Today I'm Thankful...

Today I'm thankful for coffee....not just in the usual wake up, enjoy the aroma, and savor the liquid bliss of waking up to fresh-brewed coffee kind of thankfulness, but thankfulness in that there was ANY coffee to wake up to by enjoying the aroma and savoring any sort of semblance of liquid coffee bliss sort of way.

Yep. I was all set to start a pot of coffee this morning and discovered we had NO coffee in reserve. There was one tablespoon of high octane Starbucks coffee left in one bag, and a few more tablespoons of decaf in another, but we had NONE in reserve as we usually do. I looked in the pantry. I looked through the pantry overflow in the basement. None. Then I remembered the Dunkin' Donuts coffee I had bought a while back that I thought was "okay" but not as satisfying as the Starbucks I have found an affinity for....

I had to do some serious rooting through the freezer, but I found the bag of bold, dark, high octane coffee I had stashed there a few months ago. It didn't smell bad, but it didn't have that aromatic freshness that comes from a new bag of Starbucks. I made the coffee, then went to inform the hubster that I had good news and bad news. The good news was the fact that there was any coffee whatsoever to be had, and particularly of the high octane variety. The bad news was that I couldn't attest to the quality of said coffee. I am pleased to report that the coffee was acceptable, maybe even good, though not of the order we are accustomed to. The fact that it was acceptable to good, flavor-wise, is a bonus. Today, I'm just thankful for ANY coffee at all. It makes waking up any morning more pleasant, but especially so on a cold winter morning. Yes, today I'm thankful for coffee. Thank God for small favors.

The Christmas Box

I'm STILL working on getting my Christmas decorating done. It has proven to be a much slower process than expected, and truly, than it really ought to be. In the process of decking the halls, I have found interruptions hampering the completion of the task at hand come from the usual daily aspects of life, errands, night shifts, and even, at times, lethargy. It is coming along though.

I think I have procrastinated some in getting the job done because I knew that, this year, I was going to retire a big old cardboard box that has stored ornaments and a couple of other random Christmas decorations over the years. I really hate to to retire it (READ: trash it), but I didn't realize the extent of my attachment to that old box until this evening as I was taking out the ornament boxes that have so neatly fit inside that box while waiting patiently to be opened up each year in anticipation of so many Christmas celebrations. I transferred the individual ornament boxes into new clear plastic containers that would keep the contents more protected, but that box...that box was more than just a storage container for out of season ornaments. It was (is, for the moment) also a repository for memories.

It holds memories of its past life hearkening back to the days when we were pretty broke, and our Christmas decorations could fit into a single box that also happened to be shared with random household goods from our linen closet, back when it was originally commissioned into service. In the course of time and many military moves, the box eventually came to be an "ornaments only" box, and it's contents safely traveled with us to new homes in new places that would be transformed into "home" for the Christmas holidays we spent there, anchoring our past with the present through the bits and pieces of our lives and happy memories of Christmases past that the ornaments in the box symbolized. It has symbolized the growing up of our children and the passing of pets who were loved and so much a part of our family too.

Emptying out that box in anticipation of its retirement proved to be a more emotionally difficult thing for me to do than I had expected. It was difficult enough that I had to stop and take photos and write about it before I could break it down. That task still awaits. Retiring the box - breaking it down, and hauling it out to the garage to await the next trash collection day isn't just about retiring an old, but in some ways, perhaps still serviceable box. No. For me, it is closing a chapter in my life. The Christmas box that followed us around for my husband's whole military career, and was with us for each Christmas as our children grew and as some have left home, has been a sort of friend and fixture who was always there, faithful, maybe taken for granted at times. I'm going to miss that box and the part of my life that will, in a sense, go away with the box. The memories, however... the memories I get to keep.

By the Way....

The halls STILL have not been completely decked.

There is PROGRESS though.

PROGRESS is good.

