Right now

Right now...* 

*(A (mostly) monthly series/meme.  Explanation of how this started & my inspirations in my first "Right now" post, here. Also my first (similar) "The Current" post, here.)

October was busy month!  The weather turned colder, the leaves on the trees (finally) turned colour, we (eventually) turned on the heat, and I reluctantly donned long pants, long sleeves and socks. :)  We spent some quality time with family on a couple of occasions, too.  

This month, we: 

• Went with dh to the supermarket for groceries and takeout soup or pizza slices for lunch (Oct. 6th, 13th, 20th & 27th). 
• Celebrated (Canadian) Thanksgiving with dinner at BIL's, together with the nephews, their wives and kids (Oct. 11th).  :) 
• Drove into midtown Toronto to our longtime optometrist's office (Oct. 15th). Both of us were suffering from dry, itchy eyes, and mine had become gritty and blurred and the lids puffy and red. I looked like I'd been crying for weeks.  :p   
• The earliest I could get an appointment with our usual doctor was mid-November (!), but his associate was able to see us on Oct. 15th.   
• We both walked away with prescriptions for drops and ointments (and were very impressed with her). She made comments and asked questions that clearly indicated she'd read my file!
• Stopped at the drugstore en route home to fill the prescriptions. 
• Returned for a follow-up visit on Oct. 22nd (and will be back again on Nov. 5th). Stopped at the drugstore en route home again to fill ANOTHER prescription...!  
• Headed to the mall for walking & shopping (Oct. 7th, 14th & 21st). 
• En route home on Oct. 21st, stopped briefly at Canadian Tire, Chapters (bookstore) and the supermarket for takeout pizza slices. 
• Spent a sunny fall afternoon at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, where I have a membership. Toured the exhibits, strolled over to the artists' cemetery on the property (resting place for six of the Group of Seven, as well as the McMichaels themselves), had tea and some yummy lemon loaf in the cafe, and enjoyed the beautiful fall colours. 
• Had lunch and spent the afternoon at Younger Nephew's new house along with his parents (BIL & SIL) and Older Nephew & his family (Oct. 25th). :)  
• Stayed up late several nights (really, REALLY late, one night in particular...!) watching the World Series! (See "Watching," below.)  
• Drove out to our former community for our annual checkups with our family doctor (Oct. 30th).
• Went for brunch before heading home (see "Eating").  
• Marked 18 years writing this blog (!!!) (Oct. 31st).

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Also right now:  

Reading: This was a good reading month!  :)  I finished 6 (!) books in October -- probably my best reading month in a long time! (all reviewed on this blog, as well as Goodreads & StoryGraph, & tagged "2025 books"). 

• "We Solve Murders" by Richard Osman (the November book for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club).  (4.5-5 stars, my review)  
• "The Ministry of Time" by Kaliane Bradley.(4.5-5 stars; my review)
• "The Two Mrs. Abbotts" by D.E. Stevenson. Chapter-by-chapter reading & discussion with my D.E. Stevenson group, which started Aug. 4th and runs through mid-October. (3.5-4 stars; my review here.  Original 2015 review here;  most recent review here).  
• "Deliver Me From Nowhere" by Warren Zanes. (4 stars;  my review.) 
• "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, part of another "slow readalong" with Footnotes and Tangents. Started Sept. 29th, finished Oct. 27th (5 weeks). (3 stars, my review.)  
• "The Safekeep" by Yael van der Wouden.  (4 stars;  my review.) 

This brings me to 33 books read in 2025 to date, 73% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 4 books behind pace to meet my goal.  :) 

Current reads: 

• "Childless: A Woman and a Girl in a Man's World" by Fabiana Formica.  This one is beautifully written, but slow going, and I was reading it (or trying to...!) at Mom & Dad's, where there were a lot of distractions. I've put it aside for the moment to focus on other reading priorities, but I've completed 33% to date.
• "L.M. Montgomery and Gender," an essay collection edited by E. Holly Pike & Laura Robinson. Slowly working my way through, in between the other books...! 

