Happy Friday, everyone! This is going up so much later in the day than usual! I don’t know about you guys, but the time change has thrown me off all week. It’s been dark for so long; Is it midnight? Nope, just 6 pm! I submitted my invoice to my main writing client a little before 5 pm and then totally crashed for a much-needed multi-hour nap. Beats last Friday when things were too hectic to get a post up at all, I guess!

Here’s what I’m digging lately – a couple were supposed to be on last week’s list (oops), but c’est la vie.

 

1. Apparently its not a Friday Favs up in here without Target birds lately, so I might as well confess right up front that I picked up this little ornament guy ON HALLOWEEN. I am totally a “Can’t they at least wait til mid-November??” person, but I was afraid that if I didn’t grab one then they’d be gone, and I’ve missed out on a few super cute ones in the past thinking I’d just wait a couple of weeks.

 

The wintery birds didn’t really speak to me, btw.  Cute, but not must-have.

 

2. I’ve ridden horses pretty much my entire life, but I’ve hardly ever ridden English. I decided to try a new challenge (and make my poor leg muscles weep for mercy) and started taking Hunter/Jumper lessons! (No hunting involved, it’s just the style of jumping that focuses more on style, vs. show jumping which is about speed). I had my first lesson last week, and it went a little better than I expected. We mostly just worked on me getting used to the different saddle with balance exercises, and started building my leg strength holding jump position at a trot.

The horse I’m riding is SO TALL. If horse measurements mean anything to you, he’s 17.3 hh. If not, that means that his shoulder is level with the top of my head, and I’m 5’11. I think he’s the tallest horse I’ve ever ridden, unless I’m having some weird lapse in memory. I didn’t realize HOW big he is until I was dismounting and it took forever for my feet to reach the ground again. I forgot to ask my new trainer for a photo while I was riding, but I’ll get one next week!

I can only afford to do lessons every other week right now, so progress is probably going to be slow, but it’s fun to look forward to!

 

3. As you probably know, Chewy.com sends the cats two fun new things to try every month. (#ChewyInfluencer for the win!) I’m behind on sharing what they’ve been trying out – they got these awesome wet food trays by Nutro Wild Frontier the beginning of October!

 

I love these little split tray designs for those times when, for instance, Tennyson refuses to eat the food everyone else is digging into, or Bear is off doing bear stuff in the woods and is late for dinner, meaning I only need a meal for one instead of a big can. (Although TBH Ten will happily eat both sides of one of these tray in one go. How is he still so small?)

The package we got had six of the chicken flavor and six turkey & duck flavor, but it’s also available in a Chicken & Beef/Salmon and Trout package.

4. One Tribe Apparel sent me a really cute kimono several months ago, but with how crazy everything has been, I haven’t had a chance to take any good outfit photos to share it with you guys yet! (One major down side of solo travels – your selfies don’t capture much of your OOTD! You can see part of the kimono here, though!)

 

Unlike my other kimonos, this one is quite a bit longer, coming down to a few inches above my knees, which means it’d probably be at least knee-length on someone of average height. It was perfect for transitioning from summer to fall since it’s super light weight, and the pattern features enough colors that you can throw it on with almost any color of top and be good to go.

 

The color is listed on the website as red and black, but it’s really much more of a deep pink than red.

 

Image via One Tribe’s website. Love that it also comes in a gorgeous blue!

 

5. I’ve been taking breaks from writing to do some major house cleaning/decluttering, and I came across a couple of boxes of photos the other day. Behold, a cat lady in training: