Reading The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novel #2) by Elena Ferrante–as an audiobook–while I drive around in my car. I blasted through the first one in the series, My Brilliant Friend, once I started it, and I couldn’t wait a single minute to start the next one. Here’s to reading a series after it’s already published, so I don’t have to wait. Ever.

I also just unpacked War and Peace, so I can get back to my not-just-for-summer-anymore project reading that big ass book. I was enjoying it quite a bit before we started the move, so I’m looking forward to getting back into it again. My rules for War and Peace Project? Go slow. Feel free to get confused. Underline things. Reference online character guides whenever necessary. Call your best friend/former history teacher when you need help with Russia/France/Napoleon. I’m sure it will take me a long time to get through it, so you’re going to be hearing about W&P for a while, peeps.

Watching Justified every night with Eric. He’s been trying to get me to watch it for years, and I tried once before but a few random moments of violence put me off. Well, I gave it another shot, and I’m hooked. It’s hokey, and like Sons of Anarchy, it’s a total dude show. But it’s fluffy enough that I can play games on my phone and follow along, and it doesn’t give me nightmares or make me want to barf. So far the female characters are not written with a whole lot of complexity, which is not super. But Timothy Olyphant.

Other than that, I am just celebrating the crap out of the fact that we have satellite TV once more. During our month between houses, we gave up regular TV, and I failed the experiment miserably. I was not a nice person. I love TV. I need TV to be there for me. I need to tune in to Chopped when I’m bored or get sucked into a marathon of Naked and Afraid. So as you can imagine, there’s been a lot of Bravo happening since the reinstatement of my satellite privileges.

Eating pretty much all of the Halloween candy that I bought for Halloween. Whoops.

Drinking all the La Croix. Pamplemousse and Lime, specifically. Sugar-free to balance out the candy, duh.

Listening to all of the 90s music that I should have listened to in the 90s but wasn’t cool enough to know about. I love Chris Cornell (lead singer of Soundgarden), and for years I’ve listened to all of his music (solo, with various bands) with and because of Eric. All of the sudden my Chris Cornell Pandora station is introducing me to so many other bands and I’m like oh, this is what everyone knew about in high school when I just I listened to the same Sarah McLachlan and Cranberries CDs on repeat every day. So that’s fun.

Teaching Beowulf to high school kids for the first time in my career, and geeking out over it. There’s nothing better than sharing this story I love, and it was very cool to show them a picture of the manuscript in the British Library and talk about being there. You know I got a kick out of making them say “hwæt” too.

Wondering If my health is going to get better soon. And trying not to assign any meaning to how long it’s taking me to heal, because it doesn’t have to mean anything. Since I’m me, it’s hard not to overthink it. I’m just trying to accept this as what it is, and keep moving through it and keep doing my best in each day to take it easy.

Dreading Halloween. I just don’t love Halloween. I don’t really know why. It’s not my jam. Maybe because I’ve decided I’m pretty much done being out of my bed/house after it gets dark? That would also explain my ambivalent feelings about July 4th.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving Break. Pie, being home for a whole week, pie, naps, and more pie.