Erica Robyn Reads

a horror book review blog

Recent Posts

[Wrap-Up] October 2018

     Erica Robyn      40 Comments

Wrap-Up for October 2018

Ah, October. My favorite month! It went by far too quickly!

This month was filled with some name change related stress and craziness, but I made great progress!  I’ve almost reached the end of my list of updates! I just have to change the utilities and get my bank accounts settled so I can close one and move over to Alex’s bank fully. I cannot wait to have everything done!

I also had to get a flu shot AND a tetanus shot this month… The tetanus shot, surprisingly, didn’t hurt nearly as much as I remember my last one hurting, though my arm was sore for over a week! My poor nurse had me sit in the room to relax for a few minutes before she would let me drive after she stuck me. I will just never understand why I’m totally fine with tattoo needles, but give me a medical shot, and I’m a fainting mess… 

And then I learned the hard way… That you should never wear a romper with tight shoulder straps the day you get a tetanus shot… getting in and out of the whole thing each time you have to pee will be a very, very painful process. To make matters worse, I learned this lesson the day I traveled to Portland, Maine for a wedding.

But, the sore arm was pretty easy to ignore during the afternoon of the 6th of this month, because I got celebrate my friend and college roommate when she got married to her soulmate!! Doesn’t she look absolutely STUNNING?! 

This month I also finally did a deep cleaning of our townhouse post-wedding. It felt SO nice to get everything cleaned up. Not that our place was actually dirty, I just hated not being able to clean as usual when all the wedding decor and such started piling up and taking over the place. 
I felt so accomplished getting a lot of the wedding items donated or thrown away, depending on their usefulness. Some of the items, we now have on display in our place. Such as the advice cards, which we shuffle every now and then to put a new one on the top:

We were gifted something from my friend Amber, who was one of my bridesmaids, and her husband Robby. How incredible is this?! She gifted us the speech they wrote for us, which Amber gave at the reception, and a beautiful drawing of my favorite flower which now lives on my work desk at home!

And to wrap things up for the month, we had a wonderful work celebration where my team had a Harry Potter theme!

Without further delay, let’s dive in to my monthly wrap-up!

My Reading Breakdown for October:
Monthly Musings:
  • Watching: 
      • House On Elm Lake (2017 Film)
        • Phew… This one was not for me. The acting, the “gore” level, the makeup, and the shaky camera work… just yikes. I ended up walking away from this one. Alex kept watching to see where it was going. 1/5
      • Room on the Broom (2012 Short)
        • I meant to check out this book, so when my library hold came in and I was handed a DVD, I was pretty thrown off. I still checked it out and gave it a watch that same afternoon. Oh my goodness, this was quite the happy accident! This movie was SO CUTE! The target audience for this one is definitely young kids, but I absolutely LOVED it. Simon Pegg was the narrator, which was perfect, and I just loved the characters! 5/5
      • The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993 Film)
        • Yet another re-watch 🙂 5/5
      • The Haunting of Hill House (2018 Netflix Series)
        • OH MY GOD. This show is incredible! If you haven’t watched yet, I highly recommend it! I love how the story is organized; the episodes are very character heavy, and the storyline loops back on itself time and time again as we see each situation from various different characters perspectives. All of the actors have done an amazing job, especially the kids! I also love that there are TONS of ghosts hidden in the occasional scene. Some are easy to spot, some took me a minute to see, and I’m sure I’ve also missed a bunch! I cannot wait to re-watch this series to pick up on what I had missed the first time around! That all being said, I did have a few irks with the show and the last two episodes definitely weren’t my favorite… 4/5
      • The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017 Film)
        • I watched this on a sick day… and it was just perfect. Such a funny movie! I’m a total sucker for movies like this when I’m not feeling well. 4/5
      • The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Netflix Series)
        • Alex and I started watching this series after we finished Hill House. I’m really enjoying it so far, but I have to say that I absolutely hate the way it was filmed! There is way too much blurriness and it gives me a headache and that definitely takes away from my overall thoughts about the show. 
      • Riverdale (TV Series) 
        • After my coworkers told me that they think I would love this show, I decided to give it a go. While I’m not the biggest fan of high school dramas, I gotta say that I am loving this show so far!
    • Playing: 
      • I logged into Pottermore this month and saw that there was a new feature that I hadn’t seen yet. You can explore Hogwarts and the grounds finding 100 little orbs of light that tell you bits and pieces about the story and the history. I found 96 of them in one go, but then the movement of the screen started to make me feel wicked motion-sick, so I had to stop and haven’t been able to go back without the same result. It honestly wasn’t as exciting as I hoped it would be… but it was cute.
    • Drinking:
      • Alex and I tried sipping sodas from a local shop in Portland, Maine called Vena’s Fizz House. Alex had a strawberry rhubarb old fashioned sipper, and I had a raspberry lemonade vintage sipper. This was quite the interesting experience… Neither of us came even close to finishing our small drinks, however, we still want to go back and try one of their alcoholic drinks someday!  
    • There was some champagne consumed at my friend’s wedding, and of course we had to do this cheesy photo:
    • Listening to:
      • I have been totally hooked on The No Sleep Podcast! I listened to one of the newer episodes one day at work, and then moved on to download and listen to all of the episodes from 2011, 2012, and 2013. I just could not stop listening! I listened when driving to and from work, when I was out running errands, when I did laundry, cleaned the house or did dished, while I put plastic on the windows, while I did some tedious tasks at work, I’m even listing right now as I type this! It’s so spooky! I definitely recommend it. However, I will say that a handful of stories so far were a little too much for me (too dark, too gross, poor narration), and I had to skip them. But the vast majority are right up my alley! 
    • In the bookish community: 
      • These awesome things happened! I’m so grateful that I was able to help this team promote Our Final Halloween!

