Month in Review: November 2021

I truly cannot believe it’s already the end of November. It feels like we just got back from our honeymoon and yet we’ve actually been home for a whole month. November has been a busy one (and a wet one!) with lots of amazing highs and lows.

Highlights

The biggest highlight from this month was definitely moving into our new apartment. It’s so nice to be in a bigger space with more light, to have a little office nook for me (and one for Colin too!), and to be able to decorate and furnish it ourselves. Sleeping in a king bed and staring out our huge windows makes me so happy. Full house tour blog post to come!

I’ve also had a lot of fun acquiring new things for our house. I’ve become pretty addicted to scrolling through Facebook Marketplace and our local Buy Nothing group, as well as looking for deals at our local thrift store (and picking up a few necessities on Amazon). I’m really proud of some of my finds!

It’s also been so nice to discover a new neighbourhood. Yaletown isn’t exactly new to us, but it’s been fun to explore our local parks and streets on Ellie walks, try out new restaurants, and only be a 10 minute walk away from my mom.

We also got our wedding photos back this month and it was so fun to relive our day and see all the awesome shots our photographer captured. We especially loved seeing shots of our guests. Stay tuned for a few wedding-centric blog posts to come!

Last highlight of the month: We booked a trip to Hawaii for January 2022! I am so excited to be actually using my passport after almost two years of no international travel. Crossing all my fingers that cases and restrictions don’t worsen and that we can have a safe and fun trip.

Lowlights

As much as I love being in our new apartment and all of the amazing things we’ve furnished/decorated it with, there were definitely some hiccups. Deciding to do the move ourselves was a huge mistake. We figured since we were coming from a furnished place and had rented two dollies and a truck, we could definitely do it ourselves. But we forgot that we’re almost 30 and horribly out of shape, so our Nov 6th move almost took us out of commission.

We then made more horrible decisions: Like carrying a very heavy IKEA couch down four city blocks. It was so heavy we had to take it apart and take it down the street in pieces. My back is still mad at me for that one! And I also made the silly decision to buy six incredible heavy picture ledges from someone in East Van and then carry them for a few blocks in the rain – at least I got a good deal!

And with all the great purchases we’ve made, there have been a few duds too. Like the used pre-lit Christmas tree we bought that was broken – none of the lights work! Or the toaster oven that decided to break after just two weeks. Luckily, we didn’t spend too much on either of those purchases, but it was still a bummer.

Lastly, I have to mention the horrible storms, rain and floods that BC has been dealing with this month. We are so fortunate that we were not directly impacted by the worst of the storms, and our friends and family are safe too. But my heart definitely goes out to my fellow British Columbians and everything they have been dealing with.

Best listen

I’ve found a few new podcasts this month with my favourites being Money Please and Affordable Interior Design. Money Please is a new personal finance podcast by the media company, Betches. I absolutely love the host, Berna – she is so relatable, smart and funny. And I think she and her guests are doing a great job educating people about personal finance in a really engaging way.

Affordable Interior Design is my favourite of the many interior design podcasts I decided to download this month. With our move into a new space that was all ours to decorate and furnish, I wanted to do a little research. I love host and designer Betsy’s friendly personality and unpretentious tips about design conundrums.

Best watch

Colin and I started watching Wheel of Time, the new epic fantasy series on Amazon Prime. I don’t know that I love it, but I’m engaged enough to keep watching. I never read the book series, and I’m not much of a fantasy person, but it’s fun to have another show Colin and I can watch together.

On the Australian side of things, because we happen to watch a strange amount of Australian reality TV, we finished up Celebrity Masterchef AU and started Big Brother Australia VIP this month. Celebrity Masterchef was lovely – very lighthearted and with dishes that made us say “I could make that!” unlike regular top-tier Masterchef. Big Brother is actually pretty painful, but we know who the winner is and we like them, so we’ll keep tuning in to watch their winning game. Both series are full of celebrities we have mostly never heard of, since we live in Canada, and also a few too many white people. Australia, let’s diversify your reality TV!

What’s cooking?

Best meals this month included:

• A stuffed chicken breast Colin made in our old house just before we moved. He was inspired by a dish we saw on a menu in Charlottetown, PEI on our honeymoon but that I told him he couldn’t order since we were there for seafood. So he decided to make his own and it was delicious!
• Dinner out with my mom. We went for oysters, pork belly and some Japanese tapas dishes. It was yummy and fun to go out for dinner with her.
• Pork chops, patatas bravas and broccoli courtesy of Chef’s Plate. We received a code for two free meals from the meal kit service and really enjoyed putting them together. They were yummy and a nice way to mix up our usual eating routine.

Posts from this month

This month on Teaspoon of Adventure I published:

• Traveller of the Month: Nicole from Wandering with a Dromomaniac
• The 29 Best Meals I’ve Had in 29 Years of Travel
• Moving Abroad FAQs: Everything You Want to Know About Moving to Europe & Life Abroad

Check out any of the posts you’ve missed!

For my throwback post of the month, I’m going back to Nov 2019: Our Family Photos in Prague. As we eagerly await our wedding photos, I thought I’d throw it back to our only other experience with a professional photographer, which was an awesome way to capture memories from our year abroad in Prague.

Reads

This month, I’ve finished reading:

Taste by Stanley Tucci
I’m a big Stanley Tucci fan (or “The Tuch” as we like to refer to him) and really enjoyed his documentary series eating around Italy. This book was more of the same, with some of the same stories. I loved hearing Stanley narrate the book himself on audio, and getting little glimpses into his personal and professional life. Of course, being immersed in his food memories wasn’t bad either! The book was a little slow in parts, and while I liked the idea of including recipes, they don’t translate well on audio. But overall, a nice read!

As you may have noticed, I’ve been struggling with reading big time in the last couple of months. I went from reading 10 books a month in May to just one book this month! With the wedding, honeymoon and move, I’ve been so busy and  just haven’t felt too inspired to read. I’m trying not to feel bad about it and remember that my enjoyment with reading is allowed to ebb and flow.

Travels

This month we travelled from our old home in the West End to our new home in Yaletown – so a whole 10 minute car ride. Besides that we’ve just been travelling around Yaletown and getting to know the area, but no big travels this month!

Where I have travelled in Novembers past:

• Nov 2019: While living in Prague, we travelled to Cesky Krumlov, a medieval Czech town, at the beginning of November. Visiting Cesky Krumlov in winter was awesome as we had the place to ourselves. At the end of that month, we travelled to Naples, seeing Pompeii and Herculaneum, and took in the sites in Rome.
• Nov 2016: In 2016 I spent almost the entire month of November in Vietnam with my great friend, Emilie. It was both of our first times to Vietnam and we had a blast exploring Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta, the imperial city of Hue, adorable Hoi An, busy and bustling Hanoi, and relaxing Phu Quoc Island. I’d love to get back to Vietnam one day!

Gratitude

I am so grateful for our new apartment. Especially as people in my province have lost their homes due to the floods, I am so thankful that we have a wonderful new space we get to make our own. I think we’re going to be very happy here for a long while!

Coming up next

What’s coming up next? Christmas, that’s what! I’m a big Christmas fan and really excited that we’ll be celebrating the holidays with my family in Toronto this year. I’m not looking forward to the cold but I am looking forward to seeing our loved ones and eating way too many Christmas dinners.

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How was November for you? Hope you had a great month!