The Plight of the Snowman

GOODNESS it's COLD outside!!!! It's windy too! I had to go outside to try to resurrect our fallen snowman yard decoration, but to no avail. When I found him (the snowman), he had the appearance of one who had been shot in the back, execution-style, on my front lawn. It should not be!!! It is hard enough for snowmen to survive the hardships of their short existence without having to endure the indignity of being blown down and left cast down on the ground with the appearance of a suburban crime victim. Unable to put the snowman back together, his present state isn't much better. He is now laying on his side on my front porch. Tomorrow, I will once again attempt to given him life...at least for the Christmas season. He does not look nearly as charming laying on the front porch as he did standing and sparkling as he welcomed passersby and visitors from the front lawn. It IS most certainly an improvement to be laying on the porch than to look as if he were a crime victim sprawled out on the cold, frozen tundra though.

E-Fame

Today I removed the "Followers" widget from my blog. I realized that being reminded that I have no followers every time I look at my blog was sort of like being reminded of some social deficiency. Not that I am particularly concerned whether anyone else reads this blog, I'm doing it mostly for me. No one else I know knows that I write here. But seeing "You have no followers" along with the invitation for someone (anyone) to be the first to "follow" your blog could invite a certain degree of self-deprecation after a while, whether one feels this way or not. I think that after a while there might be an element of desperation that could ensue from continually seeing the fact that your blog exhorts someone, anyone to (please!) follow your blog. Not that I'm desperate or anything ...

I got to wondering if others who view a blog with the fact that there are no followers displayed and the prominent invitation to "be the first!," could also serve as a deterrent for some. It's like no one wants to be the first person to step out and associate themselves with the unknown quantity... It has a feel of being somewhere in between wondering, "Who is that masked man behind the electronic curtain?," and having to pick the person to be on your team that no one else really wants to pick. I have removed the stigma. Life is good. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

Oh, if anyone asks if I have any followers, tell them that these are my followers:

My Biggest Fans



HAH!

A Christmas Miracle?

At 5:15 pm last Friday, my son got a call from his retail employer that we missed. By the time I saw that his workplace had called it was a good hour later. Now had I taken the call, I probably would have awakened him. But since no message was left, and since he was asleep and I thought he probably needed to sleep before his shift that night, and the general consensus was that we should just let him sleep, we did not wake him up to call into work and see the reason for their earlier call.

When my son got to work last Friday night, he was informed that he was fired. He had the option of working his shift if he wanted, or he could go home immediately, but his 90-day temporary position, and that of others as well, was being cut - effective immediately, only about 60 days into the 90-day period everyone had expected. Aside from the fact that it was a surprise, in general, we were really shocked that people who worked the night shift would be called, when most were likely sleeping, and informed that they were to be cut loose, effective immediately, over the phone. That would be like a person working the day shift who normally gets up for work between 6 & 7 a.m. getting a call at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and being told they were fired - a bit shocking really.

Now I understand about the business end of the situation, but I'm not going to get into it here. That's not the focus of this post. No, the focus of this post is on the human aspect of this situation. We were really surprised our son was let go. Almost every morning upon his return home from work, he would inform us of something one of his managers had said to compliment him on his work. That Saturday morning when he returned with the news of his firing, he said that the managers were upset and that one had offered to write him letters of recommendation to the management at some of the other stores in the area. I truly believed that if they were as complimentary of him as he said they were and were that eager to write letters of recommendation, that they wouldn't want to let my son go. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had asked him to come back to work for them. I just didn't expect it to happen so soon!!!

This afternoon, he got a call from the retailer's HR department at the store he had been working at up until last Saturday morning. They have asked him to come back to work as a permanent part-time employee. This is not where he envisioned himself working after completing college, but it beats being unemployed, and it's nice to know you are wanted and appreciated. Hard work pays off. He starts again tomorrow night. I hope some of the other temporary employees were hired back too.

