I need another weekend day! One with nothing to do…then again, today was already almost one of those days. And it was amazing!

I slept in, did some cross-stitch (my new thing), read, and took a walk. We went to look at a black cat in another neighborhood that we had heard about that looked like it could be Miles. And we found it, and here’s the thing…will we even know if we find him? I didn’t think this cat was him, but Louie just didn’t even know. And I could be wrong. We got kind of yelled at by a rude neighbor—we were petting this stray cat in front of her house and she came out to ask what we were doing, which okay, fine, but then she was super rude and said, that cat belongs to someone across the street, which is where the woman who messaged me on nextdoor about the cat LIVES. Sigh. I don’t know why people who hate other people live in cities, honestly. If I came out of my house to yell at everybody who stopped in front of my house to do something (pet the neighbor’s cat, pick up their dog doo-doo, pick up litter, tie their shoe, etc) I guess I would be pretty cranky too, as that would be time consuming.

Nonetheless. I don’t know. And we didn’t feel comfortable at that point taking the cat in the car and going to see, but I think maybe we can always go back another time?  Part of me says, of course I’ll recognize my own cat, but honestly, it’s been over 6 months and we only had him for 10 months and he was tough to get to know. I don’t know.

This weekend I have done a fair amount of Christmas planning. I know it’s early, but since I’m hosting my family, and I know December can be really busy, I want to be on track. I don’t know what we are doing for Halloween or Thanksgiving yet, but I know what we are doing for Christmas, AND I went ahead and made photo cards over the weekend. Snapfish was having a big sale (they have them a lot, to be fair) and this way I got the cards I wanted at a steep discount (I wouldn’t have bought them otherwise, at least not with the paper I did). So I’m a little crazy, but it’s also almost November, and soon I won’t feel too ahead of things!

We’ve watched more of The Handmaid’s Tale. I don’t want to spoil anything for you but I’ll just say I’m finding it more unbelievable, plot wise, and things are actually easier to watch because of that. We are only starting Season 3 now. I’m also listening to various podcasts (lately into Ben Franklin’s World), reading some mystery novels, rereading the Outlander series, and working on my turkey cross-stitch. I haven’t run this week as much as I planned to, but this coming week I will be. I haven’t been doing much practicing this semester at all…I just haven’t been feeling motivated, and I think it’s probably okay to take a break. I certainly play practically every day and I often play scales with my students and tons of demonstration, so even without practicing I probably play 30 to 60 minutes a day, and plus gigs. I should be doing more though, I suppose, but I’m more interested in doing hobbies and reading right now and I’ll just relax a bit more I think. If I felt my playing wasn’t good I’d practice more, but I feel like right now I feel just fine! Don’t tell my students…(then again, I’ll tell them, you too can take a break after 36 years of playing! As long as you keep playing your scales slowly.)

If I weren’t a musician I could have a relaxing weekend every weekend. Yet, that thought doesn’t motivate me to change careers, so I guess I’ll stay where I am. I do appreciate my relaxing weekends though!

This week looks to be pretty decent. I have social plans on Wednesday (as well as a standing weekly lunch date with a friend)plus there’s Halloween, and I’m not teaching at home that day. My teaching schedule this week is pretty busy on Mondays, Fridays, and every other Thursday, but otherwise Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and every other Thursday are decent. I used to wish I had more morning activities, but now I wish I had more mornings free to play catch up! Be careful what you wish for because you may get it! (I could still use more Sunday morning church jobs, as I find them fun and easy, but I won’t be worried about it).

I realize this blog post isn’t very interesting. I should have had a better theme before writing..I guess mostly it was about Miles. Did we see him today and just not know? I feel weird about that, but like I said, I didn’t really think it WAS him. But it could have been, I don’t know. The cat seemed sweet and friendly.

Sigh.

I should also really start working on my pile of “to be read” books rather than just adding more of them. I will make it a goal for November to read at least one more serious (aka nonfiction) book from the pile. Well, after I finish my library books