The Weekly Ramble – October 31, 2025

Today I’m just feeling off. Fears and worry are plaguing me, so much so that I’ve spent the last six hours ruminating. Time to be done with that!

(Yes, I’ve prayed, and journaled, and done my Bible study, and ready extra Scripture.)

It’s important to keep moving forward. The sun is shining. The heavy fog of the evening has lifted. So let’s do the next thing on the list.

I actually have a long list of things to photograph, a long list of things to write, and a long list of things to clean. It’s the age-old dilemma of competing lists!

We’ll tackle this ramble and wrap-up of the week/month first.

This month I’ve made a little more effort to be present on Instagram and see if the algorithm will budge. I’ve mostly shared things from the archives in my stories as well as my morning sunrise.

Pictured is not from today. We’ve had lots of fog this week so I didn’t get too many actual sunrises, though I did eat my breakfast on the balcony one morning and get light exposure.

Getting morning light used to be something that I did without fail. It’s been awhile since that was a regular practice, even though I’m usually up by 5 am. Maybe with tomorrow’s time change it will be easier to catch the light for longer than the time it takes to snap a picture.

I had fully intended to go to bed early all week — and I was tired enough by 4pm I could have! — but that didn’t happen. I thought about it last night and wondered if maybe the later bedtimes will make the time change feel easier? If what was 9 will now be 8, I’m thinking it might.

Anywho, here’s what’s been going down around here…

Last Friday I was craving English pickle so I made a double batch and the girls and I enjoyed it for many days on turkey sandwiches and with cheese and crackers. I divided the batch into smaller containers to freeze. This way we don’t get sick of it, but will crack open another jar when one of us gets the craving.

The weekend was pretty chill. I cleaned out our closet like I said I would. That kicked up a fair amount of dust and a little bit of sadness.

My body has changed shape so much over the last ten years and my wardrobe reflects it. There were several pieces that I had to be honest about, that they were just too small and trendy enough that it wasn’t worth keeping them on the off-chance that I will some day fit in them again.

Thankfully, Miss 17 liked them and I could give them to her and not feel bad about discarding them. Now I can live vicariously through my daughter getting joy out of some really cute clothes.

This year I’ve been using the Outfit Formulas app to keep up with the not-so-crazy trends in fashion. I got it for cheap during Black Friday last year. It’s very similar to the good old style challenges that they used to put out, only the capsule changes every month instead of every season.

I don’t think I will renew my subscription but it has been helpful especially as I navigate the post-skinny jeans years. I kept them all, by the way, as I have a vast collection of skinny jeans. They languish at the back of the closet, not because they don’t fit, but because I spent most of my childhood feeling outdated, so I don’t want to keep up that feeling.

I have struggled with the wide leg trends, but am finding my way, slowly. One of the things I learned after years of doing the style challenges is that you really do have to find the right pieces for your body type.

The front section of clothes in the closet is built on what’s featured in the app for November, more or less, with my overflow in the back section.

On Sunday Bryan and I visited a new-to-us church. Is it bad to say that we walked out ten minutes into the sermon? We did it in such a way as not to draw attention to ourselves, but wow! if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought the pastor was drunk.

He wasn’t, but his ranting was too crazed for me. Especially since we differed so strongly on our eschatological views.

I apologized to Bryan on our way to the car since it was my idea to visit that church in the first place and he said, “Why? I think that was really encouraging.”

What he meant was that it was great that it was my idea to leave. lol! He was encouraged that we were on the same page on those issues.

It may be a great church in many other ways, but how you view the end times does have an effect on how you view everything else. So the differences matter at some point along the line.

When we got home, I puttered with Sunday dinner. One of our kids doesn’t like drawing attention to his birthday. It’s in a couple weeks.

So, to assuage my mama feelings of needing to fawn on my child, I made his favorites, plunked an unwrapped present on his chair, and pretended it was his birthday even if we never said anything.

He commented several times how much he enjoyed the dinner (Shrimp Pasta, Caesar Salad) and the dessert (Lemon Pie – no meringue), so I know he was happy. I didn’t make him feel awkward, but I also got my way in making much of him, even if he didn’t know it.

The week itself went well – despite by major fatigue. Community college carpool, physical therapy, dermatology appointment, hair appointment, picnic lunch with B mid-week, and Bible study.

Miss 17 and I popped into World Market one day to see if there was anything to tempt me with their 20% off coupon. I am a sucker for ceramics.

I also love vintage-looking, 1950’s things, so the winking Santa was tempting. However, this is not my first rodeo when it comes to shaped mugs. You always need to look inside!

Not only does this style of mug have lots of contours, but they often have holes. Holes where cocoa, coffee, and worse can get stuck and mucked up in.

How do they propose that you wash out the hollow handle?! Please, people.

We once had six very cute snowman mugs that we busted out for Christmas every year. I always chucked them in the dishwasher and assumed all was well.

And then one Christmas our dishwasher was broken and we had to handwash. Yikes. The yuck that came out of the handles? I was horrified.

Nowadays, though I am a veritable sucker for a cute mug, I always inspect the inside. Lesson learned.

And that leaves us with today. I’m working through some mental distress and long to-do lists. It’s pizza night and Halloween.

It turns out last year was our last year of trick-or-treating. The days went fast.

Combining pizza night with answering the door will be tricky. I think the girls and I decided on certain doorbell hours and then we go on with our life. I’m kinda thinking of watching this movie, though I did hear one of the girls say she wanted to watch one of the less creepy Halloween movies.

Tomorrow is a new month, so I’m looking forward to a fresh start. How about you?

I’d love to hear what you’re up to this weekend! Leave a comment below and let’s chat.