Last week in November! Last week in November! Are you excited? I most definitely am. Maybe irritatingly so (according so a certain fiancé of who quite clearly is lacking the Christmas spirit gene ;). But I mean what is it…three odd days now, and we’ll officially be in Advent! Sure, I am still dreadfully behind with Christmas shopping. Sure, we never managed to get round to taking that trip to Scotland we’d hoped to fit in during October or November. And sure, we’re not as ahead of ourselves, work-wise, as we’d like to be in the run up to taking time off. But hey! It’s almost time for daily doses of chocolate, and Christmas carols, and trees and lights and mince pies and festive jumpers! Aside from all this pre-Advent excitement, here’s what else has kept my spirits up during this rather grey and rainy week…

1. Spending an evening this week with Jason talking about our plans and dreams and goals for the few years ahead of us. Exciting and daunting and scary and exciting some more!

2. Ticking off all the boring house jobs that’ve been lingering on my to-do list. Jobs like ‘change up the bed linen’ and ‘phone the insurance people about the broken cooker hood.’ It’s all fun stuff, you know…

3. Taking flasks of coffee out with me on morning dog walks. Warms my hands, and makes doing four and a half miles that bit easier ;)

4. Homemade chips, cooked with garlic and tons of olive oil and salt.

5. Clearing down my inbox! I’d not done it in so long, and it really is the best feeling to have a slightly more manageable amount of emails sitting in my mailbox every day.

6. Hot chocolate with marshmallows on top.

7. Introducing my soon-to-be sister in law to Pinterest. She swore blind she wouldn’t enjoy it, and then we made her an account whilst we were having a girls’ night in, and I didn’t hear from her again for about three hours ;) It makes me happy to have passed on the Pinterest love!

8. Sticking to a daily routine of body moisturising each morning. My skin gets bone dry round this time of year, and always feels SO good for having been moisturised. {Currently using a gorgeous one from The White Company that’ll be new in their SS15 collection.}

9. Browsing honeymoon destinations online. Even just looking at pictures of tropical islands does my heart good!

10. Knowing that we’re only two-odd weeks away from decorating the house for Christmas! I’m currently campaigning for us to have coloured lights on our tree…

Three posts I’ve loved reading this week :: Sophie’s amazing post about how she quit her day job {& made running one of my all-time favourite jewellery shops her full-time business!} || Katy’s beautiful hot chocolate + kitten photos! The cutest! || + Caroline’s amazing Thanksgiving outfit.

p.s. We’re definitely going to play our dorky advent calendar game again this year. Care to join? ;)