Tag Archives: autumn

“I collect pretty things”

October 28, 20152 Mi Familia, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Thinkaging, Alzheimer's Disease, autumn, dementiaJeanie

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“I don’t know why I have all these things,” she said. “I guess I just like to collect pretty things, anything at all that is pretty. I just like them.”

Mom is aging. Mom is losing memories to that dreaded disease {we can barely whisper it, dementia}, like the autumn tree loses leaves, softly, quietly ~ leaf begins its’ descent, down-down, a swirl and a sudden swoop upward, then, swept away in the wind, settling in a crevice on the earth’s floor.

And she has a drawer, or two…maybe 4 in which she has stored photographs and newspaper articles and pictures of puppies and magazine tear-outs of scroll-y art which she plans to glue to an envelope or piece of paper for writing lovely, loving letters to some one she cares about.

“I just wanna take pictures of the whole world.” -Norma Jean, my mamala. November 2013

Some of us wish to “help her clean” those drawers, to lighten her load by getting rid of things and scraps we are certain she doesn’t really need. I start to offer my help, I resist this urge. Because despite the diminishing certainty in her brain, and that facts and details are being swept out to a sea of forgetfulness (how very God-like, really, isn’t it?), these notes and papers and pictures and print-outs are all important to her, her tangible hold and her physical memory. She wants them, needs them, she desperately clings to the information they hold for her.

I resist my urge to purge on her behalf. Instead, I let her pull them out again to recount the story of why she loves each one and her plans for what she’ll do with them. “I’m going to make a book of cars for Hunter to read to Kai. And this is a cartoon I thought Ronnie May would find so funny. Oh – look, here is my pattern for those Christmas-card trees I’ve been wanting to make…”

I note something very new on this visit: I have a terrible time getting her to go for walks – this woman who has always loved outdoor activity and horseshoes and playing baseball and lassoing imaginary cattle. Fear is the cruelest part. She fears the walks on uneven surfaces because of the falls of the past year. But when finally I get her there, her most vibrant, youthful, excited self shows up to investigate the woods and explore the paths with utter abandon and childlike enthusiasm. She out corn-holed both dad and me, twice! And she’d have kept throwing those corn-filled bags if night hadn’t fallen fully.

For my mamala is losing pieces and snippets

{a few leaves flutter to the ground around us on our walk}.

She is missing moments and words are escaping her

{a breeze – then swirls of yellow leaves swish and swoop finally making their way to the ground}. There they go–

{the larger Elm and scarlet Maple leaves whisper as they pass us falling to the earth}

and simple tasks and skills slowly, slowly falling down. Leaves flutter toward our feet {gravity is winning} catching the late day sun and something

~{a memory, a knowing} ~

once so sure, falls with them.

Then in a sudden flash of exuberance, “Oh look at that leaf, will you?” she’ll ask, and she picks it up from the ground and with it comes a vibrant, razor-sharp recollection. And I’ll hear a story with detail-complete clarity and accuracy, but one I may never hear again – because she’ll remember it no more.

She sometimes knows with utter and complete understanding, and seconds later is completely unaware that it is so. And I have no desire to rush this process. For whatever she loves, I will love. Whatever brings joy to her heart, I will find joy in, through her eyes, Please help me with that, Lord. Help me not to rush these days and these “silly things” she collects with child-like delight. Oh God, help me hold her most valuable treasures for her, as she loses the strength to do so…

She makes me laugh, her sweetness.

An assortment of colorful leaves falls from her handbag as I help her search for her wallet. Because. They are pretty.

“That’s just me, I reckon. I collect pretty things.”

This morning, rising early, I saw her on her back deck which faces the eastern-sky, just as the sun was rising and flickering through the tree branches which have formed a black lace as they have started to bare. Beyond the expanse of grass, a wooded area where she daily enjoys the deer family as they graze, the sun began to emerge, finally exploding into bright light just above the trees. It is where she goes to watch and wait for the return of Christ each morning. I stood in the shadows, on this morning, and watched her worship, watched her raise her arms to welcome the day, to tell the Lord she looks for His return. Every part of her open, loving heart belongs to the One she longs for…

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” Revelation 22.17

True story: {she is this very second showing me her biggest, prettiest Maple leaf, making sure I know all the reasons it is as beautiful and special as she thinks it is}…and I look at gentle and animated, piercing-blue eyes with a halo of ever-whitening hair, and I say yes, so beautiful, mamala – deeply beautiful, for so she is.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus…my mama is looking for You. And that, she does not forget.