On Decking the Halls

Since Thanksgiving weekend, I have been on a mission to deck my halls for the Christmas season which is now in full swing. I really would prefer to put up my Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving is a busy holiday unto itself, and as a purist, I don't like to let Christmas infringe on my Thanksgiving holiday. I really believe it is important to let Thanksgiving be Thanksgiving, and only Thanksgiving, because it is so important, to me, that the day of thankfulness and harvest blessings be honored on its own merits with the emphasis on expressions of thankfulness to our Creator, as well as in remembrance of the pilgrims who held the first Thanksgiving feast with the Indians who helped them survive that brutal first year, here, in the new land. I like the Christmas season too, but I don't like the commercial aspect of the Christmas holiday with it's encroachment on Thanksgiving nowadays.

I can remember when stores were closed on Thanksgiving, then the push for marketing Black Friday became the norm, and eventually some stores opted to be open on the Thanksgiving holiday, itself, with promises of fantastic deals to entice people away from their Thanksgiving celebrations in order to buy the perfect Christmas gifts at unheard of prices. Granted, merchants couldn't do this without the cooperation of the consumer, and in all reality, the diminished significance of the place for Thanksgiving in the hearts and homes of Americans, today, while the push to start the Christmas spending frenzy as soon as possible, really speaks to the values of the nation and shows what is important to its people. I can't help but think of the following scripture: "for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." [Matthew 6:21] We give our attention to those things which are most important and valued by us.

But getting back to the matter of decking the halls in anticipation of the Christmas celebration, because of my conviction that Thanksgiving should be honored as a standalone holiday, I do not even begin to put away the harvest, autumn, and Thanksgiving decorations until after Thanksgiving. However, at the behest of my children, I do so immediately after Thanksgiving! They would have the tree up on Black Friday, if they had a choice, and we try, but it doesn't always work out. The Christmas tree is usually up Thanksgiving weekend though. Other decorations follow, in the process of decking the halls, in the remaining weeks leading up to Christmas. It is a challenge because in addition to all of the usual things I feel like I barely have time to do in a given day or week, I am embarking on a major temporary redecorating project that has to be squeezed into the schedule of routine things that must be done, and all of the chaos associated with hauling out decorations only adds to the routine upkeep of the home and inhibits the usual process, which I already mentioned I find difficult to keep up with in an ordinary day or week. I was thinking about this last night, and I came to the conclusion that there is a certain insanity to this. This year I've been seriously considering multiplying the insanity by putting up a second Christmas tree, however. We used to do this a few years back, but we haven't done so in about 4 years. I'm thinking I'd like to have the second tree this year though.

This year, for the first time in a number of years, we actually put colored lights on our main large Christmas tree. It just seemed like it was time. I really like the clear lights too, and they do such a nice job of illuminating your ornaments at night, but we missed the colored lights. I think we have a certain sense of nostalgia for the past when our kids were little, and we only used colored lights on our tree. I think our kids were feeling some of that same nostalgia for the paradise of their childhoods and the magic of Christmas. My oldest son has even been quite vocal about how Christmas is about colored lights. I made the mistake of asking what he thought about our Christmas trees over the last few years that were adorned with clear lights, and I was tersely informed that he essentially tolerated those Christmas trees, but they did not say, "Christmas," to him. Having put up a tree with colored lights though, I still found myself missing the clear lights on a Christmas tree. If all goes well, I will have a second tree with clear lights up by this afternoon. THEN I can see about getting all of the boxes of ornaments and tinsel that are occupying valuable real estate in my great room and dining room put back in the basement where they belong and focus on enjoying the rest of the Christmas season!

Dogs!!!!

I love dogs, really I do. This morning dogs have been an annoyance though, not necessarily through any fault of their own; they are just being dogs. My first encounter with an annoying dog, being itself, was finding the neighbor from up the street's dachshund rooting through my other neighbor's recyclables. I yelled at the dog once but it ignored me. I did find it amusing that it appeared at one point as if the dog was putting a cup it had been chewing on back in the recycling bin. Overall, seeing the dog rooting through trash and chewing on wadded up aluminum foil was too much though. I not only had visions of all of the trash ending up blown into my yard, but I had concerns about the dog getting a bowel obstruction, internal bleeding, or some other malady in addition to concerns that it could get run over by the trash truck, or someone in a hurry to get to work.

I thought about taking the dog home to its owners, but I suspected that they probably weren't dressed, and that was why their dog was running loose, and I don't get the impression that we are on the best of terms with them anyway (I'm not entirely sure why, but I have an idea...most likely just differences and probably misunderstandings; more on their part than ours, I suspect.). I deferred taking the dog home to the owners because I didn't feel like initiating more conflict and getting in their face first thing on a Monday morning. I did chase the dog away from the trash it was exploring, however, and then started walking/herding it toward home. When it looked like it might try to take a meandering path and go somewhere else, I picked the dog up and carried to almost to its front door. I have no idea if the owners will know I did that, and I really don't care.

I'm debating whether or not to mention the issue of loose and unsupervised dogs to the HOA, without mentioning any names. People know who they are... Seriously, if you can afford to drive a late model Mercedes, can you not at least afford to put in an invisible fence if not a regular one? It's not fair to the dog or the rest of your neighbors when you let your animal roam loose. Depending on the time of day, your pet runs the risk of being run over or becoming food for coyotes. Letting your dog roam about unsupervised just is not a loving or responsible thing to do.

My other dog annoyance this morning came from one of my own dogs. Again, she was just doing what dogs do. She is a herding dog, and she may have been trying to herd me. I just didn't know she was there, and when she cut me off, I crashed right into her nearly knocking her over because I was moving quickly and not anticipating impediments to my movement, or obstacles. All is forgiven though, because I love dogs, really, I do.

Like a Kid in a Toy Store

Yesterday was a day of much running around. If the two Target stores I visited were any indication, people are spending right now. The lines at the checkouts were especially long at the Target we stopped into about an hour before closing time, and it was next to impossible to find a person to help you in either electronics department as both were literally swamped.

I must confess, and I hate to do so, but I have not been in a Hallmark store for some time. It may have been as little as a year, or it could have been 2-3 years, but it's been a while. I can think of a couple of reasons for this: 1) I buy a lot of my greeting cards at either Target or Wal-Mart. My Christmas cards, even when I buy Hallmark cards, are often bought at Kohl's, on sale and with percentage-off coupons. 2) The Hallmark ornaments we buy usually come from Kohls and other stores that carry some of the Hallmark Keepsake product line too. 3) I just don't usually think to stop in to the Hallmark store.

Last night, we went into the local Hallmark store though. We were in search of a Santa ornament, for our oldest son, who really only likes Santa ornaments and more specifically, "Hallmark" Santa ornaments. I felt like a kid in a toy store! I got so excited about all of the different ornaments on display and finally announced to the hubster that I couldn't take any more cuteness, I needed to look at some of the other items in the store. The rest of the store was full of more Hallmark goodness and eye candy. The staff at our store was awesome too. They were friendly and made themselves available, in the event we needed assistance, but they didn't hover. It was a wonderful shopping experience. I probably would have stayed a little longer if we hadn't needed to stop at Target, it wasn't so close to closing time for the Hallmark store, and if staying wouldn't have inflicting more damage to our bank account. But I will be going back soon and I probably will buy more goodies.

Girl vs. Ladder

Today I battled with one of those 22-foot multi-position extension ladders on a staircase. It was a hard fought battle, but since I emerged with only 2 slightly chipped fingernails, did not fall down the stairs with the ladder, did not fall off the ladder, AND accomplished my mission, I can confidently say that I emerged victorious in the battle with the ladder.

Brief Summary

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy. We even managed to visit some craft fairs over the past couple of weeks! I kept thinking I'd do a post about Halloween at our house this year. Obviously, that entry has not been written, nor have the stunning accompanying photos been uploaded. I may still do it...as long as I get to writing the post before Thanksgiving! I thought I'd do a better job of blogging than I have thus far. There is always room for improvement.

