The October Edit

Introducing the new Monthly Edit categories and a tearful look back at Hurricane Helene

If you’re a new reader, the Monthly Edit is a brain dump of everything I consumed (or consumed me) during the month. This newsletter is filled with recommendations that I hope will add value to your life.

Hello! I teased in The September Edit that I would be tweaking the format of The Monthly Report. I’ve given a brief description under the header of each category to introduce it. Moving forward, I’ll leave this off. I hope you enjoy these new categories and that you will let me know what you think. I write this email for YOU and want to make sure you’re finding some tips, tricks, and recommendations that are worthy of taking up precious space in your inbox.

This section will capture everything I watched during the month, whether it’s a TV show, movie, or YouTube video. I’ll also include movies I’m eager to see in the movie theater or seasonal recommendations.

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I had all of 12 minutes left in the last episode of the last season of A Discovery of Witches when we lost power for 8 days. I still feel like I need to go back and rewatch the entire last episode. I loved it and ended up purchasing the first 3 books in the series for my Kindle when the bundle was on sale a few weeks ago.

Aside from Episode 7, I enjoyed Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building. Gomez, Martin, and Short are comedic gold.

I mentioned in one of my weekly reports that I’m obsessed with Nobody Wants This. Maybe it’s my holdover teenage crush on Adam Brody as Seth Cohen in The O.C. or maybe it’s that the chemistry and banter between Noah and Joanne is exploding with pop culture references.

We watched a few fall movies including the original Beetlejuice, Casper, Sing: Thriller, and Coraline with our kids.

Next month I’m hoping to make time for Heartstopper: Season 3 and Outer Banks: Season 4.

Shelf-Worthy will feature standouts from my month of reading. My full reviews will continue to be posted in monthly reading recaps. I’ll share my TBR list, our family’s current read-alouds, and seasonal reading lists here.

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Like every other Lit Girl, Intermezzo by Sally Rooney was at the top of my Fall TBR. I had the digital copy of the book on hold through my library before it was released. I don’t enjoy reading on my iPad but it kept me company for nights on end without power. While it wasn’t my favorite book of hers, it was her smartest yet. I do think she expects a certain type of reader at this point. The relationship between the brothers in this novel is the most emotionally authentic and tender relationship she’s written. The loneliness and grief captured in this novel are palpable. Would I recommend it to everyone? No. But for the right audience, it’s worth the effort to read.

My 3-year-old is obsessed with the Lovevery board book Bea Gets a Checkup. We read it at least once a day. When we get to the end of the book, he always asks how they got home. I wish I had the correct answer for him. In my opinion, they walk to their car and drive home. I’m open to more creative suggestions.

You can shop all the books I’ve read in 2024 through Bookshop.org.

The Weekday Shuffle will feature playlists I have on repeat, new albums worth noting, or podcasts that caught my attention. This section is for the ears!

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I’m still listening to Gracie Abram’s album The Secret of Us on repeat, especially now that she dropped the Deluxe Version. I’m jealous that my younger sister got to see her open for Taylor Swift in New Orleans! She was nice enough to send me a couple of videos.

Other albums on my radar this month:

• Caribou - Honey

• Leon Bridges - Leon

• The Smile - Cutouts

• Lizzy McAlpine - Older (and Wiser)

• Bluey - Rug Island

• Soccer Mommy - Evergreen

• ALEXSUCKS - Warm Beers EP

In this section, I’ll write about what we ate during the month, share seasonal recipes, my favorite meal planning apps, and more.

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I made trips to Trader Joe’s three times in a month which is probably more than I went all of last year. Pre-Hurricane Helene, I treated myself to a fall pantry stock with festive favorites like maple fudge, Halloween sprinkle, maple walnut biscotti, and maple leaf cookies. Our 2nd and 3rd trips focused on grabbing a few staples after we lost everything in our fridge and freezer as well as coming up with a few meals to have during the week. The lobster bisque pasta is so good we had it twice— once with shrimp and another time with the langostinos. We are also huge fans of the shawarma chicken thighs and the marinaded beef bool kogi from the refrigerator section (even though they’re probably the most pricey items at the store). I love any protein you can easily make into a bowl with rice and a few veggies. It also makes it easy to add or subtract ingredients to match my kids’ preferences. Here are a few meals we cooked for inspiration:

Family Fun Fridays will feature little ways to make the week memorable. Whatever community events, DIY crafts, and movie night themes we enjoyed during the month will be included here.

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My daughter’s elementary school project over Fall Break was to paint a pumpkin based on a book character. She chose Greg Heffley from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid chapter book series. We found a craft pumpkin that she painted white and then used black paint to outline the character so it would look like the pages of the book. During our parent-teacher conference, my husband and I were able to see all of the first grade projects and some of them were so creative!

If you’ve been reading Overbooked Mama for a while, you’ll know that we tend to set a seasonal theme for Friday nights. We’re all exhausted from the daily grind and by the time we get to the weekend, a simple meal and movie is our go-to method of unwinding. Soup, grilled cheese, and movie nights returned in October. We started with the classic tomato soup and grilled cheese combo followed by French Onion Soup and Zuppa Toscana. I bookmarked Brittany Viklund’s Season of the Soups newsletter to reference all season.