    • Monthly bookish related haul:
      • Alex got me this awesome shirt back in September but I totally forgot to include it in my wrap-up last month. 

    • I was also gifted this delicious and wonderfully clever tea by my friend Lindsay! How awesome are these?!

    • I also purchased this amazingly comfortable Hufflepuff robe for my work Halloween party! I LOVE it so much. 

      • And of course, here is my book haul for the month:
    • Book of the Month:

    • Book Club:
      • I miss this month’s book club meeting again 🙁 
    • Looking forward to: 
      • In November, Alex and I usually head to my hometown for Thanksgiving, depending on the weather. Fingers crossed we don’t get a snowstorm! 

      In Case You Missed It


      Thanks for reading!
      How was your month? Have any special plans for November? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section below!

      SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave
      SaveSaveSaveSave

      Here are a few more recent posts you might like:

      Reader Interactions

      Comments

      1. Angela Lawrence says

        The wedding is so much fun, you don't think of all the stuff you'll have to do after! Good on you for being so proactive about the name change stuff! There was stuff I still hadn't done a year later!

        Reply

      2. Ivyclad Ideas says

        I love Riverdale! So much unnecessary drama! :')
        Also, wow, you read a lot of books this month! I get through five and I think I've done well!
        Would you recommend The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina?

        Reply

        • Erica Metcalf says

          I cannot wait to watch more of Riverdale!! I love Cole Sprouse so much! Most of my reads this month were kids books 🙂 And I would definitely recommend Sabrina, both the comics and the show! I just hate the way the show was filmed with those blurry edges.

          Reply

      4. AJ Sterkel says

        I love all the photos, especially the Harry Potter ones. I’ve never really thought about all the stuff you’d have to update after a name change. There’s a lot of stuff with names on it! I hope you have a great November and get lots of reading done.

        Aj @ Read All The Things!

        Reply

      5. Barb says

        What an beautiful and heartfelt wedding gift. I can see what you'd want it on your desk. I see you got a copy of Certain Dark Things – one of fave books ever. I loved the first season of Riverdale and the second one was okay. This one has been better though. I adore Jughead – he's my favorite. I've only watched some of the first episode of Sabrina but you know how much I love the graphic novels!

        Reply

      6. BiblioSanctum says

        Sounds like you had a very busy month! And this reminds me, I am due for my flu shot soon too. I don't mind shots so much, I found the tattoo needle to be much more painful and nerve wracking, lol!

        ~Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum

        Reply

      7. Heather Cilley says

        Ooooh yes! I loved Hill House too!! Funnily enough as we were watching Sabrina I saw the fuzzy background for the first time and was like "Erica would NOT LIKE THIS!". Although it was easy for me to ignore it I can TOTALLY see why it would make someone feel a bit nauseous.

        Reply

      8. Tanya Atkinson says

        Beautiful wedding gift from your friend. I had my flu shot in early October and my arm hurt for days. No fainting, though. 🙂 (Shots don't bother me.) Too bad the Hank Green book didn't work better for you.

        Reply

      12. Greg says

        I love October! Sorry to see it go by so fast… Halloween came and went in a flash, seems like! Glad you had a great month.

        Riverdale haha is fun in a twisted way- glad you started it! I thought S1 was good, S2 a little iffy, but S3 so far is bonkers and I'm here for it!!! Also I started Sabrina and- wow dark lol. And I'm mulling hill House but afraid it will freak me out??!?

        Reply

        • Erica Metcalf says

          Same! It just FLEW by! Thanks for the heads up on season two! I'll keep my expectations low for that one! There are certainly some jump scares on Hill House but I had so much fun watching the first 8 episodes! 🙂

          Reply

      13. Heather G. says

        I'm reading An Absolutely Remarkable Thing right now. Bummer that you didn't enjoy it as much. I haven't gotten very far so I'm still unsure. But I'm trying hard not to compare him to his brother…Looks like you had an amazing October!

        Reply

      14. Lauren Stoolfire says

        I'm the other way around when it comes to needs – medical shots are fine, but tattoos no thanks!

        I'm hoping to start in on The Haunting of Hill House and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina this week!

        Reply

      16. Jovita @ Inky Impressions says

        October is my favorite month, this year it just seemed to go by so quickly. Beautiful photos, and your friend is a beautiful bride. I have enjoyed all the HP picture you posted on Instagram, your workplace looks like fun place. I'm fine with needles I actually like to watch when it goes in, my husband has to turn his head, my daughter is like you… no medical needles but is okay with tattoos. I do hope you enjoy all your upcoming reads.

        Reply

      17. Amber Elise says

        Lowkey I still haven't finished all of my name change stuff and I've been married for over 4 years now. Haha, why is it so stressful???

        I need to do a deep clean too, I usually get inspired during the springtime. I love a good purge.

        Amber Elise @ Du Livre

        Reply

      18. Kristen @ Metaphors and Moonlight says

        Sounds like a stressful month but with some great things too! That flower drawing is so pretty, and such a great gift! Ooh the Pottermore thing sounds fun but I'm glad you mentioned the motion-sickness—I think I'll have to pass. Have a great November!

        Reply

      Leave a Reply

      Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *