Last week, we were lucky enough to have a pretty nice day, so we definitely wanted to take advantage of it!

It was a very beautiful fall day. There were lovely colors, it was warm, and it was all around fairly perfect to be out.


Much gold! And the creek down in the corner.


Liked the view looking up. The sky was also just extremely blue.


Look, it's Bella!

Eleven more pictures:

This time we walked past the other two mosaics on the road bridg:






A boxelder bug nymph!


Ducks on the creek! And some nice fluffy milkweed seeds.


A late chicory flower.


More ducks and colors!


This goober.

(This was right after she took a wade in the very cold creek, immediately got the zoomies from being overstimulated by the cold, rocketed around for a bit, and slammed into my shin hard enough to make both of us yelp, lol.)


Flowers!

We went down to the little stone house for a bit.


It's Bella again!


Really nice colors!


I love the color of these geraniums, but it also seems like a fake color, haha.

I've had a sore throat for two days now (I tried to lie to myself yesterday that it was 'just allergies'.)

It hasn't gotten better, but it hasn't gotten worse...

But if it doesn't go the fuck away, I'm going to be pissed.

I don't want to be sick for my time off. ;_;

A horror-genre themed sticker, which I bought last year from the Boulder Book Store. I love it, and all the little figures.

This was a fairly good week. We got a nice walk in, which was nice after a week where we couldn't. I also knocked out a good amount of reading, which I'd felt behind on. I also got some writing done, even if I wasn't completely satisfied with it. I kinda went downhill at the end of the week, just feeling extremely unmotivated and tired. Not sure if I should blame that on the weather ups and downs, or if it's just me, lol.

Goals for the week:

• I finished reading Nothing But Blackened Teeth
• I did finish a mediocre version of my Worldhopping Fairytale Monstrosity intro
• I did clean off my bedside table
• I put my laundry away
• I did not work on my reading page
• I did not make my phone call
• I continued my "October devotional"
• We did go get fruit flies
• I read Silver and Lead
• I finished a so-so version of my next WIP intro

For my October devotional:

• 12 - We bought Bella a raincoat
• 13 - I bought some Halloween-themed toys for Bella (and one for me, lol)
• 14 - We took a really nice walk along the greenbelt
• 15 - I gave myself extra cozy-in-bed reading time
• 16 - I ate some pop rocks, lol
• 17 - We got pumpkin milkshakes
• 18 - Alex made enchiladas, and we watched a horror movie

Tracked habits:

• Work - 5/7
• Household Maintenance - 3/7
• Physical Activity - 2/7
• Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 1/7 - one day over 500 words, plus one day of less than 500
• Wrote on 2nd+ Draft - 0/7
• Meta Work - 5/7
• Personal Writing - 7/7
• Other Creative Things - 1/7
• Reading - 7/7 - I finished Nothing But Blackened Teeth, read Silver and Lead, and started What Moves the Dead. I also read some of Bloodhunt Academy and a bit of fic. Alex and I read a little bit of Dead Silence.
• Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday I had some youtube in the background, and we finished watching Wayward; Monday had some storm chase and exploration videos in the background; Tuesday was more exploration videos in the background; Wednesday had some youtube in the background earlier, then later had 20/20 in the background and then a documentary about incels, then more explore videos, and I listened to a Re: Dracula; Thursday we watched the second season of Shiny Happy People, and listened to an extremely short Re: Dracula; Friday we watched an episode of Great British Bake Off and then The Perfect Neighbor, and I listened to another short Re: Dracula, the zoned out a bit to some reviews of bad books; Saturday had more book review videos in the background, and we watched the 2025 I Know What You Did Last Summer.
• Video Games - 0/7
• Social Interaction - 5/5

Total words written: 916 on two intro blurbs

On Tuesday, we decided that while we were out in the middle of nowhere on the eastern plains, we might as well do something else before we made the long drive back.

There was a historic cemetery that wasn't too far away, and the trip out that way would also take us past something we'd noticed on our way to the Sand Creek Massacre site:


A derailed section of train!



At the time, we were wondering if perhaps this was tornado or wind damage, since it looked more twisted than crushed.

Nope! Apparently it just... fell off?

It was carrying wheat!

(At least some of what looks like sand or dirt blown up against the cars is probably wheat.)

This article has even less info, but some cool aerial shots.

While a couple articles talk about the derailment, and mention the cause being under investigation, I did not see any followup. The derailment also apparently happened on August 20, so it had been sitting for a bit.

Five more pictures:

Many springs in the grass.

I was glad we got to stop and get a closer look, though at the time we didn't know any details about what had happened.

The night after we went to Sand Creek, we stayed in a hotel. It had been a long day, having gotten up early for the long drive, plus the actual visit to the massacre site. I was literally just getting ready to go to bed a bit early, when Alex got an alert on his phone for the possibility of the northern lights to be visible.

Sigh.

Of course, we were very much out in the middle of nowhere, with easy access to some of the darkest skies around. (While Sand Creek itself is not open at night, the ranger we spoke with did talk about it being a protected dark skies site.) So even though I was very sleepy, we headed out to find a deserted road to go hang out on.

