Monthly Musings: November 2025
ft. a life update, a wedding anniversary, & the usual ramblings
Hello friends, good evening! Welcome to our Monthly Musings: November 2025 post! I hope it finds you unwinding, chill-axing, and, ideally, wearing something cozy to safeguard against that autumnal chill. These days I tend to wear nothing but my most coziest comfy clothes, so I think I’m autumn-ing just right. Tell me, did you have a nice weekend? I had planned to share this yesterday, but one thing led to another & the day got away from me. Amongst other things, we introduced Bean to one of her great-grandmothers, hit the seafront for an autumnal stroll, and, cold weather be damned, treated ourselves to some pretty epic ice-cream sundaes last night. It was glorious!
Our musings for the month ahead are listed below. You’ll find all the usual suspects — travel talk, recipes recommendations, movies, books, etc. — and a few off-piste tidbits thrown in for good measure. I apologise in advance for any disjointed sentences and paragraphs; I blame baby brain entirely.
Enjoy!
monthly musings: november 2025
In case you missed it: we had our baby last month! A beautiful baby girl — officially named Lois, but for the purposes of this blog will remain Bean for the foreseeable future — that already has Husband and me firmly wrapped around her little finger. It’s hard to believe she’s already been out in the world for a whole month(!), but Husband and I both have the dark under-eye bags to prove it. Tiredness aside, it’s been so lovely settling into somewhat of a routine as a family of three ✨
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Yesterday marked two whole years since Husband and I got legally married! Last year we celebrated by jetting off for a weekend in Stockholm, but this year we kept things more low-key: a bouquet of beautiful sunflowers, a fantastic dinner of spaghetti & meatballs — eaten Lady & the Tramp style, obvz —, many a lovely newborn snuggle, and chocolate & caramel sundaes. It was perfect! Happy anniversary, Rob — I couldn’t imagine doing life without you! Here’s to many more years together ❤️
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Did you have a most spooktacular Halloween? We spent Bean’s first ever spooky season pretty much the same way we’ve spent the last few: pumpkin carving, cozy-ing it up with cute themed candles, watching some classic Halloween movies, eating junk, and dressing up as the cutest pumpkin in the patch. Okay, that last one was just Bean — but, wow, who knew how fun it’d be to dress babies up in tiny adorable seasonal outfits? I’m already looking forward to dressing her up next year!
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Related: although not as in-depth as our scary-movie-viewing of yore, we did manage to enjoy a few classics this year! We couldn’t let the big day pass us without some iteration of Halloween, and this year we watched #3, which, shockingly, I loved! Extra schlocky and darn-right cheese-tastic! Aside from that, we also were able to squeeze in Practical Magic — so fun; will have to add to our yearly seasonal rewatch list! —, The Conjuring, and, for the sake of a good throwback, Casper. What spooky movies did you watch this year? As always, if you’d like to follow along with our movie viewing in real-time, here’s the link to our Letterboxd.
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Continuing down my Notes from the Archive rabbit hole, a couple new posts hit the site while I was off learning how to keep a baby alive! A Layover in London, England / Four Days in Split, Croatia / An Afternoon on Hvar, Croatia / 48 Hours in Zagreb, Croatia / and Three Days in Budapest, Hungary are all up, detailing everything I got up to on my 2012 inter-railing trip. Seven more posts covering the rest of the trip will be hitting the blog one at a time over the next few Sundays, so keep an eye on the Travel Index if you’re enjoying following along! It brings me so much joy sharing these snippets from my earlier travels; I hope you find them helpful, friends 😊
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Speaking of travel, I miss it so much! It’s only been five months since our last trip out of the country — see: 7 Things to See in Gdańsk, Poland and A Food & Drink Guide to Gdańsk, Poland — but that honestly feels like a lifetime ago! The travel itch is REAL, so I think it’s time to start seriously planning our first trip away together as a family of three! We have hopes and dreams of taking Bean to Italy for her first trip abroad — our current plan being to slowly make our way from Rome to Bologna or vice versa, hitting San Marino en route — but I’m fully aware that might change when we start booking things. Where did you go for your first trip with a little one in tow? Please send any and all recommendations our way, I’d love to hear them!
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In case you were wondering, the meals we stocked our freezer with pre-Bean — see: What We’re Meal Prepping Before Baby Arrives — literally saved our lives over the last month! We were just so! tired! and OVERWHELMED for the first while that the thought of cooking was too much to even consider, and being able to throw dinner in the oven with little to no thought was a godsend. We have devoured nearly everything, and are slowly starting to find the energy to cook fresh food once again. I’m so glad we made the effort to stock up while we could, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone expecting in the near-future! Alternatively, if you’re just looking to love on friends in the new-baby-boat, I found this piece very good: What You Should Really Bring to Someone Who Just Had a Baby.
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What have you been reading recently? After devouring Stephen King’s Never Flinch back in September, I have spent the past month reading another of his books about the same character, Holly. I borrowed the paperback from a friend and knew nothing about it before diving in, but it’s so good! Even better than NF, perhaps? I think yes! I love the quirkiness of the main character, and the twisty-turn-y nature of the plot. If you’d like to follow along with my reading in real-time, join me on The StoryGraph.
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Joy the Baker linked to this post recently and I loved it: How to Have an Analog Fall. As in, ideas and suggestions to make us slightly less reliant on our phones and technology. I was pleasantly surprised to realise that I already do many of the old school things that Julianna recommends — reading actual books, watching DVDs over streaming, etc. — but I love some of her other recommendations: keeping a physical diary, lunch dates, day-tripping, and so forth. Fun!
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Have you been doing any autumnal baking lately? I’m normally baking up a storm this time of year — mostly pies and crumbles, but anything warm, spiced, and buttery usually hits the spot — but, understandably, haven’t made it near the oven thus far. Husband, however, recently found the energy to whip up the best chocolate biscuit cake ever, which we proceeded to devour alone over the next two days. If I did have the energy, I rather like the look of these Pear Bars, these Toasted Milk Powder Chocolate Chunk Cookies, or this Easy Apple Crisp. What’s your favourite thing to bake this time of year? Let me know in the comments so I can live through your kitchen adventures!
And there we have it, our Monthly Musings: November 2025 post! I hope you found something to take away with you — be it a new recipe, the inspiration to spend a little extra time away from your phone, or a hankering to plan your next trip abroad. See you next month for another catch-up!
Until then,
Vicki xo
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