October in Review

I arrived back from a truly wonderful conference experience late yesterday afternoon, and I spent the evening grading a set of papers and unpacking. Today I have lots to do - classes to prep for the week and more stacks of exams and papers to start marking. The conference was definitely worth it, but I will need a couple of days to catch my breath and probably at least a week to get (mostly) caught up on everything else. I can't believe it's already the end of October and that today is Halloween! I'm really not ready to review this one, but it will go in the books whether I want it to or not.

Halloween 2005 as Cleopatra

My fitness and health goals for October were:
-Maintain my food journal every day. I did pretty well with this. I missed one weekend earlier in the month, but I managed to jot things down and log them later while I was at the conference, so I consider this one a win.
-Be active for at least 30 minutes at least 5 days each week. Other than the week that I was sick, I at least did yoga, walking, and biking that added up to 30 minutes at least five times a week. I'm hoping to build on this to get back into regular running next month, but more on that later.
-Try at least one new healthy recipe and do a food post. I did this. I also made a number of favorite, healthy recipes, including a hearty chili and a potato leek soup that I didn't blog.

Halloween 2008 as Inigo Montoya

My writing/professional goals for the month were:
-Finish writing and present a conference paper. Yep. I was pleased with how this paper turned out and got some good feedback and questions when I presented it. The next stage will be some continued research and expanding this into an article.
-Make progress on revising an article for publication. This one has to go into the books as a fail. I was doing a good job of logging a couple of hours of week of work on this during the first half of the month, but then I dropped the ball when I got ill, so I haven't looked at the article manuscript for over two weeks.
- Look into funding opportunities for a summer trip to the archives. Done. I applied for one grant and made a list of a couple of others that I'll be applying for in the near future.

Halloween 2010 as one of about 200 black cats running a 5K

This week was probably even more hectic than September was for me. I graded mountains of papers and exams, wrote lots of lectures, workshopped some research at a working group at my university, started running a bit again and ran a 10K, took a group of students on a field trip, and spent 4 days conferencing half-way across the country. October was incredibly busy, but it was somehow easier to get through than last month was. If I had to guess why, I would argue that healing from my injury and being able to log some pain-free miles again did wonders for my mental and emotional state and my ability to cope with things.

How was your October? Will you be partaking in candy today? Happy Halloween!