Thanks for reading the November 2025 issue of This Awful Awesome Life. I hope you use the link for the recipe for Apple Salad with Maple Vinaigrette in our “Twelve Months of Fruit.” Previous issues of This Awful Awesome Life are available to read on our website.
Go to www.thisawfulawesomelife.com and start scrolling or you can enter specific search criteria.
Our December issue addresses the importance of family. Traditional notions of family have changed with society. What criteria do you use to define the meaning of a family? Sometimes, if we’re lucky, our community becomes our extended family. Can you be a family of one? Should anyone ever have to try?
We’ll also be celebrating World AIDS Day (12/1), International Day of Persons with Disabilities (12/3), Human Rights Day (12/10), Hanukkah (12/15), International Migrants Day (12/18), Winter Solstice (12/21), Christmas (12/25), Boxing Day and Kwanzaa (12/26), and New Year’s Eve (12/31).
I’m not sure what my December short story and my poem will be about, I’m excited to wrap up a year of stretching my writing muscles. I enjoyed writing both so much, I might continue this experiment into 2026.
Did you vote on November 4th? If you did, thank you! Voter apathy is a real threat to democracy. Voting in every election matters. Help prevent gerrymandering by electing officials who will protect everyone’s right and ability to vote in fair elections.. Voting isn’t just a right; it’s also a sacred responsibility.
Orlando Bartro and I will be back with more interesting articles for you.
Our featured author with a December birthday will be the Russian author and dissident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (December 11, 1918 – August 3, 2008).
We’re moving some of our regular features around to shake things up a bit and keep you on your toes. I’m also hoping to expand our Artist Page to feature more talented creatives. Some people manage to elevate their work to the level of an artform, and we want to support their efforts.
I’ll have more streaming and reading recommendations. “What’s in a Word?” will be back but we’ll be alternating some of our content. We’ll continue the monthly quizzes to exercise our brains, and we’ll continue reviewing books.
For the time being, I’m holding off on a new subscription-based Patreon account featuring short stories and chapter installments of my books as I write them. I also hoped to provide opportunities for book discussions and narrations of short stories. It’s something I want to do, but pesky life keeps getting in the way. When and if this happens, it will remain separated from our online magazine which will always be free and available to everyone. I’m considering the Patreon option because traditional and Indy publishing have changed so drastically in recent years. Now that AI has entered the equation, more changes are coming.
Stay safe. Stay well. You are important, and you are loved.
All my best,
Fran
Answers to the November 2025 “Movies, Books and Songs with Home in the Title “Quiz:
It was a song title before it was an animated film about three cows trying to save their home. Home on the Range
When Supertramp tries to give you directions Take the Long Way Home
When Thomas Wolfe gives you advice You Can’t Go Home Again
Just a dog and his bird trying to visit his original owner who is sick in the hospital Snoopy Come Home
Blind Faith is lost Can’t Find My Way Home
Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) and Brad (Will Farrell) end up in an odd competition Daddy’s Home
Author Bill McKibben walks from his home in Vermont to his former home in the Adirondacks reveling in the beauty of nature Wandering Home
In this PJ Ranes novel, Penny wakes up in her childhood bedroom with a chance to have a do-over of her life When I Get Home
When the Seaver family drops their three pets, Chance, Sassy, and Shadow at a friend’s ranch before going on vacation, the pets worry they’ve been abandoned and set off to find their way home Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
This book of poems by Courtney Peppernell is a tribute to rebuilding lives after loss The Way Back Home
Melanie (Reese Witherspoon) finds success as a fashion designer in New York and a new love, Andrew (Patrick Dempsey). The only problem is she has to go home and divorce the husband Jake (Josh Lucas) that she left behind. Sweet Home Alabama
This song describing the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River was actually written while driving through Virginia not West Virginia Country Roads Take Me Home
This novel by Mark William Falzini chronicles life immediately after WWII and at the beginning of the Cold War for American Military families stationed in Germany Letters Home
After her husband’s death, Frances (Kathy Bates) is sexually harassed by her boss, and one of her six children is getting into trouble. She leaves Los Angeles for a dilapidated property in Idaho in hopes of making a fresh start A Home of Our Own
According to Pink Floyd there’s Nobody Home
The first book in a series by Jan Karon about Father Tim, a bachelor rector whose life is upended by a giant dog and a beautiful new neighbor. At Home in Mitford
This collection of short stories by Garrison Keillor is about characters in a fictional town and their experiences away from their home Leaving Home
Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg star in this short film about the Montgomery bus boycott. The Long Walk Home
“Sleep my friend and you will see the dream is my reality.” (Metallica) Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Oh that Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) Home Alone
Neil Young remembers, but he just doesn’t share your opinion. Sweet Home Alabama
Eddie Money wants you to Take Me Home Tonight
Kathy Bates, Martin Sheen, and Emilio Estevez star in this drama about a Vietnam vet’s difficulty reentering civilian life after his combat experiences The War at Home
This is where Michael Bublé wants to go. Home
This historical non-fiction work by Karolyn Smardz Frost is a biography of Cecelia Jane Reynolds, an enslaved African America who escapes and makes her way to Canada to start a new life. Steal Away Home
This song is just one of the gifts given to us by the talented Ozzy Osbourne. Momma, I’m Coming Home
This 1967 memoir by Willie Morris chronicles his journey from the segregated south to eventually become the editor of Harper’s magazine in New York City. North Toward Home
This Beatles song is a bittersweet story of a young woman’s decision to live her own life and her parent’s stunned reaction. She’s Leaving Home
Bobby (Colin Ferrell) leaves his dysfunctional family in Cleveland and reunites with his childhood friend Jonathan (Dallas Roberts in New York to try to form a family with Clare (Robin Wright), but romance gets in the way. A Home at The End of the World
Deep Purple sings about feelings of isolation, longing for connection and belonging, and fears of being trapped. Pictures of Home