• Home
    • Home
    • About Me
    • Privacy Policy and Disclosures
    • Contact
  • Blog
    • Blog
    • Blog Archives
    • Search & Blog Categories
  • Get Inspired
    • Get Inspired
    • Inspiring Words & Quotes
    • My Muses – Favorites & Inspiration
    • Challenges
    • Product & Book Reviews
  • Get Creative
    • Get Creative
    • Start Handlettering
    • Handlettering Fun Styles
    • Tutorials & How-To
    • Creating Art – Watercolor, Painting & Drawing
  • Start Planning
    • Start Planning Here
    • Planner Spreads & Themes
    • Plan With Me Archives
    • Organization
    • Habits & Trackers
  • Find Your Happy
    • Find Your Happy
    • Random Holiday Archive
    • Journal Prompts & Ideas
    • Health Journey
  • Shop
    • Shop
      • Lost password
      • My account
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • Orders
  • Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Pinterest
    • Etsy
    • Facebook

Chocolate Musings

Set your goals - make the plans - artfully create your life - live it beautifully. Grab the good chocolate and find your muse.

  • Home
    • Home
    • About Me
    • Privacy Policy and Disclosures
    • Contact
  • Blog
    • Blog
    • Blog Archives
    • Search & Blog Categories
  • Get Inspired
    • Get Inspired
    • Inspiring Words & Quotes
    • My Muses – Favorites & Inspiration
    • Challenges
    • Product & Book Reviews
  • Get Creative
    • Get Creative
    • Start Handlettering
    • Handlettering Fun Styles
    • Tutorials & How-To
    • Creating Art – Watercolor, Painting & Drawing
  • Start Planning
    • Start Planning Here
    • Planner Spreads & Themes
    • Plan With Me Archives
    • Organization
    • Habits & Trackers
  • Find Your Happy
    • Find Your Happy
    • Random Holiday Archive
    • Journal Prompts & Ideas
    • Health Journey
  • Shop
    • Shop
      • Lost password
      • My account
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • Orders
Home » November

November Random Holidays

October 24, 2019 2 Comments

It’s time to start planning your November Calendar, and I have some inspiration for adding November Random Holidays to your schedule.

I know you’re with me on this – how can it be nearly November already? I’m starting to believe the conspiracy theory that time is moving faster. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older, and so each passing day is just a smaller part of my overall life.

In an effort to slow time down or at least return it to normal speed, I make an effort to celebrate little things. It’s possible to make memories every day, even if it’s not a significant national holiday or a huge life event.

You’re Invited to Celebrate

Wouldn’t you want more reasons to celebrate? Wouldn’t your kids or work-family pause for just a moment, a significant moment to enjoy a doughnut? (By the way, National Doughnut Day is November the 5th!)

I invite you to pursue the small things, the seemingly insignificant events. Because when you look back on your week, month, or even year, it will be these moments that create a special place in your heart. These pinpoints of joy that stand out among the blurred days. Even if you don’t like any of my chosen random holidays, you can select some days that you prefer.

Random Holidays Challenge - Find Reasons to Add Joy to Your Life | ChocolateMusings.com #randomholidays #challenge #findjoy

Random Holidays – Google Calendar

After celebrating different holidays for over a year, I decided to create a Google Calendar to see all the holidays I’d love to celebrate. It makes it easy to share creations, words, and ideas on social media and with friends and family. The best part about Google calendars is that you can toggle them on and off when you don’t want to see them.

If you click on the calendar item, it has a link to the source & relevant hashtags! I’m always evolving this calendar – and I will add calendar days or corrections all the time.

Tip: The calendar will show the current month, you can navigate to the month of your choice by using the arrows or dropdown.

If you want to add my calendar to your Google calendar:

  • Go to your Google calendars and click the + next to other calendars
  • Choose ‘add other calendars.’
  • Then click Subscribe to Calendar
  • After that, paste the text below in the “add calendar.”
  • Toggle the schedule on and off when you want to access it – that’s what I do.

chocolatemusings.com_q316ucpnldal611fs2q2nnk7v0@group.calendar.google.com

I won’t list all the random holidays, but just the ones that work with ChocolateMusings.com – so, of course, you’ll see a lot of food, art, creativity & some miscellaneous holidays are thrown in as well.

