October recap...

After two very mild winters in Columbus, it has been a bit of a shock to be experiencing an upper midwest winter. On the positive side though, there is a wonderful cozy feeling when you're sitting in your favorite chair, sipping hot tea, updating your blog with two cats on your lap, and watching the snow fall outside. Which is precisely what I'm doing right now.

We left off with my 31st birthday at the end of September. What did we do in October...

At the beginning of the month we signed up for a new member class at the First Unitarian Society in Madison. When I was in college, I started going to the UU church in Eau Claire somewhat regularly and found a wonderful, welcoming community of intelligent, diverse, and inquisitive people. I really enjoyed going there and suggested to Jordan that we attend the UU church in Columbus. We went a few times but it just didn't feel like a good fit for us. When we moved here we thought we'd try again and really loved the FUS church. In addition to having a beautiful building (that was originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and then added onto a few years ago), we have found lots of wonderful classes to take and have met some lovely people.

The natural light in this place is just stunning. 

Pictures taken from: http://www.tkwa.com/first-unitarian-society/ 

We completed the new member class and officially signed the member book a few weeks ago. It felt wonderful to put down some roots in this community. Since then we've being taking a Mindfulness Meditation class together, Jordan has been going to a Science and Religion class, and we signed up for some community events coming up in early 2014. 

We also have loved visiting downtown, going to the farmer's market, and enjoying the Capitol building. We went to the last farmer's market weekend in mid-October and decided to check out the observation deck on the Capitol building.

It was a little cold and windy, but worth it.

Jordan, inside the Rotunda.

The dome. So lovely. 

Walking down State St.

Jordan found an apple orchard that was near us so we decided to visit on another October weekend. I may or may not have bought multiple apple doughnuts, caramel apples, and some apple cider. 

This is my fake smiling face.

This is Jordan's real smiling face.

Just a couple of apple-lovers.

And finally, at the end of the month we needed to complete our annual pumpkin carving. 

Jordan was having a little difficulty...

I guess I was too...

but I think they turned out alright! (Jordan is on the left, I'm on the right)

For good measure, Jordan decided to also try his hand at pumpkin painting. It's like Michael Jackson is coming back from the grave, with his iconic white glove leading the way...

We also continued our tradition of watching scary movies throughout the month of October and documenting how many 'spooks' each one made us feel. The scale is 1-10, 1 being not scary at all, 10 being can't-sleep scary. Here are the 2013 results:

As you can see, Jordan and I are pretty hard to spook, although I'm probably more of a scaredy-cat than he is. Next post: The November/December update! Maybe my new year's resolution should be to update this blog more than once a month.

In conclusion, here is an October picture that always makes me laugh and Jordan will probably scold me for putting it on the internet. Oh well, who reads this thing anyway?!