Coming up: Most of my book groups have their next reads plotted out for a few months in advance -- and listing them here helps me keep track of what I should be reading next. ;)  

• For my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club:  
• "I Am Half Sick of Shadows" by Alan Bradley (December) 
• "How To Kill Your Family" by Bella Mackie (January)
• "Ex-Wife" by Ursula Parrott (February) 
• "The Safekeep" by Yael Van der Wouden (March) 
• "You Are Here" by David Nicholl (April) 
• For my D.E. Stevenson group:  This list of upcoming books should keep us busy through 2025 or even into early 2026!  (A couple of the books are ones we covered shortly after I first joined the group back in 2014 -- you know you've been around for a while when....!)  
• Crooked Adam. Our group read will begin on Nov. 3rd and end on or before Feb. 3 (2026).  I have never read this one, and we've never tackled it during my 11 years with the group! so I'm looking forward to it!  
• The Four Graces, likely beginning in mid-February 2026 (original 2015 review here). 

• Footnotes and Tangents slow readalongs for the rest of 2025 & 2026 include:
• "The Blue Flower" by Penelope Fitzgerald (starts Nov. 3rd, runs for 7 weeks). 
• "Midnight’s Children" by Salman Rushdie (January–March) 
• "Regeneration" by Pat Barker (April–May)
• "The Inheritors" by William Golding (June)
• "Treacle Walker" by Alan Garner (July)
• "The Children’s Book" by A.S. Byatt (September–December)

(Not sure I will be doing all of these?  "War & Peace" and Hilary Mantel's Cromwell Trilogy will also be available again to paying subscribers who are interested!) 

A few recently purchased titles (all in digital format, mostly discounted ($5-10 or less) or purchased with points): 

• "The Man Who Ran Washington" by Peter Baker & Susan Glasser 
• "Rotten" by John Lydon 
• "Rosalind Franklin" by Brenda Maddox 
• "Gimme a Crisis" by Howard Green 
• "On the Hippie Trail" by Rick Steves 
• "Gone to an Aunt's" by Anne Petrie 
• "Q: A Voyage Around the Queen" by Craig Brown 
• "The Art Spy" by Michelle Young 
• "Murder on the Marlow Belle" by Robert Thorogood 

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Watching: 

• The World Series!! I normally don't pay a lot of attention to baseball, BUT, the home team (not just for this city but the entire country), i.e., the Toronto Blue Jays, made it into the playoffs -- beat the fabled New York Yankees in the first round in early October...then won the American League title vs the Seattle Mariners, and are now in the World Series vs the LA Dodgers. Game 7 of 7 is TONIGHT, here in Toronto. (eeekkkk....)  
• I couldn't help but think of our longtime family doctor, a legendary pitcher who possessed four (!) World Series rings from three different teams, and who died earlier this summer. He must have been smiling somewhere...  
• The Jays, of course, were back-to-back World Series champions in 1992 & 1993, and I remember staying up way too late on work nights watching! 
• This time around, we lasted 15 innings until 2 AM (!) for Game 3 in Los Angeles -- the second-longest World Series game ever played, 18 innings (!) -- before going to bed (!) (before things finally wrapped up around 3 AM!).  And then we got to stay up late again (not QUITE so late, thankfully...!) the next night -- and three more nights this week after that!  
• I went to one of the victory parades for the Jays' previous victories -- I think it was the one in 1993 -- with my boss on our lunch hour, as it was held on a work day and the parade route was not too far from our office. It was so crowded by the time we got to a spot, not too far from the SkyDome (it will never be the Rogers Centre to me), that we couldn't see a thing except the tops of some players' heads in their convertibles as they passed by. Oh well. 
• We stopped at a street vendor en route back to the office to get a hot dog for lunch -- and I think I got food poisoning because I was sick to my stomach later that afternoon. I've been wary of street vendors ever since then...!  
• One of dh's cousins and another cousin's husband had a pair of season tickets in those days & were present for the World Series games played at home, including the winners. Occasionally they'd give regular season tickets to other cousins, and dh & I went a couple of times (although we haven't been to a game in decades). The seats were in the nosebleed section, and we always got totally sunburned (with the retractable roof open), but it was always a fun day out nevertheless. 
• We also got tickets and took my parents when they came to visit one year, early in our marriage -- and dh memorably took Younger Nephew when he was about 11 or 12 and got tickets through his Little League team -- his older brother had a karate tournament that afternoon, so his parents were busy there. He spent Friday night with us, and then he & dh took the commuter train into the city to the game the next afternoon. (His parents & brother picked him up later that evening.)  It was his first Jays game, he was totally enthralled, and dh was tickled to be able to share that moment with him.  
• Figure skating: It's Grand Prix season (heading into the Olympics in Milan in February), and so far, two competitions have been held, in France and in China. Skate Canada is this weekend, in Saskatoon. I don't watch the Grand Prix events religiously, or at least as much of each competition as I used to (and, needless to say, the World Series is taking precedence this weekend...!), but between U.S. & Canadian TV coverage and the CBC's online streaming, I've been able to watch at least some of the events.  
• Upcoming events include NHK in Osaka, Japan (Nov. 7-9),  Skate America in Lake Placid, New York (Nov. 14-16), and the Finlandia Trophy in Helsinki, Finland (Nov. 21-23). 
• The final will be in Nagoya, Japan (Dec. 5-8). .  
• I watched the first episode of "The Gold" on Masterpiece Mystery (PBS), earlier this month, but forgot it was on the second week. Oh well, it was a little confusing anyway -- so many characters to keep straight, trying to decipher all the different accents...!  Interesting (true!) story, though!
• I watched the first two episodes of "House of Guinness" on Netflix with SIL & dh's cousin's wife while at their cottage in September, but haven't watched any more episodes on my own. (Yet?)   