Tonight was a good night even though I'm exhausted. Made Saucy Chicken Breasts with rice and a medley of steamed veggies with new potatoes, baby carrots, baby corn, broccoli florets, & red peppers (I know, I know, lots of starch with the rice & potatoes - what do you do when you tell your kid to pick out a veggie for dinner from the freezer & that's what he wanted though?). The hubster and I made a Gooey Pineapple Butter Cake tonight too. I haven't had any, but it sure looks and smells good.

I'm feeling a little crabby at the moment, and what do I do? BLOG! Of course! I've been spending the last few days trying to finish the painting job in the dining room that I hired a painter to take over for me when I couldn't get it done after I'd gotten the room all taped off before my surgery. I have been frustrated by the seam created by the vertical line of separation that we had to create on the wall where the dining room meets the adjoining hallway. Unfortunately, when I took off the tape (at the appointed time) that was used to separate the two spaces, it also began to peel the paint off the wall near the point where the wall meets an arch. It pulled in another spot too, but I was able to salvage that. The part at the wall pulled and tore. After the fact, I was able to determine that it was because the painter used only the regular wall primer I had purchased as a base over the joint compound he had put on the wall to correct some imperfections that a painter hired by the builder had previously left behind.... *frustrated sigh* A primer designed to adhere to any surface (like Zinsser's) would have been the better option for the base coat over the joint compound, and I even had some available that could have been used.

I'm kind of irritated about the whole thing now. I know the guy had a lot of personal issues to deal with last week, and I am grateful that he was able to paint for me. Overall, he did a decent job. But the parts he didn't do decently are really nagging at me. I ended up patching and resanding the wall, and it didn't look great despite my time and effort. I like perfection; I can't seem to get it. When I took the tape down that I had put up to facilitate the repainting, it pulled the paint from the arch. Apparently, the joint compound extended further than I knew. I had to use a utility knife to cut the tape in an effort to minimize the damage, but it didn't help much. The paint on the arch peeled away & bubbled. I couldn't get it to lay back down, and I didn't want to have to sand the whole thing and start from scratch either. I did the only sensible thing I could think of the try to get the semi-wet paint to adhere to the wall: I got a glue stick and glued it down.

I was hoping the glue would be tacky enough to cover the joint compound and hold the loose paint edges that had peeled up against the wall's surface. It appeared to work. I went over it with a paint brush hoping that would provide further sealing coverage on the edges. At the moment it is drying, and I am "cooling off" as I write. I'm still pretty irritable. My thoughts range from thinking I should have just painted the whole hallway the eggplant color from the start, and considering that as a future option, to thinking about hiring someone to just come in and redo the whole arch for me, and maybe open up the doorway & remake it so that it has a defined boundary wall rather than the common wall now shared with the hallway. That would have been the SMART thing to do, but I didn't have a smart builder to begin with, so that is expecting too much and entering the realm of fantasy. If I just painted the whole hallway the eggplant color, I think putting a huge mirror on the wall in the hall to reflect additional light would be a good solution. I can see it in my mind. It almost works. It is an idea I would have to sell to the hubster though.

I have this nagging thought that I'm going to end up redoing that whole arch and section of wall from one end of the hall to the other end in the dining room. I just think that the places where the plain wall primer and paint met the joint compound aren't really going to work, and I am going to end up doing a major overhaul involving much sanding, and then repainting the whole thing because the paint I have left isn't going to be enough and won't match up exactly with the dye lot of the original batch of paint that went on the walls. This is not quite the way I envisioned the end of this project....it's sort of like the "Groundhog Day" (think of the movie) of painting. BOO - HISS!

Quote of the Day: On Fashionable Clothes & Ideas

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions but religiously follows the new."

