October Love List

Dear Friends,

October has slipped away and we salute the varied days of this new month. November days leave us with no illusions about the coming of Winter while still holding on to a little breath of Autumn. I love November; the often dreary gray mornings, the glorious, mellow afternoons, and the shining, blustery embrace of the evenings.

But I loved October too.

There are countless little things that left vivid impressions on me like hearty gusts of fresh and sweet-smelling air.

Here is my October love list:

1.) Loving the overflow of giggles at my boot-wearing baby. How quickly they pick up on copy-catting and imitations of those they admire, daddy especially.

2.) Driving the tidy streets of our little town on a Sunday afternoon. We made our way up and around this place we call home. Watching a rainbow reflected in a sprinkler running in someone’s last ditch effort for green grass. The discovery that the bike trail passes very close to our house. In Nebraska everyone waves. I love that.

3.) Loving the startling observation my precious Pip has learned to cheese-it for the camera. You would think the thing was poked in his face on a regular basis, or something!

4.) Amusement when someone traded our high-society poodle pup for the Taco Bell dog. Loving laughter; breathless and gasping.

5.) The sweet pride of wiggling teeth. The bittersweet pang of niggling fears about time passing all too quickly. Sometimes love hurts a little.

6.) Block party! Love it! It’s so different to live somewhere where we actually know our neighbors, in a town with such a strong sense of community.

Okay, so I only photographed the food… yeah, yeah, where your treasure is and all that!

 

7.) Savoring the last few blooms leftover from the Summer’s bounty in my mother‘s garden. Loving that they’ve lasted. My mother is a much better gardener than I.

I think it’s a patience thing.

8.) I love this baby. The sun on his golden hair, much lighter than mine or his daddy’s ever was. Those lovely eyelashes. Those big blues eyes, just like his big sister’s. His enchantment with sticks, much like his older brother’s. Him in overalls. Him in jeans. Him in anything. I just love him. Every day. All the time.

9.) I love watching her quiet concentration as she carefully forms an on-going stream of laboriously drawn letters, asking me constantly what it says. I make her giggle by trying to sound out her “words”, gurgling the consonants and drawing out the vowels. The pictures of people and animals come much easier to her. Much like me, creativity flows easier than more sensible tasks.

Again, it’s a patience thing.

10.) There are messes everywhere. That‘s just life. But if I look really closely I can see some artfulness in the chaos. Like the noisy, seemingly erratic busyness of our family, there is a pattern and a method amongst the madness. Love is like that, wild, overflowing but governed by the heart.

11.) Fruits of the harvest. Potatoes, butternut squash, sweet potatoes. It’s a starchy harvest this year. I love these comfort foods of Autumn. I love cutting up the potatoes to toss in everything I can think of. The white ones are crisp as firm apples, the yellow, soft like ripe pears. And pretty much all my dishes are improved by potatoes and some, by squash.

12.) I am loving the overwhelming desire to bake, bake, bake. A batch of cookies or other goodies seems to be finding it’s way in and back out of my oven every day. My hips are loving it too.

13.) Finally, I love the idea that one of these days there will be someone other than me to help clean up around here. Three little rascals I call, my lovely, precious, priceless children will someday learn to pick-up after themselves.

Oh, blessed, blessed day…

On second thought, don’t come too soon. I love them little.

I am a fickle creature.

14.) A few things are less than perky these days. That is the hazard of this short lived life.

I’m talking about sunflowers and such things, of course. Their once lovely faces now hang sad and forlorn. But my face is smiling and turned upward. Did I mention that I love this time of year?

Goodbye, October. Hello, November.

Life goes on.

Love,

Going On in NE