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NOTE 10.28.15:: I just wrote about my recent trip to visit my mom and mentioned the dreaded “A” word for the first time (Alzheimer’s Disease) on this blog. You may read about it HERE

The Day the Leaves Fell Down in Denver

November 10, 20144 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Thinkautumn, autumn leaves, eva cassidy, fall, leaves, snow, winterJeanie

“That’s the Day that Leaves Fell Down in Denver,” to the tune of “That’s the Night that the Lights Went Out in Georgia” ;)

October 7 :: Kai and I picnic in the backyard. The leaves were changing color right before our eyes. However, the Aspens, just to the left – still green.

October 22 :: The yard is ablaze with every autumn hue.

November 8 :: Just another pretty (blue sky) day in Denver

But today…November 10th :: the north wind blows, the temp drops 30-degrees in a few hours and the flakes start to fall.

We hit our high of 64 degrees at about 7:30 am this morning.

The Aspen leaves, the last of them that have held on for all they’re worth, the ones that have waved at me happily with each gentle breeze as the sweetest autumn days have drifted by – they are getting kicked out on their butts! Today is the day, I am thinking.

I’d say the Aspens were at about 50% leafery (made-up word) on Saturday. But that harsh, cold, north wind (thanks a lot, North Dakota) is changing everything…wait… I just saw snowflakes…!!!

{Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr}

The BEST version of “Autumn Leaves” on the planet:

By the incredible, late Eva Cassidy. In honor of a wholly gorgeous 2014 fall season…This is the way I sing it around the house or at the keyboard. It is the MOST beautiful!

This weather re-cap has been brought to you by a woman who hates winter, but who lives in a wintry state.

Ay-yi-yi. Just clinging to my fair-weather memories.

Thought-Collage Thursday // A Bountiful Bunch of Dis-jointed Reflections

October 23, 20142 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Thinkautumn, autumn leaves, carly florin, cary grant, fall, flowers, garden, life, mi familia, movies, relationships, singing, voteJeanie

I don’t even know what that title means.

In the back yard yesterday

Except, I do have thoughts. That is why – this blog. But sometimes life is careening with such force and speed, the thoughts, the observations and ideas – well, they just zoom on by and I can only retain the barest interpretation of them.

Such is this week.

I get so romantic about the autumnal season

Also the back yard yesterday. No kidding – I got to see all these colors including that Colorado blue sky!

I go out in the cool breeze of night and watch the leaves drifting down and start composing silly poetry in my head like this:

When the breeze picks up and the leaves fall down

And the Jack ‘O Lanterns are scowling all around town…

There is actually much more, and maybe one day I’ll share it with the grandbebes, but I’m no poet. I know it. ;) So for today, we’ll leave it here. Bet you’re wondering what was going to happen, aren’t you?

Which leads me to this question: Would Dr. Seuss be able to find a publisher these days? I mean – he just made up words to make them rhyme.

See how random things just barrel through?

The song of the month: Autumn Leaves {of course}

I love the song. I first loved the song, as a child, when I heard Roger Williams piano version (my Grandma gave me his album). To find it had actual words, not that many years ago, was a bonus. It was originally in French (1945), and all the greats have recorded it. Jo Stafford (one of my favs) was first, but then Edith Piaf (who did both an English and a French version), Diana Krall (she makes all songs amazing), Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eric Clapton – they all have recorded it. Eva Cassidy, too.

Kai did not want to model

And I have spent the entire month of October singing it and plunking around on the keyboard playing it. Rocky told me to come to his office and he’d play the guitar and mix my voice (read: tune me up and make me sound good) in his studio. But who has time for that? Neither he nor I.

I get more wordy and gooey each autumn

I have been blogging since 2006, so you’d think by now I wouldn’t have a clue what all I have said. But I always do recall, each fall, that I get a little more, shall we say, descriptive, come autumn. I become quite melancholy and overcome with passion for the season.

Proof:

I ponder autumn red, quote Marilyn Monroe and dissertate on being a woman in the autumn of her life. {{see here}}
In “Delicious Autumn,” I quote George Eliot and tumble head-over-heels into a sensory love affair with nostalgia – the sights, the smells, the tastes, the feels, the sounds of youth faded…while visiting my parents. Haha. {{see it here}}
I’ve often written about October being orange. But in looking back, I do also pay my respects to the reds of October. This one is an homage to red, to “a fully florid, cherry, sanguine scarlet. A puce, a rufescent russet, a bloody, blushing, gushing, infrared hot pink mixed with flaming chestnut and rubies and gleaming copper, all at once…shimmering and iridescent fuchsia, yet dense and heavy garnet, a ruby…bittersweet in both color and the evoking of raw autumn melancholy.” And etc! :) {{see it here}}
Two years ago this very day, {{THIS}} was happening. The grandbebes and a little weather forecast. I remember that light, those leaves…

Oh, there are many more fall, autumn, October posts. Some November, too. And miles of words down roads of the romance of the season. But I’ll let this part go with those few examples.

I voted.

Oh how I love getting to vote in the convenient location of my home. And mailing it in…wait, did I remember to mail it? I will say that I wish I could change one of my amendment-issue votes because I researched a bit more later and I think I may have been…*w*r*o*n*g*!??

That is (1) highly unusual, and (2) growth for me…to think that I maybe/might have been/possibly was/super-small chance that I was ever-so-slightly wrong, but instead of demanding a fresh ballot, I’m just going with the flow. It is what it is. And really, in light of SO MANY OTHER PEOPLE VOTING WRONG ALL THE TIME, this one minor issue is of little consequence. Just kidding…about other people’s votes. Maybe.

So now, if all the political ads would kindly remove themselves from my presence. Thank-you very much.

Loved her book!

Oh, and I won’t tell you how I voted. No. You couldn’t guess if you tried because I am an independent. Do not try to fence me in!

BUT if she wants to hire me for her campaign, “Carly Fiorina for President!” On women, 53% of voters: “We are not a special-interest, single-issue constituency. We are half the country.” up-project.org

I was in the country the other day

The burning bushes are on fire!

The cows were mooing and a tractor was motoring by. The smell of manure was in the air and a pretty gray cat with grass-green eyes came by to say hi {totally unaware that I am not a cat person, apparently}. The sun was sweet and you could see miles of mountains from there. And even though life was happening all around and “town” was just 3 miles away, it was quiet. So quiet. I think I was made for the country.

A {Country Baby} came to see me.

Sawyer with Guini and Gemma

Two of them in fact, with their parents. Sawyer and Wryder were here visiting from Holyoke. That is country. The term Country Baby comes from one of my fav old movies, Baby Boom, with Diane Keaton. Do you remember that movie? I think that is a good movie to watch near the end of October.

Arsenic and Old Lace

And always-always-always try to view Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace near Halloween. Because. Cary Grant. He is hilarious in it and scary-good-looking!

It s such a great old black and white flick!

I miss my mom over there in Hoosier-land.

I have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to tell you a million little details about my time in NW Indiana recently (in Chicago-land). It was so windy the last day there, but I held on to my mamala for dear life. In this photo I was thinking, “Oh I love her and I will miss her.” And I was so right. On both counts.

Since the Cardinals did not make the World Series, we are for the Kansas City Royals.

Got it? OK!

I love baseball. I miss my dad, too, because we watched a lot of baseball while I was there. But he can’t take seeing his teams lose, so we missed some great comebacks. Oh, pops. ;) Cardinals forever, anyway!

I threw caution to the wind and listed my Jeanie-green ornate, Baroque, Italianate, solid wood, custom-built green coffee table on Craigslist.

