October

12 Books

I read The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer.  It was on a list of books recommended for those who like the Outlander series. While it was no Outlander, I did enjoy it. Rather than traveling through time, the main character travels through parallel universes where she was born in different time periods. It’s worth a read if you like that sort of thing.

12 Recipes

To use the apples I got on this year’s trip to the apple orchard, I made caramel apple pork chops.  I give them a 7. They were easy and tasty, but did not blow me away.

12 Blog Posts

Click here to read about the mystery of the duck pajamas.

12 Ways to Meet People and 12 Fun Events in Chicagoland

This month I went to two events that both kind of fit in both of these categories. The first one was a group walk through the north side of Chicago. There is a meetup group that does several group walks per week, both in the city and in the surrounding suburbs, forest preserves, and trails. The pace was quite brisk, and I was sore afterward. While I enjoyed it, I likely won’t go back to many more, mostly because they are more about exercise than socializing.

The second one was a pumpkin carving party at a local community workshop. They have lots of tools available for use, like drills, ban saws, sanders, and lots of other things you can’t really have in a 1-bedroom apartment. I went to the pumpkin carving just to check out the space and the people there. I had a lot of fun carving my Harry Potter pumpkin.

12 Small Steps Forward in my Career

I gave a talk at the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference. It was a repeat of the talk I gave in Toronto, but for a much larger audience. It went ok, but not great. I should have put a bit more time into thinking about how to adapt it for a different style of presentation. I rushed it and was done very early. In retrospect, I wish I had been more thoughtful in my commentary about the problems I demonstrated. Oh well. Live and learn.

12 Crafts and Creations

A few days ago was my goddaughter’s birthday, so I finally get to post pictures of the alphabet blocks I made for her! Each one has the upper and lowercase letter and four pictures of things that start with that letter. I had such fun making these. Here are some of my favorites.

12 Pretty Things for My Apartment

I bought these pretty wall decals that are now above my bed and above the towel bar in my bathroom.

12 Things that Help Me Feel Good about My Appearance

I tried another set of acrylic nails, this time with accent designs on one finger on each hand. I got tons of compliments on these!

12 Grown-Up Things

After missing an Idina Menzel concert a couple of months ago because I forgot about it, I finally broke down and started using a personal calendar. It’ll take me a while to get used to adding things and checking it, but I do think this is a grown-up thing that needed to happen.