October 2023 is here, which means everything I’ve been planning for the last couple months is finally happening!

Read all about it:

October 4th, 2023

Work:

Work is going well. I’ve been in a lot of meetings lately, but I’m making progress, taking on new tasks, and no one has complaints. Nothing really new going on. My Hullabaloo U class has picked up a bit in terms of how much work we have because I have to start scheduling 1:1 meetings with each of my students, but it isn’t too bad. I enjoy teaching the class more than I thought I would so that’s a plus.

My boss is under the impression we are almost done with the project I’ve been “working on” since November and I literally CANNOT wait until it’s over. This is so incredibly stressful because I just don’t know what I’m doing and I feel really confused most of the time. Thankfully he’s been hand holding me for the last month and it’s helping a lot, but I want it OFF MY PLATE! So pray for me. 🙏

Personal:

Life has really been on GO lately 🏃🏃🏃 When I’m not at work, I’m at the gym, walking my dogs, or working on my blog. I’ve felt really motivated lately in all areas so that’s great. I hope I maintain the momentum.

First and foremost, my best friend had her baby last weekend and I cannot wait to go meet that little chunk. 😍

I happened across a new Facebook group for women travel bloggers and I am sooo excited to be a part of this group. They’re providing opportunities to engage with each others content, social media, and providing general advice about blogging. Some of them are new to blogging like me, and some are WELL ESTABLISHED bloggers who have thousands of subscriptions. I’ve spent a lot of time lately participating in this group and putting myself out there to hopefully gain followers, subscribers, and overall engagement.

I haven’t really been watching any TV lately, so my “What I’m Watching” section at the bottom of my home page is standing pretty still, but I’m okay with that right now. I actually cancelled my Netflix account for a couple months because we’re going to be so busy in the next month or two I won’t really have the time. Plus, my bf and I both have Netflix so we’ll still have it if we need it. (He’s not paying for his so before you come at me for being financially irresponsible…know that. haha).

Boone has still been a bit of a handful in terms of potty-training and not ripping my arm off on walks, but we’re still working on it. Jay and I have considered potentially reaching out to a local dog training company, but we’re not set on it 100% just yet. 🐕

Bentley is just being good ol’ Bentley boy. He’s been a great big brother to Boone and I’m so happy they have each other to play with every day. 🐕

Travel:

This past weekend I was able to go on my first camping trip of the season! 🏕️ I drove about 2 hours out to Palmetto State Park in Gonzales, Tx. I’m currently working on writing a post about that trip! COMING SOON! However, if you’d like to look at some of my photos now, check out my Instagram!

This coming weekend, Jay and I are flying up to Michigan for my best friend’s wedding ceremony. My best friend and I typically travel somewhere together once a year, but we didn’t have the opportunity last year, so I’m super excited to see her. I’ve also never met her fiancé despite them being together over a year so I’m excited to meet him too. 👰🤵

I wrote a fun blog post about our travels together some time ago. You can read it here!

While we’re in the mitten, we unfortunately will not be making it up to the city I grew up in to see my mom or others I keep in contact with, but we will get to spend a little time exploring Detroit and I couldn’t be more excited to show Jay around a city that I truly love!

On Sunday, we’re going to a Detroit Lions game, which is also super exciting! We’re going with two people I was friends with in undergrad that I haven’t seen in almost 8 years so that’s incredible. I’m so excited they were able to join us at this game and see each other again.

We’ll get back from our trip home on Monday and we’ll go to another wedding next weekend and I’ll fly out to El Paso next weekend as well. I’ll update you more on that next week.

October 11th, 2023

Work:

Work has been work. I’ve had a lot to do lately, but it’s going well. I’m out all next week so I’ve been doing a lot of preparation for my absence.

On Friday our department is hosting a bowling tournament for charity and I’ve signed up to be on a team. One of my team members made us t-shirts which are pretty cute. Since it’s in October we wanted it Halloween themed and bowling themed so here’s our result. They’re pretty cute. This will be my 4th year participating in the bowling event so I’m fairly certain it’ll be a good time.

Personal:

This past weekend Jay and I flew up to Michigan for my best friend’s wedding ceremony. It was our first time flying together and his first time to the mitten! The weather was a bit cold, but I think both the bride and groom had a great time and it was so good to see my best friend. It’s been a long time for us.

We were fortunate enough to have been able to stay with her mom and stepdad over the weekend and I always enjoy visiting with them. We watched football, baseball, and caught up on life.

On Sunday we went to our first Detroit Lions football game and it was AWESOME! I love being in stadiums and it was so cool to be part of the Lions season this year as they’ve historically not been very good and they’re really crushing it this year. Two of my friends from undergrad were able to join us at the game too so that was really nice!

After the game we had some time to hit up the Greektown Casino and lose more money than I’d like to acknowledge and walk around downtown Detroit. Of course, we had to take the iconic Spirit of Detroit statue photo (below). Photo creds to a guy who had limited photography skills but was kind enough to stop and assist anyway 😂

If you don’t know much about the city of Detroit, I encourage you to do some research, but this statue is a symbol of hope and progress through adversity as Detroit has been through some extremely tumultuous times due to racism, greed, power, and seriously corrupt politics. Yet, the Detroiters prevail!

I recently made a mistake in scheduling and accidentally signed up for two book clubs reading books at the same time AND one of the library books I’ve been waiting for came in too. I’ve been frantically trying to keep 3 story lines all together in my brain (which has proved to be quite challenging), but so far they’re all good so I’m here for it! 📚🤯

Travel:

Next up: A wedding on Saturday and a flight out to El Paso, Tx on Sunday! 👰 ✈️

Next week I’ll be attending a conference for Higher Education Administrators and I’m looking forward to networking and attending TACUSPA for the first time. After the conference, I’ll be staying in El Paso for a couple days to hike and camp the Franklin Mountains, Hueco State Park, and the kicker, Guadalupe Peak on Friday. I’ve been training for this for awhile so I feel ready, I’m just praying the weather is on my side.