We did not see auroras (probably.) We weren't the only ones; while there were a ton of really impressive sightings over in Scandinavia (as usual), and despite the numbers here being really promising... pretty much no one saw them. (While the aurora tracker app that Alex uses measures the K-index, which measures magnetic field disturbances, it's clear there's still other factors in play!)

But... stars!

Our trip up to the northern plains a couple months ago was the first time in a long while that I'd seen the milky way. And then I got to see it again, so soon! There was a bit of cloud cover for a while, but it started to clear up well.

As before, these really only show up well in the dark, I think. And of course the stars were way more vibrant/numerous/impressive in person.


Stars!


I did get this one image of the northernish horizon where there's a red glow, which might be the otherwise pretty much unseen auroras.

I'd think it was a fluke, except Alex got an almost identical picture around the same time. That was about it for the maybe-auroras, though.

Four more pictures of the stars:

There was also a spooky moon again! Though this time it was a spooky moon set rather than moon rise. (Still didn't get a very clear image.)

The spectacular stars were well worth the late-night trip out into the dark, even if the northern lights were a no-show again.

Part three of our trip to the lantern festival! Only a month after it happened, haha.


Lovely morning glories. :) You could, obviously, pose with your faces in them if you wanted.


Pumpkins!

Twelve more pictures:

Pandas! And I loved the blue dragon.


The farm setup was really cool. A barn you could walk through, a bunch of different farm animal lanterns, very neat.


Cow! And I do like the light-up wheat. Such a nice golden glow.


I was particularly charmed by the chickens, haha.


A goat! (You can see the zodiac lights in the background.)


Geese and ducks!


I was also very charmed by the giant clover. The patterns on the leaves is so perfect.


Turkeys and pumpkins! (The turkey tom was animatronic, and would lift his tail up and down.)


Rabbits!


A paintbrush flower and a swallowtail.


Rainbow swallowtail!


Gooseberry arch. This was a whole tunnel of sorts that you could walk through.

The whole festival was really cool, and I'm so glad we got to go!

Frog and jack-o-lantern sticker from devkrea/Deviant Kreations. I bought the sticker at Pride, though the artist is based in Virginia.

This was an... okay week. A few things I'm happy about: getting my covid and flu shots, and getting a good amount of reading done in the second half of the week. As a whole, though, it kinda felt like a nothing week. We watched stuff, but didn't go out to do anything, I didn't write, I didn't get through much in the way of productivity at home. (That may have been in part due to the vaccines leaving me functional but feeling meh for several days.) We did have some good zucchini-based foods, ha. I'm hoping to push through on some writing and things for next week to see if it leaves me feeling better about the week as a whole, even though I'd originally planned to focus on reading with my free time.

Goals for the week:

• I did read more of (and finished!) The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
• I did not clean my bedside table
• I did not put my laundry away
• I did not work on my reading page
• I did not work on the WFM intro
• We did pay rent
• I did not make my phone call
• I did keep up with my October Devotional
• I hosted writethisfanfic for the week, and did make all my posts
• I swapped my daily tote bag out for a seasonally appropriate one
• I got my covid and flu shots (thank you spikedluv for keeping it on my mind to do, ha)
• I attended our CSA meeting at work
• I started reading Nothing But Blackened Teeth
• I got new branches for the katydids

For my October Devotional:

• 05 - we bought some fancy bread
• 06 - I got my covid and flu shots; I switched my tote bag from the bee one I'd been carrying to an Over the Garden Wall one
• 07 - We went to see Good Boy
• 08 - I made some zucchini boats for dinner (which were delicious)
• 09 - Alex made a zucchini cake (also delicious)
• 10 - I finished The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and caught up on Re: Dracula
• 11 - I really enjoyed the smell after a rainstorm moved through

Tracked habits:

• Work - 5/7
• Household Maintenance - 4/7
• Physical Activity - 2/7
• Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
• Wrote on 2nd+ Draft - 0/7
• Meta Work - 3/7
• Personal Writing - 6/7
• Other Creative Things - 0/7
• Reading - 7/7 - I read The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Alex and I read some of Dead Silence, I read a bit of Bloodhunt Academy, I started Nothing But Blackened Teeth, and I got caught up on Re: Dracula/Dracula Daily (the entries are the end of Sept and beginning of Oct are long, and I got behind)
• Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday we had some storm chase in the background, then watched three more episodes of Monster; Monday I watched Raising Arizona, which a coworker had loaned me months ago, I started trying to catch up on Re: Dracula, we finished Monster (my feelings are very mixed); Tuesday I caught up on more Re: Dracula, and we went to see Good Boy, which I really liked, and later we watched last week's episode of Abbott Elementary; Wednesday we watched the first three episodes of Wayward; Thursday we watched three more episodes of Wayward, then this week's Abbott Elementary, and then 20/20 in the background while I listened to more Re: Dracula; Friday we watched Great British Bake Off and then some storm chasing, and finished catching up on Re: Dracula; Saturday had news and then storm chase stuff in the background, and I listened to the day's Re: Dracula.
• Video Games - 0/7
• Social Interaction - 7/7

Total words written: 0