I think I am changing my mind. Because, I mean – even the paint was custom-mixed for ME, to match a sliver of a piece of one of the grandbebe’s art pieces. I don’t know if I can let it go?

A thought about relationships…

Tara brought me a bouquet of flowers just before my birthday, more than 2 weeks ago. It was a huge bouquet of purple lilies, hydrangea, lavender statice, various mums and Gerber daisies. Stormie brought me a big mums-filled bouquet a couple of days later, as seen on the coffee table, above (those fall mums will go on forever!).

At day 17, the purple bouquet from Tara – a third of its original size, yet still lovely.

I have never been one of those women who needs her husband to bring her flowers, though I enjoy the surprise of them, like anyone. I get joy from growing things in the ground.

But both of these bouquets made me so happy and are still bringing me a smiles, light, bright joyful remembrances of warm thoughts and pure love shown towards me.

And while a fresh bouquet is glorious, people often throw the whole thing away when a few of the buds begin to age or drop. But you miss something when you do that. There is still so much beauty there. Yes, the “fussier” parts of the bouquet are long gone. But in just the minute or so it takes me daily to tend to the arrangement, to remove drooping leaves or a dead-headed flower, then to snip the ends and add fresh water, in less than a minute, I have revived the bouquet. It looks a little different each time, some of the filler going away, but its beauty remains and I get to enjoy them much longer.

It is the same with the people we love and the relationships that mean something. Even if things are different now than they once were, a love or friendship worth having is worth tending regularly.

You could just let it go to waste, throwing away wilting expectations and brushing off the dust of disappointment. But you could also decide to spend just a few minutes tending and repairing, loving and caring. And in a very short time you might be made glad by the beauty of it again. Maybe it won’t look like what it once did, as busy and full, but that is OK, too, I think.

Love with all you’ve got while you can.

There are so many leaves falling in this post, you may have to rake now.

I shall bring this to close (I’m a preacher’s daughter and that’s what they all say), but of course, you NEED an autumn quote, yes? Then this, from F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Life starts all over again, when it gets crisp in the fall.” Remember, I told you? October is the new January!

Happy Autumn and Magical Thursday to you!

See? Too many words! I just cannot stop myself…

Blog-Birthday: Reposts from Melancholy Autumn Writings

November 27, 20133 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Thinkautumn, fall, melancholy, Memories & Melancholy, november, octoberJeanie

I get melancholy in the fall. I fall in love with the smells and sights and sounds and the changing leaves. It is ridiculous. But true. Below are parts of a few different things I mentioned about fall and the autumn leaves along the way…

The Autumn Leaves are Falling Down, posted October 2011

Glory. That is the color of fall. What started green and bright and light, unfurling after a stark winter, now reaches its’ full and most beautiful stage, and having held on with strength and determination throughout the summer, through both drought and drenching rains, now falls, now tumbles. Now, peacefully and content with itself, dances right down before me, a gift. Glory. {{READ ENTIRE POST HERE}}

“I Feel Like a Warm, Red Autumn,” ~ Marilyn Monroe, I posted her words and my thoughts in September of this year.

I feel things more deeply at this ripe and fruitful time of my life. I feel like a full-grown woman, as opposed to some foolish girl, a woman who knows her mind and risks her thunderous-beating heart to more vulnerability and tenderness than I’d have allowed when younger. And my experience in life and love and heartbreak and second chances have made me more deeply passionate and compassionate and warm. I’m old enough now to understand the rich treasure my nurturing provides for those who are lucky enough to be planted in my heart and the wildly increased ability I now have to love. {{SEE FULL POST HERE}}

Delicious Autumn (I quoted George Eliot and missed a Colorado snowstorm while visiting my parents in Missouri), post 10-09

I have chased autumn into a Missouri mood that lingers like musk on my skin. I have escaped to turning-leaves on proud trees and the deep intensity of autumn colors that hold both the memory of exuberant youth with its’ fresh, green-spring growth, and the exploding red-to-the-core ripeness of the late summer tomato, now seasoned to a complex beauty, indisputably richer and wiser for the aging. The blazing urgency of the season, so much to experience before it all passes into winter, is salty on my tongue. I inhale the cinnamon-scented air, and taste the pungent, spicy and intangible gift of the equinox while the crickets sing that haunting song I have always loved.