More Random Holidays

Click the picture below or go here to find the Random Holiday Archives.

Find your reason to celebrate today - Random Holidays Challenge | ChocolateMusings.com #randomholidays #findjoy #daytoday

November Random Holidays on the Chocolate Musings Calendar

After adding appointments and scheduled items to my calendar, I add the Random Holidays. Even though they are small moments, my family looks forward to them. I find that my kids look through my calendar just to see the random holidays and then share it with their friends. November’s Random Holidays don’t disappoint.

Month-Long Celebrations

Pick a day or multiple days for these November celebrations!

  • Gratitude Month
  • Peanut Butter Lovers Month
  • National Novel Writing Month #NaNoWriMo

November Random Holidays – Fun Celebrations

  • 1st – National Author’s Day
  • 2nd – Look for Circles Day (Check out my Circle-related posts here! I love to use circles in my bullet journal. In fact, here’s a post on creating circles in your bullet journal)
  • 2nd – Ohio Day
  • 5th – National Love Your Red Hair Day – since we have many red-heads in my family, we celebrate their lack of pigment this day!
  • 9th – Go to an Art Museum Day
  • 9th – Louisiana Day
  • 10th – Forget-me-not Day
  • 11th – Veteran’s Day (USA)
  • 13th – World Kindness Day

Everyone should celebrate World Kindness Day every day! Without a doubt, the world be a better place if we gave the benefit of the doubt and treated everyone just a little better? I know I could improve, so I’ll start with one day and take it a step at a time.

  • 15th – Clean Out Your Fridge Day – clearly excellent preparation for the coming food holiday! Though I’d probably need to do it again before Thanksgiving.
  • 16th – National Button Day – my mom used to have a big box of buttons that I would string together even though I don’t have a button box, I plan on sharing this memory with my family. Did you have a button box as a kid?
  • 16th – Indiana Day
  • 18th – Mickey Mouse Birthday
  • 18th – National Princess Day
  • 19th – National Play Monopoly Day
  • 30th – National Mason Jar Day
  • 30th – Mississippi Day

State Holidays

In celebration of the state’s statehood birthday, each month, the honored state will be on sale! I created 8 variations for each state, and they make lovely wall displays. Print it out, and frame it, and show it off!

  • State Outline - Indiana
    State Outline – Indiana
    $10.00
    Select options
  • State Outline - Louisiana
    State Outline – Louisiana
    $10.00
    Select options
  • State Outline - Mississippi
    State Outline – Mississippi
    $10.00
    Select options
  • State Outline - Ohio
    State Outline – Ohio
    $10.00
    Select options

Food-Related Celebrations

Despite having a busy schedule, it’s easy for me to add a treat or plan a meal around a random holiday, my kids love it, and it’s effortless to add those moments of joy I seek in our lives.

  • 3rd – National Sandwich Day – since sandwiches are my husband’s favorite food, he’s all too happy to celebrate this holiday multiple times in the month!
  • 4th – National Candy Day – for this holiday, I think we will rid ourselves of all the Halloween candy sticking around our house
  • 5th – National Doughnut Day
  • 10th – National Vanilla Cupcake Day
  • 11th – National Sundae Day – YUM
  • 12th – National French Dip Day – one of my favorite sandwiches
  • 14th – National Pickle Day – my kids LOVE pickles
  • 16th – National Fast Food Day – this is a day I know we can celebrate, how about you?
  • 17th – National Baklava Day – my boss makes THE Best Baklava, I’ll have to convince her to celebrate this holiday with me.
  • 19th – National Carbonated Beverage Day – My poison of choice is Diet Dr. Pepper. What’s yours?
  • 20th – National Peanut Butter Fudge Day – YUM!
  • 21st – National Gingerbread Cookie Day – check out the National Day calendar for this one, they list out the other National Cookie Day Celebrations.
  • 23rd – National Cashew Day
  • 25th – National Parfait Day
  • 26th – National Cake Day
  • 28th – National French Toast Day

Whew! I didn’t even include all the food days!