Playing:  

• Heardle Decades: Stats as of Oct. 31st: 
• Heardle 60s: 73.6% (797/1083, 319 on first guess), down 0.4% from last month. Max. streak: 15.
• Heardle 70s: 76.3% (629/824, 356 on first guess), down 0.5% from last month. Max. streak: 18. 
• Heardle 80s: 40.7% (281/690, 101 on first guess), up 0.6% from from last month. Max. streak: 5.
• Heardle 90s: 32.6% (257/788, 68 on first guess), up 0.5% from last month. Max. streak: 5. 
• NYT Connections: 
•  As of Sept. 30th, I'd played 428 games and won 88% of them, including 220 "perfect puzzles" with zero errors, including 10 where I got the most difficult/purple category first.  Maximum winning streak:  45 (unchanged). Current streak: 30. 
• By Oct. 31st, I'd completed 459 games and won 88% of them, including 241 "perfect puzzles" with zero errors, including 12 where I got the most difficult/purple category first.  Maximum winning streak: 45 (unchanged). Current streak: 16. 

Listening;  Someone down the hall from us has a new baby. How do we know? There was an "It's a Boy!" balloon fastened to their door.  And we occasionally hear him crying or babbling. Fortunately, not too often and we're far enough down the hall that it's not too loud! (I don't think I would have handled this anywhere near as well, 25-ish years ago..!) 

Likewise -- another neighbour has a new puppy!  We know because (a) we occasionally hear him barking and (b) we've run into them entering or exiting the elevator, and were introduced.  :)  Likewise, it's not often enough or loud enough to be annoying. He's an adorable little golden doodle/ball of fluff, and even if he was more annoying than he is, you can't be too mad looking at that cute little face!  

Following:  

Eating/Drinking:  

• As I've mentioned before, we achieved our goal of lowering our cholesterol levels in late January, after less-than-stellar bloodwork (in fall 2024) earned us both serious chats with our family doctor. We've been trying to maintain/improve on those numbers (and lose/keep off some extra pounds) since then, by eating healthier and moving at least a little more.    
• I ended the month 0.6 pounds heavier than when it started (boo, hiss...). But overall, I'm down about 12 pounds since this time last year (dh has lost more than 20), and a little over 24 pounds from my heaviest-ever weight a few years ago. 
• We just saw our family doctor for checkups a few days ago, and will be doing some new bloodwork soon, so we'll see what the cholesterol numbers have to say...! 
• We brought out the crockpot on Oct. 5th for the first time since last spring for easy chicken & dumplings. (The first time I made this, it was pretty salty, so I now use low-fat/low-salt soups & broth, and go easy on the added salt.) 
• We celebrated Thanksgiving at BIL & SIL's with our nephews and their families on Oct. 11th. Like last year, they ordered dinner from the local supermarket:  turkey breast, mashed potatos and a root vegetable medley with gravy and cranberry sauce. There was lasagna (traditional tomato & meat sauce along with a pesto option for me) from another local eatery, SIL made salad and stuffing from a box, and the nephews brought pies for dessert. It wasn't quite my family's usual turkey dinner, but it wasn't bad either, and we continued to eat turkey for the next two days (!) -- SIL sent us home with plenty of leftovers!  (The kids were both having dinner the next day with their respective in-laws and did not take any, so...!)  
• Lunch at Younger Nephew's new home on Oct. 25th included pasta alfredo, pork tenderloin, roasted potatos & root vegetables, salad, and an apple cake and melon for dessert. Yum! 
• We stopped off at our favourite local brunch place, en route home from our annual check-ups with our family doctor on Oct. 30th, for omelettes & home fries (Western for him, ham & cheese for me). 
• We also indulged in some of our usual takeout meals for lunch once or twice a week, plus Saturday night dinners, including rice bowls, soup and pizza slices from the supermarket, and Swiss Chalet (rotisserie chicken with baked potatos).