Burnt sienna and ochre rustle restlessly as autumn falls and the cool night air sprinkles wet diamonds onto my keyboard and into my mouth filling my lungs with cool, brisk air and enduring toasted warmth at once. Halley’s Comet spilled burning meteor fragments in the wee hours, punctuating the night sky with light, a spectacle for late-night lovers young and old. {{SEE FULL POST HERE}}

Hey, remember the meteor showers that year? CLICK HERE

In 2007 I posted about Autumn in Peaceful Valley

I got to spend the weekend at the Powers family cabin near Peaceful Valley in the Rocky Mountains (thank-you! thank-you! thank-you!). For over 11 hours on Saturday, I sat near the rushing river tumbling down boulders and powering it’s way through fallen branches and sharp rocks in dappled sunlight that warmed my skin while the gentlest of breezes brought cool refreshment. I read and sang and thought and rested and listened and wondered and cried and smiled and prayed. In that setting, you cannot help but be drawn into spontaneous conversations with God. The evergreens, greatly varied in their hues, all strong and tall were punctuated by Aspens I am certain I could actually see changing color before my eyes – a bit more colorful hour by hour.

The underbrush, having gotten an earlier start is already deep oranges and reds, even browns and purples. Brilliant berries are being found out by small birds which, having swiped a treasure as such from the bush quickly flies to a needle-rich pine branch nearby and looks for all the world as if I have just opened a Christmas card…”Oh! May the God of green-hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing-lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!” (That’s in The Message, Romans 15) {{SEE ENTIRE POST HERE}}

Then just some miscellaneous quotes about the fall season from various blog posts:

“I like October for the crimson and pumpkin, for the eggplant and rust, and all the colors of the deepening, mature, lusty, whole and passionate part of the year when the autumn moon hangs heavy in the sky like the warm embraces of a tattered, weighty quilt sewn years ago for the need of heat and not some contest of a county fair. Have you ever been covered in one of those?” {{10.22.13}}

“Today is mostly yellow with a smattering of red, turning into deep wine by late afternoon. A steady falling of leaves with a call for possible white-flakes on Thursday afternoon and a blast of cold-blue air which will effectively ruin the perfectly coiffed-in-color hues for Autumn 2012.” {{10.23.12}}

October is orange. Of course. But it is also a red that is so full of depth and dimension and fiery-variance it can hardly be described.

My neighbor’s Maple has languoriously (not a real word, I know), gone from deep late-summer green, the leaves still fully affixed due to mild fall days and nights, to a light-to-deepening golden peach-to-orange over the past week. Then yesterday, I swear, as I walked back into the family room with a hot cup of coffee, it went red. Just like that, before my eyes. It nearly took my breath away. Moments before, a glowing, lovely amber-rusty orange, then, poof.

Red. A fully florid, cherry, sanguine scarlet. A puce, a rufescent russet, a bloody, blushing, gushing, infrared hot pink mixed with flaming chestnut and rubies and gleaming copper, all at once. It is shimmering and iridescent fuchsia, yet dense and heavy garnet, a ruby. It is bittersweet in both color and the evoking of raw autumn melancholy. [So, it’s red, right?] {{10.17.11}}

My mom and I were drinking coffee on the deck this morning and enjoying the rustling leaves in their fall coat-of-many-colors. Autumn is romantic. This is from my mama’s heart and mind:

“The butterflies are taking one last dance across the meadow. Please hurry back, I’ll see you in the spring…” -Norma Moslander {{10.21.09}}

I quite obviously become a waterfall of words come autumn. This year has been splendid! Good job, Autumn!

I’ve Got Plenty to be Thankful For

November 1, 20134 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 6 Looking Back // Memories!anne of windy poplar, autumn, gratefulness, holiday inn, i've got plenty to be thankful for, l.m. montgomery quote, november, november poems, november quotes, thankfulnessJeanie

“My needs are small, I buy them all at the 5 & 10-cent store. I’ve got plenty to be thankful for!”

