First day of November

The first of November is an exciting day for me. For one thing, I thoroughly enjoy the excitement my children have about going through all of their Halloween candy. It is so fun to see them spread it all out (on the living room floor this morning) and take a tally of what they have. Then, of course, they start trading. I have one child who can't eat nuts and dislikes coconut. So she trades her sister all of that sort of candy for stuff she does like - Twix, crunch and Kit Kat being the forerunners. It makes me smile to see them do this because I like seeing them work together (now to achieve this with their actual chores) and it reminds me of my brother and I at their age. We had so much fun going through and trading our Halloween loot.

Another reason I love November first is because it is the official start to National Novel Writing Month (NaNowriMo). I have already achieved my word count goal for today, which is 1,667 words. I will write more though because I like to start off ahead if possible. It has become a habit for me to start writing my NaNo novel just after midnight on the first. I had to go to bed after reaching a little over 1,200 words last night. Then today when I opened up my story the last couple of sentences I had written last night made absolutely no sense to me. I had no idea what I had been trying to say and had to laugh at myself. I was so tired I had literally been falling asleep at my laptop. I know one of the goals for NaNoWriMo is no editing during November but I had to take those last sentences out. I honestly had no idea what I'd been trying to convey.

The last reason I get excited at the beginning of November is because in my opinion we are in the holiday season. If I could convince my husband to get on board we would be decorating for Christmas today. He's not keen on this plan, though. The earliest our kids and I can really start putting out decorations is the week of Thanksgiving. He won't balk overly much at that. Still, there are a couple of little things out on my desk now, a little snowman and a Christmas bird that I crocheted. They are both very Christmas-y to me and make me happy. So yes, I love this time of year for so many reasons.