Wearing:  I finally caved and had to abandon my capris & sandals, mid-month, for longer yoga pants/jeans, socks and shoes. :(   I've still been wearing short-sleeved T-shirts, but I've had to put on a cardigan over them lately...! 

Buying (besides books, lol):  Continued to purchase Canadian products (or from Canadian companies), as much as possible ;) (albeit I will admit I'm not as much of a purist as some people seem to be...!).  

Plane tickets to be with my family at Christmastime. (Ouch -- travel within Canada is NOT CHEAP, especially at holiday time...!)   

Ordered my "Favourite Things" box (formerly known as the Advent Calendar) from my favourite sterling silver jewelry maker.  :)  I'll get it in late November. 

Canadian Tire gift card as a housewarming present for Younger Nephew & family. (It sells a lot more than tires, lol -- it's kind of a combination Home Depot/Walmart/auto supply store.) 

Started stocking up on presents for the great-niblings' upcoming birthdays (both Little Great-Nephews -- one in mid-November and one just before Christmas) and for Christmas. 

Found a cute Christmas-y photo frame and placemats at Homesense.  

And I already bought my Christmas cards!  Saw some I liked at Shoppers Drug Mart and decided to grab them while I could!  (Fingers crossed that Canada Post doesn't go on strike again...!)

Noticing:  ...in the shower, a few days ago, a weird black spot on the edge of my right second toe nail/cuticle. It almost looks like I put a black dot there with a Sharpie. There's gel/shellac polish on the nail, so it's hard to see just how big the spot is, and whether it extends under the polish/nail as well.  

I initially panicked -- the brother of my high school best friend died at age 40 from melanoma that started under one of his toenails and spread before they figured out it was more than just a weird nail fungus. :(  And then I wondered whether it was some weird reaction to the gel polish, or the UV light they use to cure/dry it. (I don't normally get gel polish, but the nail tech talked me into it... it was more money, of course = bigger tip for her.)  

But then I remembered that I stubbed my toe -- more than once! -- on the leg of the bed at the cottage when we were there a few weeks ago. I don't remember if it was that particular toe, but I remember one of my other toenails turning black/purple before fading -- and eventually falling off completely -- after I banged it once, years ago. It was several months before that bruise faded and the new nail began to grow in. The more I look at it, the more I think that's probably what it is.  

Anyway, I've been referred to a dermatologist for rosacea issues (related to the eye issues I've been having lately) :p so I will get the polish removed before my appointment (in mid-December) and ask him to have a look while I'm there. (I showed my family dr when I was there a few days ago, and he said it didn't look like a melanoma to him, more likely a bruise, but to definitely ask the dermatologist.)  

Wondering:  Whether I'm going to need more eye surgery (on my left eye this time). :(   Hoping that won't be the case...! 

Prioritizing: Taking care of my eyes, taking all my meds & drops, etc. 

Anticipating: Getting our flu and covid shots tomorrow morning.  And being tired, after staying up late watching the World Series tonight, the time change tonight, getting up early to drive to the clinic, and the effects of the shots themselves, lol.  (I guess I could have timed things better -- we could have gotten the shots next weekend too -- oh well...!) 

Enjoying: The beautiful fall colours (which finally made an appearance, mid-month!), and the morning light on them. 

Appreciating: Being Canadian (more than ever...!).  

Loving:  Seeing photos of the great-niblings in their Halloween finery before heading out for trick-or-treating.  :)  

 

Trying: Not to dwell on things, especially things that aren't in my control. 

Wanting: A Blue Jays victory tonight (and it wouldn't hurt if it was at a decent hour...!  lol).  

                              

Feeling: A little dazed by how quickly the year has gone by so far/is going...!  Sad that the time change will bring darkness with it even earlier in the evening from now through the winter solstice. A bit stressed, thinking of all the things I need to do before we had west to see my family at Christmastime.  Thankful that I'm retired, and that year-end stuff at work is no longer among those things...!