[Wrap-Up] October 2020

Oh October! This is my favorite month. While it flew by, I still had a wonderful month overall.

We got a lot done around the house again this month! The two biggest projects were getting 8 trees cut down and replacing the supports in our basement.

I also hung up new artwork in my office/library and I’m so in love with how this turned out:

My major highlight of the month was that I did something that was WAY out of my comfort zone and I still can’t believe it! I got to talk to two of my favorite podcasters and one of my favorite authors, Hunter Shea, on the Dead Headspace podcast! After the show, I also got to chat with the podcast hosts for a bit. I love these guys so very much! The episode launched October 22nd.

This month I was also finally able to get some answers as to why I’ve been so darn exhausted all the time. I think I hit an all time low this month… I took a week of vacation where I thought I was going to be able to recover, but it seemed to just get worse and worse. I’ve been sleeping for 8-10 hours a night, and throughout the day, I could lay down and fall asleep at any moment. My bloodwork showed that I have Hashimoto’s, so I’m going to talk to a specialist soon. In the meantime, I’ve started researching to see what I can to lifestyle and diet-wise.

This finally made me take a step back and revaluate things. One huge step was putting in my notice at my second job. For the first time in years, I will soon have just one job, other than my project based photography work of course. This was not an easy decision and all, and I still feel like I’m in a bit of a mourning period. I love my boss and all the work I do for her, but I definitely need to cut back and have fewer plates spinning.

My Reading Breakdown for October:

• 5 Stars – 9
  • A Bright Enchanted Suffering by Eric LaRocca
  • Autumncrow by Cameron Chaney
  • Comanche by Brett Riley
  • Dead Meat: Day 5 by Nick Clausen
  • Food Fright by Nico Bell
  • Ghost Mine by Hunter Shea
  • Halloween Season by Lucy A. Snyder
  • The Little Kitten by Nicola Killen
  • Misfits by Hunter Shea
• 4 Stars – 2
  • Eddie & The Lizard Man by Stefan Liner and Robin Liner, Illustrated by Josef Liner
  • Exploring Dark Short Fiction #5: A Primer to Han Song edited by Eric J. Guignard
• 3 Stars – 0
• 2 Stars – 0
• 1 Star – 0
• DNF – 0

Monthly Musings

Watching:

Scare Me (2020 Film)- 4/5
YES! This was SUCH a good horror comedy!! I did not expect it to go where it kept twisting and turning! I highly recommend this one!

Re-Animator (1985 Film) – 1/5
When am I going to learn… anything Lovecraft I need to pass on. Jesus Christ. This one had decent gore filled effects, but everything else was awful.

Hubie Halloween (2020 Film) | Netflix – 2/5
I’m just not a huge fan of this type of comedy. I gave this a go with my husband. One scene made us laugh REALLY hard (the scene with the black cat that makes a facial expression), but I didn’t care much for the rest.

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020 Series) | Netflix – 2/5
This was okay. I enjoyed it well enough while we were watching but I wouldn’t rewatch or recommend it. I loved the actors though. They did an amazing job.

Halloween (1978 Film) | Shudder – 5/5
I cannot believe it took me this long to get to this series! I LOVED THIS ONE SO MUCH!

Halloween II (1981 Film) | Shudder – 5/5
I’m a huge fan of how this merge seamlessly from the first film! Another intense one!

Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (1982 Film) | Amazon Rental – 4/5
While taking a sharp turn that I wasn’t expecting, I still had a lot of fun watching this one!

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988 Film) | Amazon Rental – 4/5
Ooooh boy! This one was intense!

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989 Film) | Shudder – 5/5
I LOVE THIS ONE!

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995 Film) | Shudder – 5/5
LOVE LOVE LOVE this one!

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998 Film) | AMC On Demand – 5/5
I loved this one so much! Phew, did this one get brutal!!

Halloween Resurrection (2002 Film) | AMC On Demand – 4/5
I loved this one, but the shaky camera movements forced me to look away quite a bit because it was making me wicked nauseous.

Ginger Snaps (2000 Film) | Shudder – 4/5
This was mush more gore-filled than I was expecting it to be! A solid werewolf film!