Random Holiday Links:

Choose The Holidays Right for You

What if you don’t like the holidays I choose? Below are links to the other random holiday sites I found – pick your favorites and celebrate the ones that resonate with you! It’s about breaking out of the monotony and creating your happiness.

Find more to celebrate – I compiled my random holidays from the websites below. There are so many holidays to enjoy! If you find a day you’d like me to feature – leave me a note below!

  • Nationaldaycalendar.com
  • Nationaltoday.com
  • daysoftheyear.com
  • checkiday.com
  • heywhatday.com
  • Timeanddate.com
  • holidayinsights.com
  • wildcalendar.com
  • thereisadayforthat.com

Pick and Choose

You don’t have to celebrate them all, but choose a few dates that you pause the rush of life and take a moment to yourself or as a family to create lasting memories. That’s the point of these random holidays for me, and I hope you gain the sense of what it could mean for you.

Among the November Random Holidays, this month is #nationalgratitudemonth, and I fully intend on keeping a one-line or one-word gratitude journal for the month. Is that something you’d like to do, too?

What other days do you think you’ll add to your calendar? Hint: if the date doesn’t fit for you – there’s no hard rule stating you can’t celebrate another day. Use a weekend or a free weeknight to create your memories.

2 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Find Your Happy, Randomly Celebrate Tagged: calendar, celebrate randomly, fun holidays, mississippi, November, planning, random holidays, randomly celebrate, snippets of joy, weird holidays

November Mid-Month Habit and Mood Tracker Check

November 19, 2017 4 Comments

November Mid-Month Habit Check + Mood Tracker Update

When I sat down to start writing this post, I realized this is the monthly insight into my life. There are so many emotions tied to habits, so many excuses, so many passions. I can’t write about my habit tracker {and now added mood tracker} without being a little more personal. Of all the things I have in my bullet journal, my habits and my moods show the most insight into my life on a day-to-day basis.

So here is a monthly update on my Habit and Mood Trackers.

Half Circle Habit Tracker in my bullet journal - mid month checkup

November 2017 – Mid-Month Summary

Whew! This month has been – well – different. There were some major things happening at work that made the rest of my life feel like it was spinning out of control. I couldn’t separate my personal life from my work life. It’s not that I didn’t want to or didn’t try. I could not separate them. My friend from work (who got me my job) moved to another company. My employer was very unhappy with this. Alright – I could have gotten around this and helped everyone make peace with it if needed. But we were in the middle of a loan for my friend. There were confusion and so many emotions swirling and information that none of us knew what was true (I am a home loan processor by day, by night I blog, but I am superwoman all day).

I tried to remove myself from the situation, I even banned both parties from speaking further about each other and would not participate if I didn’t agree with a conversation. But being in the middle of the loan where I had to know details so I could do my job made things even more complicated. Every conversation, innocent in intent, kept stirring up more and more. And I couldn’t get away. It was as though dark swirling clouds circled my head.

How All This Affected Me

The stress was taking a toll on my body. The muscles in my back were tight, I had to remember to unclench my jaw regularly and my stomach was so upset for about a week. That coupled with my husband having a cold for two weeks straight and the coughing that kept me up just as I would drift off to sleep wreaked havoc on everything I tried to do this month to improve myself. Thank goodness I tried to get ahead the beginning of the month because, by the middle of the month, I was struggling in more than one way.

In Control or Out of Control

There were many things out of my control – but I used those things to negatively affect my goals and daily life outside of work, which made my life feel even more chaotic. So for the rest of this month, I am going to make an effort to go to bed earlier, wake up earlier and check off my goals before the rest of my family wakes up. When things are out of control in your life, taking command of the things that you can control makes all the difference in having a bad day vs. a good day and a bad month vs. a good month.

