Things I Learned in September

IT IS THE END OF SEPTEMBER, PEOPLE! The end!! Has fall settled in where you are? Many of the farmers around here were able to plant early, so harvest is well underway, and the crops still in the fields are good and brown, so even though most of the leaves on the trees are still very green, it feels like full-blown fall. Our temps have been pleasantly cool over the past week, and the only thing that makes me sad is the loss of daylight at both ends of the day. Sure is hard to get up when it's super dark out!

September has been crazy busy for us. Our calendar was packed, but we had a (mostly) good month and learned a lot in the process. This coming week, we'll mark off another monthiversary and the sixth anniversary of our engagement. What a fun day that was! I'm excited to celebrate by watching the video again. Fourteen times. An hour.

But until then, here are a few things I learned in September! Happy weekend!

1. I retained more Spanish than I thought.

I took two years of Spanish in high school and two more in college. Both experiences were abysmal. (I don't throw that word around lightly.) I just never clicked with any of my teachers and could not seem to learn from them. But this month we had a Spanish-speaking pastor at our church for a Sunday, and while he obviously preached with the assistance of an interpreter, I discovered I recognized way more of what he said than I expected I would. I can still pretty much only ask where the bathroom is and count my steps to get there, but I understood more than I knew I would!


2. Speaking of Spanish, did you know you can translate Word documents to other languages?

The aforementioned Spanish-speaking pastor also attended the leadership conference where Ryan and I spoke. When I found out he was coming, I looked for software to translate documents so I could make him a copy of our talk in his own language. (I wasn't sure how easily his interpreter could translate for him in a setting like that.) That's when I learned you can translate right in Word. Who knew? Not me!


3. The Waffle House Index is a real thing.

You probably heard about it too (if you didn't already know) in the Hurricane Florence news. I had never heard of it before. So if you don't know either, here you go! (You can read an article about it here if you want more than this short summary.) If there's a natural disaster, FEMA and other disaster management services look to see how the local Waffle House is doing to gauge the health of the general neighborhood. If the Waffle House is open and serving a full menu, things must be going fairly well. If they're open with a limited menu, it means things are limping along. If they're closed...oh boy. Fascinating.


4. Deodorant does not belong in the freezer.

I bought some deodorant one day and the next day, I could not find it. Anywhere. We bought it on a grocery shopping trip, so I began looking through cupboards, just in case I filed it away with canned goods or spices or something. Turns out I'd put it in the freezer with a pie. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, Bekah.


5. I like homemade bagels...of the clean eating variety.

Earlier this month, I decided to try the Dashing Dish bagel recipe. I admit I was skeptical when I first tried them, but I loved them. A keeper, for sure. Who knew oat flour could be such a winner? Also, in this same category, I learned you can purchase the bagel topping at the store! (I didn't own everything that goes in the "everything" bagel topping, so it was more cost effective to jut buy the mix.


6. There's a lever on the bottom of the Ninja to release the suction cups.

We have owned our Ninja for over a year now, and every time I use it, I scoot it to the front of the counter. Well, the other day, we had a spill around it, so Ryan moved it and washed the counter really well, and he immediately put the Ninja back before the counter had dried. When I tried to scoot it the next day, the suction cups were firmly stuck to the counter. For a week, I used it at the back of the counter, and one day Ryan saw me wrestling with it. He said, "You do know there's a lever under there that releases the suction don't you?"


7. There is a website where people give baby naming advice.

One of the people I follow on Instagram (she used to have a great blog but either made it private or took it down after having kids, so now I follow her on Instagram) just had a baby last week. She did a post about how they picked the baby's name and said she had written in to the Swistle blog to get help with the name because they struggled with it. I had never heard of said blog, so I looked it up. WOW! That is a lot of intense picking baby names! I found it rather interesting because I've always loved name lists. When I was a kid, I had a whole notebook of names for my "someday kids." When I worked in the Financial Aid office, a lot of names were ruined for me, so I figured if I ever did have kids, I'd have to name them really weird things to avoid flashbacks. Even though we don't have kids, I still love names, and this site is like name overload! If you love names, go check it out!