Okay so this post a wee bit late, yes, but I needed it to be late so it could fit my schedule for November…I swear I did not procrastinate this post, I actually wrote it a couple weeks in advance, but alas, the struggles of a blogger.

Anywhosies.

The month of October was pretty busy—mostly school-wise, but that’s fine. However, there are a handful of things that y’all might find interesting!

So first:

What did I do?

To start off October with a bang, my family went to the Oktoberfest that was being held in our town. They just happened to have a petting zoo with labradoodle puppies for sale. My mom has wanted a second dog and my dad agreed that we could get another one after he gets a job since getting out of the military, but we assumed that it’d be a few months afterwards.

Well, three days after he got a job, we went to this fair, my mom saw they had labradoodle puppies for sale, and we bought a dog right then and there.

The next day, we came back to Oktoberfest to pick up our nine-week old labradoodle puppy. He was the last one to be sold because his hair was straight instead of thick and curly like his siblings, but we think he’s cuter because of that. We named him Radley—after Boo Radley from To Kill A Mockingbird, phenomenal book by the way—and he’s a super sweet, snuggly, and skippy puppy!

For the most part, that’s about all I’ve done this month. Me and my mom did, however, go to a concert! It was the Grace and Glory tour with Crowder, Passion music, Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes, and then Louie Giglio—who, if you remember, I wrote about in my Stars and Whales: How Great Is Our God post—preached! It was amazing and I’m so glad I got to go. (Fun fact: my mom ran into the leader of Passion, Kristian Stanfill, twice on her way to get water…so they are basically best friends now.)

So here’s some pictures from this month’s activities!

That’s about it!

Also: Halloween. I did not dress up but I did go to this Halloween fair thing in my cousin’s town and hung out with them and ate my brother Huck’s candy. So that was good.

What did I read?

Okay y’all. Get ready to have your little mind-skulls blown.

Willow read not one, not two, not three, but FOUR whole books.

First I read We Were Liars by E. Lockhart and loved it! Dude, the unreliable narrator is probably my favorite kind of narrator and way of storytelling.

The other book I read was All the Blues in the Sky by Renée Watson—and this book was SO good. It was kind of a poetry-ish read, and about a girl whose best friend had died in a car accident—on her (the narrator’s) birthday. So good, so sad, and I love it. (If you have any sad book recs, please please send them my way!)

I also read Watch Us Rise and This Side of Home by the same author. They were also pretty good, but not as nearly good as All the Blues in the Sky.

Then I read Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter, and in all honesty, I had low expectations. It’s a contemporary romance and it’s really popular, not to mention it has the enemies-to-lovers trope, but it was actually really good! (It helps that I LOVE the enemies-to-lovers trope.) It wasn’t spicy, it was a cute read, and an easy one at that. So all in all, after reading a sad book, a good fit for me.

And then finally, I read Louder Than Hunger by John Schu. It’s also a poetry-ish book and y’all. The boy—Jake—has anorexia, OCD, and depression and it’s just an emotional and pretty sad book, and while it didn’t make me cry (very few books do) it was very eye-opening and really touched me. (Also—I won’t spoil—something in the book happened that I totally knew was gonna happen but it was just as shocking and devastating. I loved it.) Highly, highly recommend.

OH HEY. You know what other book I read?!?!

It FINALLY came in the mail and so I got to read it! (I mean, I read it very briefly on the document I was sent, but I didn’t actually read it…just swiped through the pages on my phone. So this time was actually enjoyable reading it, haha!)

Moving on.

What did I listen to?

Okay okay okay. Let me just say: ELLA LANGLEY IS MY NEW FAVORITE ARTIST. So I’m not gonna put all her songs on my top ten list, but let me just say….Ella Langley!!

Anyways. My top ten songs have been pretty all over the place, but here you go! (No, this is not in order…)

1. always you by Sierra Carson and Dalton Mauldin
2. Navy Eyes by Midnight til Morning
3. Chemicals by Shaya Zamora (y’all have heard how much I love him and this song just makes me love him even more)
4. golden hour – Ruel Remix by JVKE and Ruel
5. Better Me For You (Brown Eyes) by Max McNown
6. Beautiful Lies by Tanner Usrey and Ella Langley
7. 28 by Zach Bryan
8. Wish I Didn’t Know Now by Ella Langley
9. Who We Are by Hozier
10. Minor by Gracie Abrams

That’s all I got. Moving on!

What did I write?

Okay y’all. Hear me out.

I haven’t done very much??? Question mark??

So I’ve obviously been writing for this, duh. I also wrote a guest post for Noah at Writing For A Better Tomorrow (poor dude waited for literal weeks for me to start, finish, and then edit)! I’ve also been doing a bunch of writing for my fiction Honors Academy class and IEW university writing class.

Speaking of which, I’m actually so excited for my next IEW assignment. We’re writing personal essays and y’all, I wrote a personal essay last year and I LOVED it. I get to write about what I’m passionate about and have to make it stand out from the hundreds of other personal essays?!?! Don’t ask me why, but I’m so stoked.

If you read my latest post, then you’ll also see what I have to say about my writing.

Anywhosies.

What happens next?

Well, like I said: I’m not going to be posting as regularly in November and here’s why:

1. If you didn’t know, I’m doing Jesus Writing Month. In thirty days, all those participating will be writing, editing, or completing their novel.
2. I’m doing C.S. Lewis fiction writing program that is from November 3rd to December 3rd and I’ll be using that to help me finish my novel.
3. I’m already taking two writing classes for school—one fiction class and one college essay-writing class. Add on the C.S. Lewis program and JWM, that’s a LOT of writing…so including my blog would be a wee bit too much for me…

So that’s what’s going on.

But in my personal, non-writing life, well, there’s several things going on!

First of all (and obviously the most important. Kidding, kidding), your girl is gonna be seventeen.

Also. One fun thing for my birthday that my parents have generously agreed to:

Yup.

And for my birthday, one of my best friends (subscribe to his Youtube channel and follow his Instagram) is driving down to stay a couple nights! So I’m super excited for him to come so that we can be dumb teenagers together.

A couple days before my birthday, my family is going to a NEEDTOBREATHE concert which is gonna be awesome! I’m really excited, NEEDTOBREATHE is one of my favorite bands and this is their last tour before one of the original band members leaves. So it should be good stuff.

And then there’s Thanksgiving! My family on my dad’s side is coming down for Thanksgiving which is going to be so fun—there’s two new babies in the family, so it’s going to be great getting to see them and my other little cousin!

I wanna say that’s it—but we’ll see next month if anything unexpected happens!

Thanks for reading! Hope you all had a great October! What did you guys do? Any fun costumes for Halloween? I would love to hear (and maybe even see pictures??) in the comments!
~Willow