New This Month

I created a mood tracker this month – my first. I saw what other people were doing, and knew that I couldn’t group my days into one mood. Both designs are very functional – I am not the biggest fan of the overall look as it is very utilitarian, but like most utilitarian designs, it gets the job done. The more yellow, green, or purple, the better in this case. This month there are a lot more ‘frustrated’ and ‘anxious’ times than I expected.

I classify the moods/sleep by these categories:

Mood:

  • Sad
  • Content
  • Happy
  • Productive
  • Frustrated
  • Angry
  • Excited
  • Blah
  • Anxious

For Sleep:

  • Refreshing
  • Good
  • Restless
  • Bad Night
Half Circle Mood Tracker with sections of the day in my bullet journal - mid month check-up

Design Assessment vs. Functionality

I would like to make a ‘pretty’ mood tracker that is aesthetically pleasing (like the mandalas or feathers or the endless myriad of designs I’ve seen) and still include the times of day to help me see where the problem lies. If I like it by the end of the month, I will figure out a way to make it pretty and functional. The times of day are broken into chunks (you can see it if you scroll down on the graphic):

  • Before – before work, getting kids ready for school (on weekends, I consider this to just be morning vs afternoon)
  • Work – which I blocked off during the weekends
  • After – afternoons when I get off work and the kids are home from school
  • Dinner – often a time of angst because of picky eaters
  • After – after dinner as the kids are going to bed and the time that my husband and I have together afterward
  • Sleep – track how well I slept

For the most part, I feel like this has provided great information into my days, so I think I will keep it! I will be thinking of different ideas to make it prettier for the future. I thought of using this general layout and turning it into angel wings, I would like to do flowers or I saw a hot air balloon idea that may work but  I will keep the segmented times of the day.

My habits – well they suffered this month as well. I finally read The Miracle Morning and loved it. It is very motivational I started getting up early and enjoying morning yoga and reading. I would get so much done in that short hour, and many of my habits would be checked off in the morning. I discovered that if I am going to do this, I need to go to bed earlier.

If you are curious – these are the habits I track

  • Study – usually scriptures
  • Kid Time – time where I put my phone down and play with my kids, we go to a park, play outside, watch a movie together
  • Exercise – I count yoga in the morning as exercise, a walk, etc
  • Journal – Writing in my journal, even if it is a one-liner or one word in my gratitude log
  • Kind words – speaking kindly to everyone around me and not losing my temper
  • Words – it’s my swear jar in reverse – I fill in a square if I don’t swear all day. Last month I had just 5 days where one of those pesky words slipped out but I’ve already passed up that quantity this month.
  • Healthy Choice – consciously choosing to eat healthily vs. not. Taking a side of veggies instead of seconds of pasta etc – this one will be more developed in the future, but I included it so I could become aware of it before fully developing what I wanted to do.
  • Dishes – do the *&%$ dishes
  • Straighten – choose a room and straighten it
  • Clean a room – vacuum, dust, wipe down, clean it.
  • No Spend – frivolous spending, eating out, extra spending (I don’t count grocery shopping or getting gas)
  • IG – Instagram – keeping up with my challenge!
  • Show Me Your Letters – Hosted by the Happy Ever After Crafter – a great place to start if you want to start modern calligraphy (I will be doing a post later with my favorite lettering resources)
  • Prayers – I will probably separate this into AM & PM later
  • Laundry – ugh this task and dishes are never-ending. Only checked off if I have completed one full load – not just put it in the washer or taken out of the dryer but put away. 

I put habits on my tracker to assess how I am doing before making loads (haha I’m punny) of changes.

Other things I’ve done this month

I read a new book this month on habits. Read is a relative term, I listened to it. But hey! According to “things I am going to do” I wanted to read/listen to more books. I have consumed two books already this month – Better Than Before & The Miracle Morning. Thank you library. I will do a book review of these books later – spoiler: I liked both.

