reading, as always, and I’ll see you here next week for something new!