~ Henry David Thoreau

Heroes & Perspective in Facing Life's Trials

Recently, I had a "cancer scare." The reason it's called a "cancer scare" is because you are given reason to believe that you may be facing the prospect of a battle with cancer in the foreseeable future, and given that it is often a battle for your very life, it can be quite scary. In fact, when you have a "cancer scare," there is an aspect of living with cancer (whether you have it or not) as you await the final word on the diagnosis, because if cancer is confirmed, it will turn your life upside down, and you know this going into the waiting period for that diagnosis or that reprieve, depending on the situation. If you are proactive, you start working at getting those things that you can in order - just in case - because you know you might not be able to do them later. It's stressful, if nothing else. There are a lot of things I could write about my experience in potentially facing the cancer demon, but the thing that came to mind today was just the fact that a sense of normalcy is settling back into my life now.

I was told going into surgery, just about a month ago, that I had a "really big ugly mass" inside of me, among other things. Going into surgery, I knew I could awaken being the last to know whether or not I had cancer. The only thing I had going for me going into surgery was the fact that blood tests for four tumor markers had come back within normal limits, or negative for cancer, but that still didn't mean that I didn't have cancer. I was fortunate. Despite the fact that my inner anatomy was pretty messed up by not one, but TWO (!) big ugly masses (the one we knew about and its hidden evil twin), as well as other mutant abnormalities, I came out of surgery WITHOUT a diagnosis of cancer.

My recovery has been amazing in some ways, and the peace I had going into surgery, which I believe came from my faith in God to be with me, regardless of the diagnosis, was nothing short of awesome too. That is not to say that I didn't have apprehensions; I think it is entirely normal to go into surgery with some apprehensions - especially after the pre-surgical counseling where the surgeon tells you everything that could go wrong (even up to & including death during surgery). But going into surgery, I knew it was out of my hands. There was nothing I could do to alter the situation. So, I turned to scripture and prayed for my surgical team. Overall, I felt oddly at peace with the situation. My prayers were answered this time. I am thankful.

I have had a little extra time as a result of being forced to take it easy while I recover from my surgery. Now that I am able to sit at the computer a little longer (up till now, it tended to make me hurt more than anything else), I have had the opportunity to read a few blogs I was previously unfamiliar with. There are people whose prayers were not answered in the way that mine were. They got the unfavorable diagnosis; they faced the specter of death. One family faced death, and is now taking things a day at a time with a glorious sense of peace, attributed to the graciousness of the Lord. Another faced death and came through the fiery trial that cheated death but did so with many scars & much pain. These folks are heroes in my mind, and as far as I can tell in the recent brief introduction I have had to them through their writing about their experiences, those experiences have not made them bitter. That is a blessing and a gift in itself.

Comparatively, my recent trial was nothing, and the few scars I have as reminders are either hidden or too small to be noticed. That doesn't mean that what I went through was completely insignificant in my life, but it does offer some perspective, and it makes me think of all of the people who have so much going for them, and yet they cannot appreciate the blessings in their own lives. I know some of these people. They are so overwhelmed by things (trials that, for them, perhaps are not insignificant), but they lack the ability to see beyond the things that are so consuming to them now to recognize how much they have going for them, and to be thankful for what they DO have. I have always tried to be cognizant of the blessings in my life, especially in recent years, and to make a conscious effort to express thankfulness for those blessings. In light of my recent cancer scare, I think I am even more thankful, and there are things I consciously enjoy more. Maybe I am a happier person, overall; I don't know if that is true, but I feel happier most of the time. It really is a gift, a blessing.

But some of the folks who have really been through the Refiner's fiery trials, who have managed to still convey peace and joy in their forever altered lives, these folks are the heroes, and we can learn a lot from them by how they have coped with the losses associated with their trials. Most people will not experience trials of the scope the people I am thinking of have experienced. Whatever the trials though, I believe it is easier to bear them if you have a belief in God and know that Jesus is right there with you in the midst of the trials. I don't know how people who do not have this faith get through similar trials. It's got to be a lot harder. In any case, I am thankful, and I am inspired by the grace I have vicariously observed in the way the people I have referred to previously, in this post, have exhibited in coping with their own trials. Who are these remarkable individuals? The Sullivans and nienie. May God bless and keep them as they continue to fight the good fight.