Creepshow (1982 Anthology) – 5/5
I LOVED this horror comedy anthology film so much! Seeing Stephen King in the second story ruled, and in the third, what a cast! Phew, this was quite the collection of tales! I would definitely return to some of these tales.

House Of Wax (2005 Film) | Shudder – 5/5
My god I forgot how much I loved this movie! What a cast, and that SOUNDTRACK! But man the body horror here is difficult to watch. Even so, it’s got my favorite death out of any horror movie!

Ghost Ship (2002 Film) | AMC On Demand – 5/5
God I love this movie!! That opening scene is nuts.

The Crazies (2010 Film) | AMC On Demand – 5/5
Maybe not the best moving to watching while we’re still in a pandemic… But this one is so darn good.

Village of the Damned (1995 Film) | AMC On Demand – 4/5
I can’t believe I have never watched this one! Especially where Kirstie Alley is in it!

Cursed Films (2020 Documentary Series) | Shudder – 4/5
Phew, the last episode in this series was difficult to watch. I had no idea about the awful accident that happened on set of The Twilight Zone movie!

Friday the 13th (1980) | AMC On Demand – 3/5
After watching this one, I was very confused as to why this is such a hit with horror fans. Then we realized that the version we watched was edited, so we didn’t see most of the deaths… D’oh. Even so, I didn’t love this one, but I’m curious to see where the tale goes.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) | AMC On Demand – 2/5
I’m calling it with this series. Maybe I’ll try again later, but I did not care for this one.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) | AMC On Demand – 5/5
I LOVED THIS SO MUCH. Ugh man I can’t believe it took me this long to watch!

A Nightmare on Elm Street  2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) | AMC On Demand – 4/5
This one was fun! I loved the main actress and how determined she was to have her boyfriend fight back!

A Nightmare on Elm Street  3: Dream Warriors | Amazon Rental (1987) – 5/5
I LOVED this one!! Man this one was extra dark. I’m not sure if the first two I had watched were edited in any way since I watched a TV version. But the puppet scene of this one…that is something I will never forget. There was a bit too much spinning in this one for me, but I loved the plot and all of the characters. Patricia Arquette was wonderful!

A Nightmare on Elm Street  4: The Dream Master (1988) | AMC On Demand – 5/5
SUCH a fun one! I loved this one so much. Though I am bummed to see Patricia Arquette wasn’t back here. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 : The Dream Child (1989) | AMC On Demand – 4/5
Oh my, this one was quite bizarre! Not my favorite of the bunch, but still great.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) | AMC On Demand- 3/5
That first dream sequence, oh my goodness! This one was very heavy with the comedy element of the comedy horror, and light on the horror.

Playing:

Nothing this month.

Drinking:

I have a new favorite beer to keep an eye out for!! Founders Green Zebra. This was SO darn good.

This month I got to go to a wonderful beer release event with some friends and tried their new sour!

This month I was given a lovely bottle of wine. I’m very picky about wine, but this one was wonderful to have a glass here and there throughout the month.

Listening to:

I’ve been getting caught up on my podcasts again! I fell wicked behind.

Speaking of podcasts, click below to listen to the episode of Dead Headspace that I guest hosted on with an interview with Hunter Shea!

Also in October, my shout out for Creature by Hunter Shea was included in Episode 79: Halloween Freezer Book Special of the Books In The Freezer podcast!

In the bookish community:

My blurb was featured on part of the amazing What’s In a Name? series hosted by Lauren Becker of Shooting Stars Mag. Check it out here!

THE CHALK MAN BY CJ TUDOR IS GOING TO BE A SIX PART SERIES ON BBC!!

This comment just made my month! 🙂

Monthly bookish related haul:

My Flame Tree Press order from the 4th of July finally arrived! I was also sent a TON of review copies both from Flame Tree and for upcoming blog tours!

My favorite bookish photos this month:

In case you missed it:

• Feature: Dead Headspace Guest Hosting
• 6 November 2020 Book Releases I Can’t Wait To Read
• October 2020 Night Worms Unboxing
• [Wrap-Up] September 2020

Looking forward to: 

November isn’t my favorite month but I’m looking forward to practicing some things that my therapist has given me assignments for. I’ve been focusing mostly on not letting my perfectionist tendencies get the best of me with little things and cutting back on how much I have on my plate.

Thanks for reading!