Bing Crosby sings those words in Holiday Inn, 1942

The video wasn’t embeddable, but fun scene. Watch it! CLICK ABOVE.

A November Space

It’s November. I don’t know exactly why I tend to so expressly observe times and seasons and months like I do. I just need to understand the time I am in…what is it for?

They taught us that in elementary school: in September it is yellow school busses and rain galoshes and sharpened yellow pencils and cursive handwriting practice. Then came the jack-o-lanterns of October, coloring spooky houses and friendly ghosts on math worksheets.

“Over the river and through the wood to grandmother’s house we go,” got trotted out each November in music class. I couldn’t have dreamed I’d ever be a grandmother and to this day I trace my grandchildren’s hands and make “turkeys” just the way I learned to do it in Kindergarten a hundred years ago. November was thankfulness and cornucopias and the browns and oranges and deep golds of crispy leaves blowing along the curb while we walked to school.

I like to mark the times, the days, the seasons and this IS a month for gratefulness. So many things should be marked with an official “thank-you,” and sometimes in the hurried months we forget. So November comes and reminds me. That is what this time is for.

O God, you have been good. You have been faithful to all generations.

It’s November.

It’s topaz and crisp mornings and where did all these falling leaves come from? It’s pumpkin-everything and Thanksgiving time and ok to start watching Christmas movies now. It’s All-Saints-Day (count me in!) and sweaters and scarves and good friends and coffee and building altars of remembrance. It’s a good time to rest and enjoy from the abundance of the storehouses the blessings of God on the year.

It’s taking a deep breath and leaving a space for quietness and reflection. It’s leaving a space to live today, in this moment and not already stressed about the holidays and the crazed shopping and every possible thing that must be completed before the year comes to an end. You know that will just take all your joy, don’t you? It’s November – leave some space, just wait a bit…

The earth sinks to rest until next spring…

“November comes

And November goes,

With the last red berries

And the first white snows.

With night coming early,

And dawn coming late,

And ice in the bucket

And frost by the gate.

The fires burn

And the kettles sing,

And earth sinks to rest

Until next spring.” – Clyde Watson

Be careful, my sweets, not to rush into 2014 – not to begin making lofty plans or elevated goals for next year. This one isn’t over yet. November serves a purpose. It is not a month without noble intendment. There are things that need to rest until spring. Let them rest…

Happy November, one and all. Be sure to leave some space in your November…and be filled with thanksgiving. This is the time for it.

The Banquet Hall of the Seasons

October 22, 20131 Christ is All, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singingautumn, fall, neil young harvest moon, poem, van morrison moondance, why i love octoberJeanie

This image looks really early 1900s. I google-searched for poets named “Mamie” and there are actually quite a few.

I like October because it reminds me of innocent childhood, shuffling through piles of leaves on the way to school, before the days when people felt the incessant need to banish the sight of them immediately at all costs. Have you noticed, in these newer neighborhoods, it’s almost impossible to get a decent pile for jumping in?

Because I’m still in love with you

I want to see you dance again

Because I’m still in love with you

On this harvest moon. (Neil Young, lyrics – Harvest Moon)

I like October for the crimson and pumpkin, for the eggplant and rust, and all the colors of the deepening, mature, lusty, whole and passionate part of the year when the autumn moon hangs heavy in the sky like the warm embraces of a tattered, weighty quilt sewn years ago for the need of heat and not some contest of a county fair. Have you ever been covered in one of those?

I like October because the coffee is richer, the evening cricket is less frantic, more rhythmic. The sun slants and schedules fall into an easy ritual, the day in and day out are much more organized. Tans fade, memories are made, soup is stirred, cakes are baked, sweaters come out and life is rich.

Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance

With the stars up above in your eyes

A fantabulous night to make romance

‘Neath the cover of October skies (Moondance, Van Morrison)

I like October because my neighbor’s Maple tree explodes into multichromatic, vibrance and dances merrily in a dazzling production for me through my big window each time I walk through the room. From dark, living green to lime to yellow to orange to scarlet to blood-red and back. Then, just as all the colors begin to subside, like the finale of a summer fireworks display, a wind scatters the leaves far and wide and they glide and twirl and settle on the lawns with a promise to do it all again – same time next year.

