Good morning and happy Wednesday.

Can you believe another month has passed and it’s officially October and FALL. The weather outside has been GLORIOUS. The other day, it was 57* in my house when I woke up. Now that sounds cold, but the temp rose to the upper 70s or lower 80s later in the day, so I thought it was GREAT! Some of the leaves are starting to turn–remember I live in northern Alabama, so it takes a bit longer here.

I had such fun with this month’s theme. I had a pre-colored pic to post, but the pencil lines are hard to see, so I’ll just skip it and move on to the next stage. For this one, I had a stencil and drew the oval in the center first. I knew I didn’t want to write over the design–you’ll see why in the next pic, so I needed the middle space to be blank. I then took my 12″, clear ruler and drew lines diagonally across the page. The squares (if the page is turned catty-corner) are as big as the ruler is wide. That made it easy for me to be consistent.

I chose some fall colors (minus orange) and filled in the squares as you see in the picture.

As you can see, I filled in the blank spaces with Zen tangles, to stay on my 2022 theme. I wrote October in the blank space, but was not happy with it at all. It was underwhelming, in my opinion. In the next pic, you’ll see I cut out the oval in a piece of beige paper I had and covered over this debacle. 🙂 October is bigger, but not much neater. :/

I added my verse for October. BTW, I love that I searched out verses about listening–my word of the year–and incorporate them each month. It helps remind me.

This month’s verse is Proverbs 23:14, “Listen, my son, and be wise; keep your mind on the right course.” Such a good reminder for the days we’re living in.

I had such fun with the colored squares, I added them around my calendar spread.

I’m trying something new this month. I drew a smaller monthly calendar and on the facing page wrote out the dates for events. Along the left side, in the colored squares, I’ve written October, though it’s hard to see in the pic. It’s much more obvious in my journal.

Later, because y’all don’t need to see my mess of a month, I wrote on the lined side birthdays in a pink pen, BLOG info in blue, events in green, and appointments in purple. The tan lines are weekends.

I think I might like it this way. 🙂  I may zentangle the white squares in the future, but for now, I like the open version.

The next two pages are books read (top left), words written (bottom left column), and gratitude (renewed, bottom right column), and on the right page is a quote I found, though I didn’t see an attribution on the site I got it from, so … It says, “Take life day by day and be grateful for the little things. Don’t get stressed over what you can’t control.”

I continued the square theme–I guess technically they’re diamonds, but you understand, right?–and used small ones as section borders. The words (books read, etc) are written in the appropriate areas, though you can’t see it in the pic.

I veered away from the squares/diamonds in my weekly, but kept the colors going. I’m still fiddling with a working weekly, which is why they change so regularly. I’ve done this one before. We’ll see if I like it this time. 😀

I made a note for myself for Tuesday to prepare the blog posts for October. It didn’t get done, which is why I’m typing this blog at 9:30 am on Wednesday morning. 😮

And thus ends October’s BUJO. I hope you enjoyed my art/doodles and my rambling.

Now on to the REAL LIFE TIP: Store sheets and towels under your bathroom sink, assuming you have cabinets and not a pedestal sink. Having them there is safer for little ones than cleaning products, and if there’s ever a leak (been there, had that happen), you have a built in warning system and something to soak up excess water.

And last but not least, Natalya is the winner of Jan’s book from last week’s guest post. Congrats.

I’m gonna throw in a few updates real quick.

Y’all know I’ve struggled with my health these last few years. I finally went to a doctor and had some blood work done. I had high levels of inflammation, which I knew, and I’ll have to have further testing to determine the cause of that, but my A1C and sugar levels were also high. So I am taking meds to help that. I will not say I am … this disease, because I am not. I am healed and whole, in Jesus’ name.

Book wise, I am working to get all of my backlist (previously published books) available in print. It has been a goal for a few years. I’m finally feeling motivated enough to actually get it done. 🙂 First up will be Christmas Reflections, one of my favorite Christmas novellas. I hope to get a few up in time for the Christmas reading season. I’ll let you know when each one is ready.

Have a blessed week,