November Favorites
November has been a really great month! 2025 has been the most hectic, with high school graduation, packing up my life and moving two states away to start college, and adjusting to my new normal living by myself (but also sharing my room with someone I’d never met before), taking college-level courses (actually my college-prep high school set me up *so* well, I literally have A’s), and making new friends.
I’ve collected my favorite things and moments from this month, but first, let’s play a quick game of this or that:
Staying in vs Going out
TV vs Movie Night (lots of movies on Letterboxd this month, go follow me @katiee_belle)
Early bird vs Night owl
Makeup vs Lip combo (I go in waves of omg I must have my lip products vs I don’t want my water bottle to be sticky)
Breakfast vs Dinner
ACTIVITIES:
Writing class field trip! — we went to a second-hand bookstore! I got Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I feel very intellectual reading it (and so aesthetic and mysterious to sit around campus reading — and for fun, at that, not even a required course book), much different from my guilty pleasure fake-dating trope type books. Anyways, I recommended some books to others, found some titles for my TBR, and we went to the cutest coffee shop!
Mom came to town — My mom and brother visited me in college two weekends before Thanksgiving! My brother stayed with his friends for the weekend, so I got to stay with my mom at her hotel and order room service and eat non-dining hall food. Much needed. Also did a much needed full restock of groceries, cleaning supplies, skincare products, and all the things.
Projector nights — ofc have to mention my projector again because my friends and I have been having the most fun with movie nights and especially Dancing With The Stars nights, which leads me to …
Dancing With The Stars!! — three of my friends and I have weekly DWTS watch parties in my dorm (on my projector) and this month were our lasts of the season :( We all went back to our respective hometowns for Thanksgiving, so we couldn’t watch the finale together, but we did text our live updates to the GC. We each voted for Robert all season, so it was extremely exciting to watch him win! Witney is also my favorite pro of all time and she deserved that win so much. Oh, and Robert is going to be our guest star on DWTS LIVE Tour!! I could not be more excited!
Thanksgiving — every year my family-of-four goes to a family-of-six’s house, who host us and our family-of-five friends and we are allowed to do nothing except bring the wine and chit chat amongst fifteen people. The kids table is fun now that we are all around the same age — ranging from high school juniors to a college senior — and it is inevitable that the boys will sneak off to the basement to play ping pong while the girls dish stories and college gossip over dessert.
HOBBIES:
Learning Italian — this is a new hobby I picked up at the end of the month. I downloaded Babbel and got a couple of Italian language books to prepare me for my Italian 101 course I will take next semester. I want to study abroad in Florence when I am a junior, so I will need to be as well-spoken in Italian as possible! Conveniently, I’ve learned a bunch of native phrases in Italian while reading Eat, Pray, Love.
Wellness + movement — on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I wake up early before class to go to the gym. The walk to the wellness center before most people are awake and on campus is so peaceful, and I like to sit and enjoy the sunrise and stillness. On Tuesdays, my friends and I have our weekly tennis lessons, and I also go to Pilates. I grew up my whole life being a club swimmer, and being able to find exercise and movement in a completely different way has been really important and exciting for me.
Taking my dog on a walk — I finally got to see my dogs after three months at college!
Puzzling with Dad — we finished one and a half puzzles while I was at home.
MOVIES:
The Holiday — Christmas on November 1st was definitely necessary.
Serendipity — had never seen this movie before but it was cute! And I unlocked a new Christmas movie!
Carry-On — a new Christmas classic I fear
Footloose 2011 — so Julianne Hough was actually a good actress!
A Very Jonas Christmas — this was TERRIBLE but boy did we have fun watching it
Joy To The World — god bless Chad Michael Murray Christmas genre
Wicked: For Good — obviously
That’s it for my favorite things from this month, let’s see what December holds!