The tree of which I speak…from the window (this was 2 years ago)

I do like October. Love it, even.

And yes, in all of it, like the poet said, “the opulent Giver I see.”

I can picture it in my mind’s eye

September 23, 20112 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Thinkautumn, corn on the cob, fall, grandbebes, photographsJeanie

First of all, I took these 3 photos.

Which turned out w a a a a a y better than they should have for my little $69.99 Kodak digital camera.

Check out this weed. This was in the mountains when Dave and I were there a few weeks back. It was getting ready to spread its’ seed everywhere. I just like how it captured the almost explosive-movement. No touch-ups. Just this. As weeds go, pretty lovely.

And then these two. With really good cameras you can adjust the focus so that the things you aren’t focusing on are blurry, out-of-focus. I do not have that option. But my camera, for some strange reason. did that anyway. I think I may have been zoomed, I am not sure. But I love how it blurred the background. These are not touched up. If I’d known I’d stumbled into something, I’d have tried more of whatever it was. *smile

Look at that crazy-awesome background blur.

Secondly, Hunter enjoyed trying a feather and ink for alphabet writing recently.

Thirdly, Peaches & Cream, from Palizzi Farm. As amazingly sweet and delectable as it sounds.

I LOVE corn on the cob. Did you know that? Love it. It is the Iowa girl in me.

Here they come, walking down the street. Get the funniest looks from – everyone they meet. Hey-hey for grandkids!

All together now – JUMP!

Remember when we were kids and adults made us smile for pictures when the sun was totally in our eyes? Yeah, well, now I have done that to my own grandbebes. I just thought they should experience it. Haha.

Peek-a-boo, little monkeys

Gemma drew her family

And other things.

Granddaughters are sweeeeet!

Little tiny Amelie walloped her cousin, Gavin, the other day and when her daddy said, “Amelie-no hitting,” she crossed her arms and lowered her shoulders with a decided **harrumph** and plopped herself down. It is hilarious thing to see such an itty-bitty pull such a big-girl move. It probably won’t be that cute 6 months from now, but it sure was this week.

Tredessa got her dress. And I can’t show you, of course, but she is beautiful in it.

Engagement to her cute guy? Check. Amazing ring? Check. Location for the wedding (a barn!!)? Check. Dress? Check.

This is just wrong. Right? Probably. But it is evidence that the grandkids were here.

THIS? Is a good morning sight! Fresh from the garden!

I should mention, I had just dropped the green beans into boiling water for 10 seconds and then quickly submerged them into ice water to shock them green-green and make them positively delectable for random all-day-long munching. Mmm. Mm. Mm!

And in honor of the first day of autumn, I am making red beans and rice and missing my brother, Joe, whose gorgeous first born will walk down the aisle tomorrow to be married. {Mrs. Elise Leonard, aka Elise-the-Niece}

You’re just going along, enjoying summer living, and then the veins of the leaves go blood red and begin pumping color into a random branch here or there. Fascinating!

“I can picture it in my mind’s eye and it’s beautiful, Clark.” (Christmas Vacation) I can also see it here at my blog and remember and smile.

It was just one of those things

November 22, 20104 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Thinkautumn, candles, cole porter, doris day, yankee candles fallJeanie

The candle…THE candle.

It was just one of those things

Just one of those crazy flings

One of those bells that now and then rings

Just one of those things

I never- ever-ever pay a lot for a candle-in-a-jar, but Target had a fall selection of Yankee Candles (the best candles in the world) near my birthday (early October) on sale for $18, down from $24.99 and when I expressed great pleasure in the “Autumn Festival” scent, Dave insisted on getting me one. You know – for my birthday.

I have burned it, and burned it and burned it. When I am home (and sometimes when I not, shhhhhh, it isn’t on purpose!), I burn it. It has burned all day long and all night long (like, ALL night long, much to Dave’s dismay). I have burned that thing for hundreds of hours by now. 300+ I’d say.

