Tomorrow is Halloween guys. Seriously, wasn’t yesterday like the beginning of October or even September? Where the heck did this month go? October has been crazy – a whirlwind of karate classes, Halloween parties, popcorn selling, dentist appointments, doctors appointments, vet appointments, head colds, hair cuts, and seriously I could go on. I don’t think I had more than ten minutes of spare time all month. So in all that business, I must have learned something. Let’s break it down, shall we?

1. With Nanowrimo next month, I’ve had writing on the brain a lot this month – I learned a lot of useful tips for writing in this short e-book called Short Story: From First Draft to Final Product by Michael Milton. It’s only $2.99 on the kindle so if you are looking for some good writing tips, I highly recommend it!
2. I learned that when you think your schedule is too full and that you couldn’t possibly fit more in, you will eat those words and you’ll find the room for things that really matter. This month I turned our calendar into Mary Poppins purse – I just buckled down and made everything fit, coat rack and all!
3. I learned how to make a pie crust from scratch! I really loved how this crust (and the bourbon apple pie inside of it) came out. I’m planning to make it again for Thanksgiving but with vanilla instead of bourbon because I was told that I can only have so many boozy dishes at a Thanksgiving dinner before the kids will start to protest. lol
4. I learned that my kids’ karate school raised a total of $12,341.20 in donations with the help of UW Carbone Cancer Center and Forward Lymphoma toward researching Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma!
5. In much sadder but semi related news, we learned that my son’s amazing amazing 2nd grade teacher has cancer. She is currently undergoing treatment and STILL teaching because did I mention she is amazing? I will be walking around with permanently crossed fingers and toes hoping that she is able to overcome this.
6. I have learned that almost ten years later, I still find myself reciting The Second Coming by Yeats when I get really tired. I had to memorize it in college for a final exam and I can still remember all the places where my friends and I would add extra emphasis and laughter as we stayed up ALL night before our finals to memorize it, writing the lines over and over until my fingers were beyond cramped and I had to hold my hand holding the pencil while writing and then pry the pencil out of said hand afterwards.  Lesson learned: Try studying for major exams more than one day in advance. Also, twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle…
7. I learned that I might be an obsessive, creepy lady… in relation to the types of books I read anyway! What kind of reader are you? I went on and took the other quizzes that the above link mentions and also found myself to be a cross-under, bookophile, sleepy bedtime delayed onset reader #1… Clearly it’s complicated.
8. I learned SO much about portrait photography this month after taking a class on the subject. Things like using a shallow depth of field, i.e. large aperture (small number) to create a nice blurred background. I also learned that if you shoot from a lower angle that it can make the subject look thinner!
9. And just this morning I learned that my dishwasher is broken! My house really likes to keep me on my toes, apparently. Hopefully my husband will learn something new about fixing dishwashers because our budget would really prefer that we did not buy a new one right now.

What have you learned this month? I’m linking up with Emily at Chatting At the Sky if you’d like to play along, too!