Bye October, Hello November – a Beta Run of the A&W Newsletter.
(This post was intended as the first ever A&W newsletter. As my time management skills would have it, though, the content was written, but the subscription box was never set up. So no one would have received it. Not that it’s a masterpiece, but it made sad. So there you go, zero issue of the A&W newsletter, in a blog post form.)
Here’s an Idea
This November I’ll be doing a ‘phone as a phone’ challenge (which probably needs a catchier name…). The idea is to use my phone as, well, a phone and nothing more. I will have predefined sessions for Instagram, Twitter, and some apps that I use for tracking various parts of my existence, but throughout the day I will only use my phone as a phone. No other apps. An exception would be Viber communication with my brother, who lives a thousand miles away. No mindless browsing, idle texting, silly searches or endless Pinterest sessions.
I’ll share my results and thoughts on the challenge in the next month’s newsletter. Anyone wants to join me?
Lovely Links & Things
8 Books to Read Before You See the Movies This Fall
Media & Social
This month I’ve been slack with my reading. The only thing I finished was The Martian, and that was on audio. Other than that I’ve been wrestling with Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop (free on Gutenberg) and Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend either of these three at the moment.
Next month I plan on reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (finally), The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, and All the Light We Cannot See.
You can follow my literary adventures (*eyeroll*) on Goodreads.
In telly news, I resumed watching Castle and Bones (both kinda lacklustre, but still keep the momentum going) and gave Friends a go for the first time. Stuck at the end of the second season, and not exactly sure I want to go on.
I started a #100happydays challenge on Twitter! Every day (well… kinda) for 100 days I’m posting a picture of something that made me happy. It’s been insightful, but not in terms of happiness. I’ll share my thoughts at the end, which will be in January.
This Month’s Top Posts
According to Google Analytics, these are the posts you folks loved most this month. Interesting, heh. Should I bring the Incoming! feature back, then? I started it and then immediately killed it, but perhaps I was wrong. Let me know what you think!
Incoming! December
Bostaniada
Two Nivea Products
#100empties: Mascara, Toner, and Two Creams
Lip Monthly April
You May Have Missed
This month I started The Purge. I have a lot of space, which should really be a bragging matter, but for me it’s mostly an embarrassment, because about 85% of it are cluttered up the wazoo. I wouldn’t go as far as calling myself a minimalist, but I’m certainly not a hoarder. The flat paints another picture, unfortunately. I’ve been getting rid of things like crazy, and documenting parts of it here on the blog.
I’m also on a mission to catch up with Lip Monthly posts. June is scheduled to go up on Monday. Stay tuned!
Lately I’ve been feeling a bit patriotic, which is unusual for me. I want to start sharing more posts about the country that I live in. I’m already doing this in the Weekend Exploration series, but perhaps there’s something else you’d like to see and learn about Moldova besides my weekend trips? Let me know in the comments.
Upcoming
In November I’ll be writing about my top autumn lipstick picks, Orhei adventures, a mini Inglot haul, and some skincare items. There’s also a post about a cheap but lovely scent I’ve been wearing a lot recently.
I’ve been working on expanding my blogging schedule and switching from posting every other day to posting two days in a row with a one day break between these short streaks. However I have once again overfilled my schedule with other things, so we’ll see if I manage to pick up a solid every other day editorial calendar. Looks good so far, but it’s all drafts.
If you enjoyed this pseudo-newsletter, please feel free to subscribe below. I’ll be sending the November one next month, and it will no longer appear on the blog. This was a haphazard beta version, and the future ones will have more content.
(This post contains affiliate links.)