Sunday Menu 🥑🥞🌮 no. 20

Due to the amount of debris left over from the hurricane, it’s unlikely we will be trick-or-treating from house to house in the neighborhood this year. Instead, we’re relying on community Trunk-or-Treat events for our candy fix.

The Nurturing Nook follows the highs and lows of parenting. I’ll include teachable moments, tips for family bonding, and the occasional travel highlight.

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This is a photo from the day after Hurricane Helene looking down the hill on our street. If you look closely you can see a man standing in the foreground and a stop sign in the background to give you some perspective on the size of the trees and the severity of the damage. The storm was in the process of transitioning from a Category 1 Hurricane to a Tropical Storm as the eye wall ripped through my community. We were not prepared. We live 150 miles inland in an area where people usually evacuate to during a storm. All reports showed the storm track moving closer to Atlanta and it changed very suddenly in the middle of the night. I laid silently in my bed through the early hours of the morning, trying to stay calm while everyone else snored obliviously, listening to the 100+ mph winds whistle and debris hit our house in complete blackness. I never once received a weather alert on my phone. I don’t recall ever feeling so LONELY and afraid of a storm. My biggest regret was not moving our son into our bedroom and I feel lucky that our home did not sustain any damage. I don’t even want to fathom what would have happened if a tree fell on our home like they did on so many of our family members and neighbors homes in the area. We lost an incredible local artist and so many others in this storm. We are fortunate that we have been able to provide shelter for my mother-in-law and her dogs since the storm. Her house is unliveable for the foreseeable future. My kids’ friends are displaced from their homes and school. School schedules shifted to accommodate traffic. Walkers aren’t able to access the sidewalks of our neighborhood school and daylight is vital to their safety. Roads are piled so high with logs, tree stumps, and other debris that you can’t see homes from the road. Many of the roads on the way to school and work are still down to one lane. Every time I drive through our neighborhood I want to cry. What once was a tree-filled community has been flattened to where you can see at least three streets over from any backyard. Debris pickup has begun, but it will be months before noticeable progress is made. The first two weeks post-Helene I immediately jumped into an on-call leadership role in my City government job. It’s been overwhelming to be ON all the time when we’re dealing with how to navigate FEMA assistance and insurance claims in our personal lives. It was incredibly lucky that our school system was on a two-week Fall break that coincided perfectly with the timing of the storm. We’ve also had the dryest October on record. As I sit down to write this we have still had zero rainfall, with a very low chance of any taking us through next week. We usually see 2.56″ of rain on average this month so it has been a blessing to have clear skies and moderate temperatures for the many crews working every day toward cleanup efforts. I learned to survive without power and warm water for a week and a half. I can successfully cook rice in a cast iron skillet on a gas grill (2/10 do not recommend). My kids learned to play outdoors without their iPads, sharpened their bow and arrow skills, and saw community helpers work firsthand. Despite the devastation, I’m choosing to focus on how positive the majority of people remained. At first sunrise following the storm, our neighbors were out with chainsaws, freeing people from their homes and clearing streets. Without hesitation, every single person in our community has stepped up to do what they can. Whether it was washing clothes for someone because their power was restored, letting someone borrow their generator to charge a phone, hook up to their Hot Spot, or offering a warm meal, our town has shown an immense amount of resilience that I’m proud of. I can’t thank everyone enough for the generosity they’ve shown. Your support is meaningful to me.

We spent the first two weekends of October in Columbia, SC, to have some family fun during my kids’ Fall break and restore some normalcy in the wake of Hurricane Helene. This felt like the biggest gift we could give our children when the entire landscape of our community is forever changed.

We are members of the Riverbanks Zoo and I like feeling like we don’t have to see everything each visit. If we go 2-3x a year, the membership pays for itself. Somehow this was my first time seeing the Boo at the Zoo decorations so I’m adding it to my fall bucket list to go at night next year.

The timing of the French Moderns: Monet to Matisse Exhibit at the Columbia Museum of Art worked out perfectly with our fall schedule. It was a relatively small exhibit but featured a large number of art movements including Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Surrealism. I saw works by some favorites including Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Camille Corot, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. Great space for kids to learn about art and practice their skills as artists and curators called The Cross Hatch.

This was our second year at the Oktoberfest at the Incarnation Lutheran Church but our first time bringing the kids. It was a romp! They entertained themselves on the playground with other kids the whole time and we got to enjoy delicious food, beer, and sunny weather.

Behind the scenes, I feel like we are in a really tough season of parenting. My kids are constantly bickering or hitting each other. I can read all the books and articles but nothing seems to work to get them to get along. It’s exhausting and triggering to be constantly on edge with them. I know it’s developmentally normal, so if you’re dealing with this too, please know that I sympathize with you.

The Endless Scroll is everything that caught my eye on the Internet. From Substack newsletters to links I’ve saved and shared.

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I will never not be excited about an Emily Henry book. Did you see the cover reveal for her upcoming novel Great Big Beautiful Life?

Aspyn Ovard’s TikToks have been unhinged lately in the wake of her divorce and I cannot stop watching.

Of course, I bookmarked this roundup of Joanne’s outfits in Nobody Wants This after watching the show.

Third places have been on my mind a lot again, and not just because of my career.

I’m not Pumpkin’s biggest fan, but this Marry Me Chicken in Pumpkin Cream Sauce recipe sounds like the perfect way to switch up one of my favorite dishes for fall.

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Hope you’re having a great month!

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