The Rain Cometh...

Just checked the radar, and a ring of rain is shown as approaching. It looks something like "the blob," gradually approaching and overtaking white space on the map as it moves ever closer.

We didn't have the chicken stew and biscuits I'd planned to make last night. We went to "Plan B." I'm kind of glad. I think the chicken stew & buttermilk biscuits will somehow taste better on a cool stormy night.

Today I want to put the paint on the wall over the primer I put on it, yesterday, so I can get my dining room in order - finally! It's been a long time coming. The challenge is getting the line straight on the wall as I have an odd long wall that connects the dining room with a hallway to the kitchen, and I opted not to carry the dining room paint color all the way across the long wall because it is such a deep dark color [Eddie Bauer's Tannin (buy it at Lowes), but we call it "Eggplant" because it has a purplish hue, and after all, I don't like the color purple, so it's "Eggplant." Humor me.]. If it had been solely up to me, I probably would have done it, but the hubster thought it would be too dark for the hallway part of the wall. I am a little disappointed that the wall isn't as "clean" as I'd like it. Between the builder's lack of expertise and the painter's corrections and lapse in not putting the plain, sticks to everything, primer on the joint compound he put on the wall to make the corrections before he primed and painted the wall, the wall doesn't have as smooth a finish as I'd like. I did what I could to clean it up though. It'll do for now, but it'll look a LOT better when I get the paint on over the primer.

Contemplations on an Overcast Autumn Afternoon

After a solid week of cool weather, overcast skies, and intermittent rain, we had about two and a half days with sunshine and more seasonal temperatures. It was nice. Still, as the clouds thicken and my mind ponders the cooler temperatures that will arrive again soon, I am not minding this somewhat gloomy autumn weather. In fact, I find myself embracing it. The cooler temperatures don't bother me all that much - at least not yet! I think because the landscape is still so saturated with color, thanks mostly to the autumn foliage, that it doesn't seem so dark & dreary, even on overcast days, as it will in February and March when the landscape is mostly a palette of grays and browns, and the trees and shrubs that are now softly outlined with leaves will be stark figures with their naked outstretched branches.

At the moment I have a chicken and veggies simmering in a pot on the stove. There is something about the aroma of chicken stock simmering in the kitchen. It is a warm, comforting scent. It makes me feel even better because I know the nutrient-rich broth will not only produce a hearty and delicious chicken stew with biscuits for tonight's dinner, but the extra broth will be available for other dishes after that, or in the event that someone is sick and needs some of what my mother has referred to as "Jewish penicillin" even though we are not Jewish. Homemade chicken broth, or chicken stock, is just so delicious AND good for you.

Today I am especially tired. I haven't been sleeping well, and last night was a little worse than usual. I tried to nap earlier today, but that didn't work out well. My mission is to stay awake long enough to get through dinner, tidy the kitchen, & prep for tomorrow, but otherwise to get to bed as early as possible tonight. A brief nap is sounding good at the moment, however. Perhaps I can sneak in a few winks while the primer on the wall dries. I am trying to fix what the painter I hired didn't quite do correctly. It's not so much fun. I thought I had the place cleaned up and could put the room back together last Friday. We are getting there.

The Crimson Hatbox

Lately, I've been wanting to blog about things that are on my mind. You know, the random thoughts that pop into your head, the things observed, appreciated, and experienced in the daily living of life, those are the things I have been wanting to write about. I haven't felt like I had the right outlet, but I am going to give this a try. It's a new day, a new season, and a time to try something new as well. I like to think that "The Crimson Hatbox" is kind of like a box you find tucked up on a shelf in the closet with bits of life's memories tucked inside, and a happy place to steal away for a bit and experience what's found inside the box.