OCTOBER'S THEME: LORD GIVE ME STRENGTH!

Lately whenever I feel that Dan is being particularly difficult, I'll huff and puff rather loudly and obviously and say "LORD GIVE ME STRENGTH" and look up at the sky, to which he looks at me with obvious disdain and continues doing whatever he's doing. Now HE's started saying it back to ME and it's been a total joke around the household. We're constantly asking the lord to give us strength almost everyday this month, which is why I've coined October's theme as: LORD GIVE ME STRENGTH What's going on in October in particular? LOTS.

1. RENOVATIONS: this month Dan + I have undertaken renovations to our condo that we've talked about doing for years. We finally put the pedal to the medal and hired a contractor to upgrade our bathroom and kitchen.  What should have been something that's taken a week is likely going to be taking 2-3 weeks.  I guess I should have listened to everybody when they warned us that renovations would never be a smooth and easy project, but I was clueless about it. WELL, when you're left homeless for days and you don't know where you're going to go to the bathroom... reality sets in and you come to realize how wrong you were to ignore the warnings.  We're currently living in shambles and I don't think things will REALLY be officially 100% done until sometime in November.

Note: I can't even imagine what the stress of renovating a house would be like. We're living in a teeny tiny condo and we're not going to be done everything that needs to be done for weeks. How are we ever going to live in a house?!

2. WEDDING PLANNING: This has also been a source of stress for both Dan and I - particularly exacerbated because we need to finalize a date but there seems to be several steps that need to take place before we can even get there. These steps include:

a) Write a guest list so we have an idea of approximate people who would attend

b) Find a wedding planner - because aint nobody got time to plan their own wedding! That's why there are people who devote their careers to doing this professionally!

c) Short list potential venues and find out what their available dates are for next year

d) Finalize the venue and their availability which will unlock the magical date we will have our wedding

Note all the steps that have to take place just to decide a DATE. That's not even the other stuff, that's just picking the DAY we want to have our wedding.  We're currently on part C of this process - but if all these decisions that need to be made is indicative of what the rest of the wedding planning process is going to be like, then I repeat: LORD GIVE ME STRENGTH

3. HALLOWEEN:  Last year I worked on my costume for almost 2 weeks! I went to work as Sharknado - and it was spectacular. There were even flashing lights that made THUNDER NOISES when I pressed a button. Having won #1 last year, there's a lot of pressure (that I've put on myself) to BRING IT again this year.  This year I'm going for a different angle - TEAM COSTUME!

Up

Update as Halloween has since past: We didn't win but we got an honourable mention. Note - I feel like we were robbed of the #1 title because apparently the winning team did some sort of musical skit?? LAMES :P

4. MERCURY IN RETROGRADE: I know some people don't take astrology seriously... and for the most part I'm quite ignorant to it, but I couldn't ignore the major milestone that occurred this month - Mercury being in retrograde. What does that mean? Well from the little knowledge I know about it, it's this phenomenon that happens 3-4X a year when the planet Mercury passes by Earth which creates this illusion of backward movement. Mercury rules communication, clear thinking, truth and travel - so when it goes in retrograde than consider all of the above to be moving backward or breaking down as well. This time around, it took place between October 4th - 25th - which essentially meant that almost the entire month of October sucked (and I can confirm that most of it did indeed suck). I don't want to read too much into it but we've had a LOT of challenges with our renovations, particularly communication challenges, and I can't help but think that maybe I was feeling the effects of Mercury!

UPDATE: I started writing this post when it was still October, but since today is the first month of November I can't help but feel a sigh of relief! While November woke us up to a hella cold RUDE awakening today, I am committed to forgetting about the gong show that was October and praying that November requires less prayer from the lord!