November Do list №11

It's officially November. 2020 is almost over. Make the rest of the year count by taking more time to feel joy- whatever that means to you! Get a Christmas tree early, take a fun class online, watch more of your favourite holiday movies or lose yourself in a new book. Make the space to re inspire yourself! Use these recommendations below if you need help with ideas.

Scorpio Season

Your advice from Astro Style! Link below for more:

https://astrostyle.com/scorpio-season-2019/

"Scorpio is the second of the zodiac’s three water signs and part of the “fixed” quality (or triplicity), which includes Taurus, Leo, and Aquarius. These star signs are about security, planting a flag in the turf and establishing dominance—like Scorpio Bill Gates, who celebrates a birthday on October 28. People born under these signs are often hardworking, stable, and unafraid to take a strong position on issues.

As lighthearted Libra season flutters into the rearview, we dive into the depths of a cosmic cycle colored by extreme passion. No more taking the safe middle-ground or avoiding conflict in order to be liked. Scorpio’s energy is about zoning in on a target. Think: power mergers, strategic alliances and things that happen behind closed doors.

Here are five ways you can work with the forces of Scorpio season between now and November 22.

1. Shroud yourself in mystery.

Details of our private lives are rarely spared in the digital age. But mysterious Scorpio loves to turn up the intrigue factor, cueing us to hold back a little. Take a break from documenting every mundane moment on social media and let people wonder what you’re up to. A bit of FOMO can actually work to your advantage now. The power of suspense is a Scorpio specialty—suggestion, anticipation, the dangling of the proverbial carrot. Scatter a few clues and love notes, seduce people to follow your trail while you build their curiosity into a frenzy. They’ll be dying to know where the thrilling plotline leads!

2. Get a little spicy.

Scorpio’s erotic powers have become legendary at this point—and this solar season is prime time to unleash your own undercover freak. But this isn’t just about a quick shag! Contrary to popular lore. Scorpio is the sign of intimacy, merging, and “constant craving,” like the song by Scorpio K.D. Lang—it’s where two become one, and you can revel in the communion of mind, body and soul.

3. Dive into a (healthy) obsession.

A higher incarnation of Scorpio is the sharp-eyed eagle, which dives for its prey from the sky and rarely misses its target. This focused solar cycle is great for research or detailed work. What are you eager to learn? Plow through tutorials and watch YouTube videos. During the next four weeks, you’ll have the focus you need to master your first guitar chords, edit a music video on an app or make your first larger-scale macramé wall hanging. 

Conte d'automne

"Before Sideways (2004), critics were dusting off their wine metaphors for this effervescent romantic drama by Éric Rohmer, the concluding part of his Tales of the Four Seasons series. Set around a vineyard in the Rhône Valley, it’s the story of a middle-aged winemaker, Magali (Béatrice Romand), who’s persuaded by a friend to place a lonelyhearts ad in the local newspaper. She places little hope on finding her man – after all she’s getting old and her work keeps her both busy and apart from the world. Yet, as so often in this director’s films, such reasoning and rationality are tested with a simple chain of events, the machine-like gears of fate gently shifting.

Rohmer, many a time a filmmaker of the summer (Pauline at the Beach, 1983; The Green Ray, 1986), serenely captures French wine country at harvest time, the passage of an autumn day and the golden light of a lowering sun. As Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times: “the movie evokes such a sensuous atmosphere – bird song, wind and light and shadow that delineate the season and time of day with an astonishing precision – that you are all but transported into Magali’s fields”- Excerpt

https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-films-set-during-autumn

Stepmom

Every fall needs a good, guilty pleasure lineup of films on deck, I think Stepmom could be at the top of that list. Terrible and terribly satisfying, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Autumn and a soppy ending? Ok. Bad reviews can't keep us away from this female cast...

Jackie is a divorced mother of two. Isabel is the career minded girlfriend of Jackie’s ex-husband Luke, forced into the role of unwelcome stepmother to their children. But when Jackie discovers she is ill, both women realise they must put aside their differences to find a common ground and celebrate life to the fullest, while they have the chance.

Home For the Holidays

Directed by Jodie Foster and starring Holly Hunter, the family drama, food, and kitchen conversations leaves you feeling like you've really been home for the holidays. 

When her teenage daughter opts out of Thanksgiving, single mother Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) travels alone to her childhood home for an explosive holiday dinner with her dysfunctional family. Claudia quickly tires of her parents, her long-suffering sister (Cynthia Stevenson), her snobby brother-in-law (Steve Guttenberg) and her nutty aunt (Geraldine Chaplin). But the evening gets interesting when sparks fly between Claudia and her brother's handsome friend Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott).

My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russel

I recommended this book a while back within a cluster of other books, but I'm giving it it's own highlight for November because it's TOO good to miss and a great curl-up-under-a-blanket- fall read. It is enthralling, devastating, haunting and relatable- for all women. The audible version is so good, so listening is a great option on this one, if you want to lay around or cook or need something while you work, get this book on your phone immediately. To say it's a page turner is an understatement.

2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, 15-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful 42-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: Remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager - and who professed to worship only her - may be far different from what she has always believed?

BUTTERNUT SQUASH RAVIOLI WITH BROWN BUTTER SAUCE, CRANBERRIES, & WALNUTS 

from Yes to Yolks

RECIPE AND DIRECTIONS HERE

FOR THE SQUASH RAVIOLI:

• 1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 large shallots, quartered
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
• Olive oil, for roasting
• Pinch of red pepper flakes
• Salt and pepper
• 1 (15-oz) container of whole milk ricotta cheese
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 package wonton wrappers
• Egg wash, for sealing the ravioli

FOR THE BROWN BUTTER SAUCE:

• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 10 sage leaves, left whole
• ½ cup toasted walnuts, chopped
• ½ cup dried cranberries
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Grated Parmesan cheese

Venus done Selkie style. Now in black.

"Known as the “Birth of Venus”, the composition actually shows the goddess of love and beauty arriving on land, on the island of Cyprus, born of the sea spray and blown there by the winds, Zephyr and, perhaps, Aura. The goddess is standing on a giant scallop shell, as pure and as perfect as a pearl. She is met by a young woman, who is sometimes identified as one of the Graces or as the Hora of spring, and who holds out a cloak covered in flowers. Even the roses, blown in by the wind are a reminder of spring. The subject of the painting, which celebrates Venus as symbol of love and beauty, was perhaps suggested by the poet Agnolo Poliziano."