Autumn

O Autumn, how I love you.  Your first breezy gusts of cool along Summer's heated form, the rising mists, the emergence of color that, along with the calls of geese overhead, sends hearts soaring and minds quickening.  My love of woolen things reemerges and hits its stride, my dreams of slow cooking, woodland hikes, and leaf-collecting mix with the dusting off of hiking boots, sweaters, and scarves.  Can I knit a hat for everyone in the family?  If only knitting at work were acceptable!  Commuting to work in the damp, blue-grey mornings with patterns of orange and blooming-rust red amongst the green feels easier and more contemplative.  Now is the time to lay in plans, jars of food, blankets, strategies, and hopes, and tuck in one's loved ones.

This is from the Wikimedia Commons, not mine, but appropriate....

What shall we dream up when we ready our nests?  What plans will we lay in, as nuts to squirrels, as fat to bears, to dwell on this Winter?

In the beginning of Autumn, it is still hopeful, energizing, open, moving.

Beginning rejuvenation

This past weekend was lovely, even as the temperature is dropping a bit early here in New England.  E has found a great martial arts resource in the form of a man who has been training for many years on some of the things E has been interested in (also for years).  So our Saturdays will hopefully frequently be E going to learn from this person.  I am delighted that they have been able to connect.  Especially when one loves something that ends up being on the fringe of what is out there (big commercial martial arts gyms are usually one of a small handful of the arts out there, targeting a specific audience), and combining that with the fact that this is an interactive art that takes group time, repeatedly, to learn, it's (even more) fortunate when people get together to share something they are passionate about. 

Along those lines, I hope to look for a bellydance instructor (or groups) shortly.  I miss dancing.  But I did get to work out a bit this weekend - my lovely sister visited us Saturday night and stayed with us.  We chatted over dinner, and over postprandial knitting.  I am yes, still working on a little sweater for Sprout that I cast on for many months ago.  I'm using 100purewool, which is just lovely stuff.  I hope to finish this up soon since the temperatures are indeed starting to drop - not all at once, but we did have a frost warning (!) this past week.  Anyways, on Sunday morning my sister encouraged me to go running with her. She is a runner - she ran cross-country in high school, and she is a hasher.  She kindly paced herself with me and did less than I know she could have, as I plodded along, gasping, in 8-minute intervals, with 2-minute walking peppered in.  I probably ran for a total of 24 minutes, with breaks, which may be small potatos to some, but was a happy big deal to me!  Also, my sister diagnosed my running stride a bit - apparently I'm not really stretching out my lower legs and using my calves and ankles actively to help propell me along.  Interesting.

Sprout is teething, and teething yesterday evening with a vengeance (read: much crying and unhappiness).  We gave him a bit of children's painkiller to help him feel better enough to fall asleep later on at bedtime.  Poor kid.  He looked OK this morning, although a bit more short-tempered than he usually is, perhaps due to teething and painful gums, or just getting older and fed up with Mommy sometimes.  I packed mostly chunk-free foods today for him, along with some peeled apple pieces from the apples we picked yesterday.  I was looking forward to it, but it was a subdued outing - E was not feeling well and was very quiet, and D was also a bit out of it, as his gums must have been hurting him and I think he was getting ready to cut a tooth.  Ah well, we have a bag of apples now for eating.

More food for thought on...me

We are settling down into our new place, although there are a surprising number of boxes piled up in the basement...and living room...and storage space....  Sprout is settling in to a new daycare, and I have been swamped at my new job.  The people are nice though, which makes such a difference.  I am still just treading water and trying to keep up with a different system, different personalities to negotiate and handle (part of my job is "influencing without authority", which means negotiating personalities and changing my own tactics for each group, so I am trying to gauge the new groups of people), and new products on which to learn all the details. 

Whew. 

I'm hoping to go apple-picking this weekend though!  Woo!  New England late summer/early fall is fabulous.  Apple-picking is so much fun.  I'm scoping out any organic (whether certified or just using organic farming practices) orchards to try and get low-pesticide fruit for us, especially Sprout.  Not terribly easy, but still looking!

I'd like to get settled in so we can start having friends and family stay with us, and go on more outings as well. 

Did I mention the place we're renting has a big fenced-in yard?  Maddie is delighted.  She trots after chipping chipmunks with glee. 

And for today...  True, true.  I can get so terribly self-critical.  Some things should be let go, like paper boats on the bay.

September 9



Try then try again today, Taurus. It can feel terrible to fail at something. Sometimes you just want to hide rather than face the possibility of humiliation. If success is important to you, you need to overcome your embarrassment and fear. Most people have to try more than once, especially when striving for important goals. Don't give up. Your goals are worthy of the effort.