Habits and Moods mirror each other & provide daily insight, half-circled mirrored bullet journal layout, Habit and Mood Tracker

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

4 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Bullet Journal, Habits, Planner Spreads, Trackers Tagged: #BuJo, books, brush lettering, Bullet Journal, bullet journal spread, Circle, circles, collection, habit tracker, Inspire, leuchtturm1917, mood tracker, November, November 2017, page layout, plan with me, self-improvement, trackers

And like that…It’s November – 1st Week of November – Minimal for Function

November 1, 2017 9 Comments

And like that…It’s November.

What in the world? It’s November! I just got used to writing 2017 as the year. We are in the thick of holiday season (or very near to the thick – is that a thing?) and I am definitely relying on my minimalistic weekly designs to guide me through this busy time of year.  I decided this month to start at the beginning of the month instead of half the week’s spread from October and the other half as November. So I ended up with a couple of half-week layouts.

I had big plans for the start of this month

My big plans were to start this month off beautifully. I even went grocery shopping this morning to get ahead on…well.. life without having to drag my three kids along. All those good intentions were met at every turn with something just trying to bring me to my knees.

You ever have one of those days you know, the day that just won’t quit? That was today for me. I have worked very hard to simplify this next month and show more gratitude. I firmly believe that if I wouldn’t have tried so hard to include these two things in my life today could have quite possibly knocked me down for a good part of the month. It was that bad. I didn’t realize I would gain strength from simplifying my life and having an enhanced attitude of gratitude.

This week has just five boxes on this page plus a ‘to do’ section – it’s strange how a minimalistic design can bring such peace and tranquillity amidst chaos.

What do you do for tranquility?

So I would like to know what you do that helps bring tranquility to your life when your whole day goes awry.

  • Do you meditate?
  • Do you exercise?
  • Yoga?
  • Eat Chocolate?
  • Binge-watch your favorite show?

After I post this, I am going to go mindlessly doodle.  Maybe it will be amazing. Maybe not. Today it doesn’t matter because I need it to mentally recharge. Regardless of the outcome of my doodles, I feel like because I planned – not just my day but planned my month to live beautifully I am able to overcome and bounce back ready for a new day with renewed resolve.

Dimensions of the Spread:

Here are the dimensions of the single page plan – this could be used for a work week with just 5 days and fit two weeks to a two-page spread.

Tomorrow is a new day hand lettered quote

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

Tricia

Starting in the middle of the week with the beginning of a new month? Here is a minimalistic weekly design for your bullet journal, minimalism

9 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Bullet Journal, Plan With Me 2017 Tagged: #BuJo, 2017, dual brush markers, free printable, fresh start, Inspire, lettering, leuchtturm1917, mid-week start, minimal, minimalistic, new attitude, new month, November, November 2017, plan with me, quotation, quote, self-improvement, weekly, Weekly Layout, weekly log, weekly spread

November Plans – Focus on Simplicity and Gratitude

October 29, 2017 7 Comments

November Journaling Focus

Simplicity and Gratitude

After the fun holiday of Halloween comes a period of anticipation. It feels like there is almost an electric quality in the air – a magic that only comes with the holidays. With that comes the flurry of activity, the parties, the traveling, the family gatherings, the traditions, the end of year hustle that is born around the end of October and dies after New Year’s day. During the first two weeks of November, there is almost a calm before the storm. For me, the holidays become overwhelming. So this is why I chose to focus my journaling and blogging efforts on Simplicity and Gratitude.

Monthly Spread - Simplify your monthly calendar with a monthly log spread in your bullet journal

Instagram/Twitter Challenge – November 2017

I decided to host an Instagram/Twitter challenge focused on those two things. If you’d like to take part, find the prompts here and tag me @ChocolateMusingsCreates using #DailyWordMusings on either Twitter or Instagram. I’d love to see how you create Simplicity and Gratitude into your holiday plans.

