Happy List: October 2022

October just whizzed by, I’ve hardly had time to stop and think. It’s been crazy. Long time readers of this blog will know that October is my joint favourite month along with December. I just love Halloween and all things spooky! I feel like I haven’t had chance to embrace spooky season quite as much as I would have liked this year because the house has been upside down with the start of our kitchen renovation, but more on that soon though! Let’s recap October shall we?!

I may not have gone full on spooky as I would have liked but it’s not stopped me bringing my Halloween decorations out and if I do say so myself, I’ve had some pretty banging autumn and Halloween content on the blog. None-the-less, October has been pretty great and very exciting with the start of our kitchen renovation.

1. We may as well start with the kitchen hadn’t we because it’s pretty much taken over my life at this point! We first started looking at a new kitchen back in April so it feels like we’ve been waiting ages to get to this point. Well I suppose we have been waiting 6 months! I originally planned for work to start at the end of August/beginning of September but Josh’s dad is fitting the kitchen for us so we decided to wait until he had some annual leave coming up so he could have a good run at it. It certainly hasn’t been without its problems and it’s been very stressful at times but I’d say we’re probably around 70% done. Don’t get me wrong there’s still plenty to do and progress is slow now my father-in-law is back at work but I’m crossing my fingers it will all be done for the beginning of December. It’s the biggest project we’ve ever done in the house so it’s been a bit of a learning curve. I’ve always hated the kitchen though so I can’t wait for it all to be done and have a beautiful room that I actually want to spend time in.

2. My autumn loving heart was made very happy in October when I finally bought myself the Joanie Clothing jumper of dreams. I’d had my eye on the woodland fair isle jumper for a year or two now but at £55 I hadn’t taken the plunge. Anyway Joanie had a 30% off everything promotion for their birthday so I jumped at the chance to get the jumper. Oh my goodness I’m so glad I did! Not only is the pattern absolutely gorgeous but it’s one of the nicest quality jumpers I’ve ever owned. It’s super soft and cosy.

3. If you read these Happy Lists every month then you’ll know that this year I finally gave up biting my nails and now I go for regular nail appointments. It’s honestly one of my favourite forms of self care. My last two nail designs have been quite autumnal so for Halloween I wanted something a little different but still spooky themed. Enter pink pumpkins! How frickin’ cute are they?! Nice and Halloween themed but with a girly twist.

4. Earlier this year I started book quote journaling. I wanted to make some cute pages for my autumn reading list as I’ve been flying through books but I just haven’t had the time or the workspace to get it done. Anyway I managed to get some pages done towards the end of the month and it was such a nice and relaxing couple of hours. I’ve always loved looking at peoples journal page designs but I definitely don’t have the art skills for some of the beautiful designs you see. However I’m enjoying my own little scaled back version of journaling and finding what works for me.

5. I bought my first ever Loungefly bag! Fellow Disney and Star Wars fans will get the hype around Loungefly bags. They’re pretty expensive but there’s some super cute designs. I always said I’d treat myself one day. Well next year we’re going to Star Wars Celebration and I’d seen a very cute Grogu Loungefly online that I’d considered buying for Celebration. However when I saw the bag in real life it was just adorable so I snapped it up! Zero regrets and I can’t wait to wear it at Celebration.

6. Someone else who spectacularly got into the Halloween spirit was one of my cats, Buddy. One evening I had a bath with one of my Lush Halloween bath bombs, it was great but very glittery. Before I had chance to clean the bath out Buddy jumped in and started rolling around. He was absolutely coated in glitter, the photo doesn’t even accurately show how bad it was. It went everywhere! It was very funny but an absolute nightmare to clean. He did look fabulous though.

So that was October, spooky season has officially ended for another year. I’m ready to get festive now though. I’m really, really looking forward to Christmas this year and the run up is always my favourite things. It’s been a tough couple of years at Christmas what with the pandemic and a few other life things too but this year has been so bloody brilliant and it’s made me so excited to just have a really wonderful Christmas this year! I’m also ready for my kitchen to be finished too so fingers crossed that happens in November!

What did you get up to in October? Let me know in the comments!