Happy December! The last month of the decade has arrived and as always, I feel like I’m lagging behind. My mind is still stuck somewhere in mid-October and I’m nowhere near ready for Christmas to be here yet! Alas, it’s drawing near, and I’ll have to find a way to get into the spirit somehow.
I have picked up my vlogging camera for Vlogmas again, which should definitely help bring up those festive feels. All throughout December there’ll be a weekly vlog up every Sunday where you’ll be able to take a peek into my daily life. I’m really excited to start editing and uploading them!
But first, let’s look back at November. This was a very strange month for me. I decided to apply for a course on a whim and very last minute, which took up two extended weekends and a day, and a massive chunk of my headspace. I did the Gilwell training, which is a scouting training open to people involved in scouting from the whole country (I’ve been a leader for years now, as you probably know). The Dutch Gilwell training is a deep-dive into personal development and quite an intense and prestigeous course. It’s also wrapped in quite a lot of secrecy, to allow every participant to get the full experience without previous spoilers that would make the course less effective. Given that and the personal nature of the course, I’m afraid I can’t really share any details with you here, but I’ll give you a tiny snippet. That’s also the reason why I have fewer photos for you this month.
With all that said, let’s take a look at my November photo diary!
The month started with my second sewing project: a woolen medieval kirtle. This was much more challenging to make than the pinafore dress that was my first project, but I’m very happy with the way it turned out.
It was also the first time I’ve ever tried to make sleeves. I didn’t end up making them historically correct, but hey, I made sleeves! Still pretty proud of myself for that.
Little Diarmuid enjoying his food <3
The theme of the Gilwell course I took was Pippi Longstocking, and we were supposed to bring decorations and costumes related to that. I took a monkey in a sailor’s hat. That’s the best I could do, I’m afraid, hahaha!
We got a Roomba! It’s something we’d been thinking about getting for a while, and we came across an amazing deal on it so we decided to go for it. Guys, I love this thing. We run it every other day, and the house is much cleaner for it. We live in a small home with pets, so dust and hair gathers quickly. This saves us so much time! His name is Robo Jr., by the way.
It was time to do some maintenance on this monstera. It had gotten too big for the stalk it was attached to and had started to droop, unable to support its own weight. I got a larger moss pole for it to cling on to, and it’s much more balanced now. I also separated a little baby that had formed, and gave it its own little pot.
Enter my first weekend away from home! As I mentioned, I can’t share too much about the Gilwell training, but it was a very special experience that I’m really glad I got to go through. They divided us into groups, and then somehow managed to get us familiar and comfortable with each other in an extraordinarily short amount of time. That provided a safe space where we could comment on each other’s behaviour and personality traits and collectively figure out ways we could all improve as individuals.
I went there on Thursday and came back home again on Sunday night.
The weeks inbetween the Gilwell weekends were packed with content creation. I missed a couple of work days of course so I had to cram all my work into a shorter amount of time. Luckily it all worked out and I was able to put out videos I’m happy with, such as the Beauty Beacons of Fiction episode for Penny Dreadful’s Vanessa Ives. I absolutely fell in love with this outfit, by the way. Isn’t it just the best #historybounding?
Another video I really enjoyed making: the snood video. And the accompanying blog post, of course! It was really fun to dive into the world of snoods for a bit and discover lots of things I was unaware of before.
I had my second laser hair removal appointment in Leiden this month. I’m getting my armpit hair removed and I can’t wait to never have to shave again. Or at least for a few years, hopefully. The second treatment was a bit more painful to me than the first one (which was completely pain-free), but still definitely bearable.
While I was there, I decided to spend a bit of time in Leiden. This also happened to be the day Sinterklaas arrived in the Netherlands, so the city centre was quite crowded. Excited children everywhere :)
The next day I had another training at scouting, but with my own club this time. A few of us stayed afterwards, lit a fire, had some pizza, and spent the evening there.
Some very excited boys waiting for their food to arrive.
I got to go to the opera again! We saw Die Walküre this time, with some really impressive staging. The stage itself was a huge circle, with the orchestra sitting inside of it. The costumes were beautiful, and although the show lasted five hours, I wasn’t bored at all. It was amazing.
During the second extended weekend of the Gilwell course, my group got to explore a bit of the surroundings in North Braband. It was one of those weekends that both went by in a flash, and felt like it lasted a week.
When Robbert plays the guitar, Diarmuid likes to sit next to him and enjoy the music. He’ll just sit there for minutes on end, haha! It’s the most adorable thing.
Earlier this year I took up ballet classes with the same teacher who’s taught me jazz dance for years. The first course of the year ended and my teacher surprised me with a photograph of our performance last year, on the top right here. It now has a nice spot in my office, next to my 100k subscriber plaque and my study association keepsake :)
Soup season is here! There’s nothing like having a warm bowl of soup for lunch to give you a nice mid-day boost.
Speaking of mid-day boosts, I wanted to add a drop of sambal to my peanut butter cracker and this happened… Whoops :) I scraped the majority off and ended up having a very, very spicy cracker.
And that brings us to the end of November! You can expect the first vlog of December this Sunday, so keep an eye out for that. I’ll see you soon!