It was just one of those nights

Just one of those fabulous flights

A trip to the moon on gossamer wings

Just one of those things

Was it meant to last this long? Was it meant to make my early mornings so sweet and my evenings so romantic? Was it supposed to burn for untold lengths of time where the memory of it lingered in the air as I’d descend the stairs come morning? And as I watch the flicker this afternoon, smaller, much closer to its end, I wonder how on earth I shall ever replace this beloved candle?

If we’d thought a bit about the end of it

When we started painting the town

We’d have been aware that our love affair

Was too hot not to cool down

I have been preparing myself for the end, dreading it, yet helpless to stop it. I have been sniffing candles madly at stores, looking for my winter comfort. But so far, none can surpass my Autumn Festival – both fruity and spicy; tangy and zesty, yet mellow, rich. It has been the scent of my home as the days have grown shorter and the nights longer; as the chill has forced its way into early morning and long hours of dark azure skies.

So good-bye, dear, and amen

Here’s hoping we meet now and then

It was great fun

But it was just one of those things

It seems hard to believe another candle could ever match this one. This one. But I am fond of a deep red cinnamon scent, earthy and multi-layered…where o where is it?!

SONG LYRICS “It Was Just One of Those Things” by Cole Porter, performed by gazillions of artists, though I am fond of the Diana Krall version!).

NOTE: I used to get very teary when my mom threw out the Christmas trees at season’s end, too. They’d just made me so happy….

Sweeeeeeeeeet November

November 7, 20102 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Thinkautumn, fall, pieces of april, sweet november, thanksgivingJeanie

How does November smell?

Spicy, like cinnamon.

How does November look?

Golden, like autumn squash.

How does November sound?

Crunchy, as you shuffle through the leaves.

What color is November?

November is Topaz, a multi-faceted golden, orangy, yellowish amber Topaz.

What is November’s mood?

Lovely, filled with gratefulness and love; chock full of thanksgiving.

What is the texture of November? Does it feel like something?

Yes. It feels like a chenille throw, soft and fuzzy, warm and cozy, by firelight. Naturally.

How does November taste?

Sweet. Like the purest honey. Sweet is November.

Remember the movie called “Sweet November” ?

Overall, pretty lame, as Keanu {so very cute, but seemingly pretty empty-ish and not much good at dramatic parts), plus the melodramatic storyline will most usually end up (did you recall hoiw much hope I had for “A Walk in the Clouds”? *sigh…). Anyhow, rather unsatisfactory and weird story, but a few interesting quotes I am fond of and the title is nice! ;p

Nelson: Why a month? Sara: Because it’s long enough to be meaningful, but short enough to stay out of trouble.

Nelson: Try to be wrong once in awhile. It’d do my ego good.

Sara: You’re my immortality, Nelson.

Sara: Nelson, do you want to be my November? Nelson: Yes.

Nelson: November is all I know, and all I ever want to know.

Nelson: This is it. Life will never be better or sweeter than this.

If only the movie had been as lovely as these lines…FYI: A really really great movie to see each November is “Pieces of April” starring Katie Holmes. It is a sweet Thanksgiving movie (thank-you Rob and Carol Ann for introducing me to it!).

PICTURED: The K-kids – Gavin, Guinivere and Gemma; and Hunter-Magoo!

October Skies

October 22, 20104 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Thinkaugust rush, autumn, e.e. cummings, eecummings, fall, falling leaves, garden, maple leaf, melancholy, moondance, movie, rain, van morrisonJeanie

l (a leaf falls) one li ness e.e. cummings

My “leaf-is-falling-but-not-really” photoshoot in the backyard. ;p

It had actually already fallen. I was just replicating it a little {camera in my right hand, leaf stem in my left}.

I quit watering the veggies when I went to Montana over a month ago. I have been gathering regularly ever since, as the vegetable garden seeks to proliferate madly before the end. Then the rainy nights came and they thought they had been asked to stay a while longer. It pains me to tell them no, but I must. Until the spring, my sweet veggies – just until the spring…