October 18th 2023

Work:

Still going well. I’m making progress on my projects, I feel good about my position and what I’m doing for the team, and I’m still pretty happy. I’m actually in El Paso, Tx right now because of a work opportunity. I flew out here Sunday to attend the Texas Association of College and University Student Personnel Administrators (TACUSPA) conference… <- yes, that’s a long title.

The conference was nice, I always like going to conferences and networking, but I don’t know that I’d like to return. Although the sessions weren’t bad at all, I just didn’t find that too many of them relate to me in my role at the university nor were they geared toward personal/professional development that much. I did attend a few sessions I really liked, but I think the cost outweighed the benefit for me personally.

None-the-less, I got to spend some time with staff from my institution that I do not usually have the opportunity to interact with on a regular basis so that was nice too! Here’s a picture of the Residence Life staff from Texas A&M that attended the conference.

Personal:

Life is good.

I typically like to go out to local bars and breweries and what not when I travel for work, but this time, I’ve mostly gone back to the hotel and relaxed. I have a lot of reading to do, as mentioned in last week’s update, I accidentally signed up for 2 book club reads at the exact same time so I’m trying to get through and keep up with each group. 📚

I also have my big hike coming up on Friday and I want to be as rested and hydrated for it that I can. It’s funny because I was super nervous last week preparing for the hike and now that I’m here, I’m just ready to do it. The fear is gone, the excitement has set in, and I’m ready. 🤩

Travel:

I’m in El Paso! Of course I’ll be writing a whole post about my visit upon my return, so look forward to that.

Today I’m picking up my rental car, heading to a few museums, having lunch with a friend (from Michigan!) who lives here now, and then heading out to the Franklin Mountains to set up camp before coming back to the UTEP football game tonight! It’ll be a busy day for sure. 🍸🏈🏕️

I’ll be here until Saturday exploring the city, culture, food, and nature areas as much as I can. Can’t wait to share it all with you!

October 27th 2023 <– not a Wednesday, I apologize.

Work:

Not much new to report on for work since I was out of the office all last week and this week I’ve just been doing basic day-to-day tasks. I was invited to be a coach at the SWACUHO-U conference in two weeks, which is great, I was originally declined, but they had someone drop. However, it did add quite a bit to my plate as I now have to plan and coordinate travel and create an an hour and half long presentation for the conference. Let me get on that… this weekend probably haha.

A work goal I have recently created is to get an updated professional headshot. I didn’t realize until SWACUHO asked for a headshot that I haven’t done one since grad school, so I’d like to reach out to my organization to get that done here soon.

Something new happening at work that I’ve enjoyed – the department has decided to start implementing an accountability/thought share post-conference meeting for those that attended. All of us who went to TACUSPA got together to share our experience, nuggets of knowledge we brought back with us, and any ideas on how what we learned could be put into practice on our campus.

Personally, I think this should always been done when our department is forking out thousands of dollars for us to attend these conferences, but I’m glad the department has decided there’s value in knowledge sharing!

I found out that I will probably not be attending my favorite conference of the year next year because my entire team wants to go and someone has to stay back. My supervisor cannot stay back because he’s on the board and the others haven’t attended the last couple years, so I was the short straw. 😭

Since I will most likely not be attending that conference though, I have the opportunity to put in for something new and different so I’ve been gathering some resources from those around me and am actually very excited about the different opportunities out there for growth.

Personal:

Between Jay and I, we’ve had a lot of plans lately, but everything is going smoothly and we’re pushing through. It’s fun plans so it hasn’t been exhausting, just very busy. We made sure to prioritize us this month though and had a really nice date night this week.

I’m hoping this weekend I can go finally meet my best friends’ son that was born two weeks ago! I can’t wait to snuggle his cute little baby self. 👶🏽

My doggos are doing well. 🐕🐕 Boone is getting better at all things – sitting while he waits for his food, going to the kennel when we leave the house without panicking, and going outside for potty breaks. Bentley just go this haircut this week and is looking FRESH! My man went from homeless to adorable real quick.

I haven’t been working out this week, mainly because I’ve had serious blisters on my big toes from hiking Guadalupe last week and shoes haven’t really been an option, but I’ve been cycling at home (in crocs) so I’m still getting some fitness in, but I hope to get back to it this weekend. The blisters are healing nicely! 🙏

I’ve majorly been slacking (and by that I mean put an entire halt) on my homework for the last month so I desperately need to get back to that. I told myself I’m going to have to put down book club for next month and pick up this text book because I am BEHIND! 🕮🕮

Next week is Halloween and for the first time in years, I have no plans. My best friends who usually host Halloween are the ones who just had their baby soooo we’re bypassing it this year. I’m okay with that because we have been so busy and costumes can be pricey too.

We do however, have a Friendsgiving planned with Jay’s best friends next weekend that should be great. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (fall, food, football, friends)… I couldn’t be happier. 🍂🏈🦃

Travel:

As I wrote about last week, I was recently in El Paso, TX for work and then extended my travels to visit Franklin Mountains State Park and The Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

At Guadalupe I attempted, and succeeded, at hiking to the highest point in Texas (elevation of 8,751 ft). I am very proud to have completed it as it was the hardest hike I’ve ever done and took me 5.5 hours roundtrip to complete. I was well prepared but also had newer boots so I came back with some big blisters on both my big toes. The way down was really hard on the knees and feet.

None-the-less, I had an absolutely incredible time and I hope to get blog posts written about both parks soon.

That’s a wrap for October!