As I am writing this, I can’t help but wonder if there’s the same feeling for those outside of the United States as compared to in the US. September/October bring a change of season heading into the colder time of the year, the end of October is Halloween followed a few weeks later by Thanksgiving (US) and you can feel the excitement mounting in the air. Christmas time brings another change of season and is of course highly anticipated and headed up with New Year’s celebrations and the start of clean, fresh, new year. Where I will struggle writing the new date until June.

Allow Your Mind Tell You What You Need

For me, I know the last three months of the year blur by in a flurry of activity. Earlier this week I gave a sneak peek of my welcome page. Every time I thought of doodling a turkey or Thanksgiving feast, I would postpone planning for a while longer. I didn’t like the idea. So as I listened to my mind’s reaction, I closed my eyes, relaxed, and let my mind wander. I imagined walking through a forest of aspens crunching through the frozen snow. The scene was quiet and the word “serene” came to my mind. I could tell that is what I needed for the month of November.

With this in mind, I planned the month of November and all the weekly pages in one planning session. Each of the weeks are very minimally designed – using the same square shape to create unity, but varying the layout for each week.

November Title Page | Simple black and white Hello November with elegant handlettering text and aspens

Chocolate Musings on YouTube!Plan With Me Video – November 2017

Here’s a video of November’s set-up. I plan on highlighting each week just before it starts. Check back each week for each new download of the layout with the measurements. The minimal design is something completely new to me (with the exception of this layout) and thrilled to try it out. I have come to realize that when life gets complicated or hectic, it is time to simplify. Check out the video below and be sure to hit like and subscribe for more content.

I will put together another post with the collections for this month – the Planning & Goals, Meal Ideas, Habit Tracker & Mood Tracker where I’ll track moods based on activity. I can’t wait to doodle on my weekly pages. Because I left lots of room for doodling.

 

Save to Pinterest for later – and while you are at it, follow me on Pinterest for more inspiration!

Follow @ChocolateMusingsCreates

I’d love to hear what you want to see in future videos so leave me a comment below.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

Tricia

Monthly Spread - Simplify your monthly calendar with a monthly log spread 3 columns + notes (or 4 column spread)

Want to know what I used in this video? I’ll tell you. (Contains affiliate links – if you click through and end up purchasing a product, I receive a small commission – though the cost is the same to you.)


7 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Bullet Journal, Plan With Me, Plan With Me 2017, Planner Spreads Tagged: Bullet Journal, bullet journaling, gratitude, leuchtturm1917, monthly calendar, monthly log, monthly planning layout, November, November 2017, plan with me, planner set up, planning video, Simplify

About Me


Hi! I'm Tricia, the creative behind ChocolateMusings.com, I know how it feels to lose your inner muse. After years of darkness (which I call the dark ages of my life), I found my inner muse hiding in the forgotten corners of my soul, I vowed never to lose sight of her again.

Bullet journaling helped reignite the passion for art and living life again while organizing my days. I also discovered modern calligraphy and watercolor. Since then, my use of the bullet journal system has evlolved and I call it 'creative planning'. Here on the blog, I show you how to use your planner to ignite your inner muse and explore creativity and art while staying beautifully organized and living a joyful life.

I invite you to grab some good chocolate and dive into my musings. Let’s ignite your inner muse.

Read more on the about me page. You can also find my policies and disclosures here.

  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Pinterest
  • Etsy
  • Facebook

Cart

Browse Products

  • State Outline - New Hampshire State Outline - New Hampshire $10.00
  • State Outline - Missouri State Outline - Missouri $10.00
  • State Outline - Maine State Outline - Maine $10.00
  • Large Marker Modern Calligraphy Guide Booklet | ChocoalteMusings.com #handletteirng #brushlettering #moderncalligraphy Workbook #1 Basic Strokes Modern Calligraphy Workbook for Large Markers $15.00 Original price was: $15.00.$12.00Current price is: $12.00.

Search ChocolateMusings.com

Categories

What Do You Want to Do Today?


 

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2025

Copyright © 2025 · Exquisite Damask Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

 

Loading Comments...