Signs of Fall

I’m proud to say I wrote this post yesterday as I was playing hooky. I was supposed to be at a workshop, and I decided that I wasn’t going because I needed a mental health day. I needed it badly. And when I need a mental health day badly…it behooves me (and everyone else!) to be selfish and take it. On Monday, I begin working full time for the first time since before I became a mom…so almost 21 years. YIKES!! In 6 months, I will be the mom of a 21 year old. How in the world did THAT happen??

Anyhoo…while I have at times worked 40 plus hours a week over the years, I always knew it was a temporary thing during a busy time, and I always looked forward to the time when my hours would soon get back to normal and I’d once again have my 2 days off during the week. And typically, after a period of working way too many hours, my boss would force me to take some time off.

Those days are coming to a screeching, grinding halt as of 2 days from now when I will begin working full time, on salary, on a permanent basis. While I know it will be nice to have a guaranteed income, and I did get a raise, I’m so very apprehensive about working every single day. I always feel as if my life, my kid’s lives, my family’s life, and my home suffers during the times I am extra-busy at work, and I worry about how I am going to juggle everything now. In the past when I have worked that many hours, I didn’t cook the kinds of dinners I like to cook, my house wasn’t in the order that I like for it to be in, my laundry wasn’t caught up (aw, hell, I might as well admit it, my laundry isn’t caught up when I am working very few hours), and I came home from work each day mentally and physically exhausted and wishing I could go to bed at 7 PM. But again, I always knew that in a few days or weeks, I’d be back to my normal routine.

Now, THAT ^^ is going to BE my normal routine, and I’m frightened by that. Actually, I’m going to say my second colorful word in this post…I’m scared shitless by that.

Sooo….that is why I decided on a whim yesterday morning to play hooky. It was my last Friday of freedom! I baked some pumpkins and cleaned the house and made some caramels…I even curled up on the couch under a quilt and watched a movie.

So what does all of the above whining about how I have to start working more have to do with signs of fall? It doesn’t. So sorry. I will now get right to the point.

I have very mixed feelings about fall; I guess you could call it a love/hate relationship. On the love side of the coin…I love the crispness in the air that blows away the oppressive humidity of summer. I love having the windows open. I love the sky that is so blue without the haze of humidity dulling it. I love sitting out on my porch in the morning with a steaming cup of coffee while wearing flannel pajama pants. I love that I can enjoy my porch without being a Thanksgiving feast for mosquitos. I love when I go outside at night and smell everyone’s fireplaces. I love how when I am a block away from my office, I come up over a hill and see the river ahead of me with brightly colored trees of red and orange and yellow lining it’s banks. I love unpacking my sweaters. I love buying candy corn. I love buying beautiful little sugar pumpkins and the delicious scent they send wafting through my house as they roast in the oven. And I especially love the muffins and cakes and cookies I bake with those little roasted pumpkins. I love making soup on a regular basis…both old favorites and a few new recipes, too.

I love decorating my house for fall, almost as much as I love decorating my house for Christmas. This display started out on my kitchen table, but was quickly moved to the dining room as I realized what a hassle it was to move it all when we needed to eat.

My favorite thing about this? I only spent about $5 to create it. I had everything already in my house except the pumpkins.



Here is the same display at night with the candles burning:








I also love this:




A couple of months ago, I got a catalog in the mail and fell in love with a gorgeous arrangement of sunflowers and berries. I didn’t however, fall in love with the price.--it was $59. Again, not in MY budget. So I tore the page out and went to Michaels. I already had the vase with the rocks in it, and for $6, I bought a bundle of silk sunflowers, a small bunch of swirly branches and berries, and a small bouquet of little fall colored flowers. (Gotta love the 40% off sales at Michaels!) It’s not an exact replica of the one I drooled over in the catalog, but it is a pretty darn close tightwad version of it. I have always loved sunflowers anyway, and they remind me of my dear friend who has sunflower décor in her kitchen, so every time I see this vase of sunflowers when I walk in my front door, it makes me smile and think of her.

I bought these little sparkly gourds and the cornucopia basket on an end-of-season clearance last year at Hobby Lobby.




I don’t know why I liked those sparkly gourds so much as I usually like having fall décor that looks more natural, and let's be honest...sparkly gourds do not grow in nature. But I like them anyway, and my piano was the perfect spot to display them.

And I have to show THIS off:



I have always wanted an entire set of those dishes to use in the fall. But again, not in my budget. Darn money! I found that plate over the summer at the Goodwill store near my house for get this...$3! (Yeah, I sometimes shop at Goodwill...I'm a tightwad, and it makes me happy to find a good bargain).


Like I said, I love fall. I really do. I love everything about it. Well, almost everything…really, the only thing I hate about it is that those fabulous crisp days that blow away the summer steaminess are themselves blown away by winter dreariness and chill. I wish fall was followed by spring instead, because then I could enjoy it even more than I do. If spring followed fall, life would be blissfully perfect. Well, maybe not perfect, but I would be a happy girl if I never had to live through winter again…if I could go right from crunchy leaves and bonfires and pumpkin muffins to tulips and daffodils and robins and just skip the freezing temperatures and ice and snow. Blech. If there is anywhere in the world like that…I’m moving there!

That all said, I have really been enjoying fall. Last week, I bought these beautiful mums and a few pumpkins for the kids to carve. I bought them to use on the stage at the walk, and now they are a bright spot of color on my front porch, and I smile each time I pull in the driveway and feast my eyes upon them. Try to bask in the loveliness of the flowers and pumpkins and pretend that you don’t see the dirt and dead leaves on the porch. It’s okay if you notice the cobwebs…I’m harvesting my own Halloween decorations. Why spend money on those fake sticky spiderwebs when I can just grow my own?





I had to buy this one:




Those were the colors of my high school, and seeing it brought back some fond memories.

I bought this delicious smelling candle at Kohl’s a few days ago. It’s not obvious from the picture, but the jar is orange and sort of sparkly, it came with a cute wooden lid and a little metal acorn tied with raffia. I am going to have to find a way to use the jar for something when the candle is burned away.




A few weeks ago, I knitted myself a scarf in some fallish colors. I think this is my new favorite scarf pattern…I knitted it only a few days.




I have been enjoying the flavors of fall as well. Last week, I made some roasted buttercup squash for dinner. No one would eat it but me (crazy family I tell ya!) and while at first it pissed me off (wow, 3 bad words…I think that may be a first!) when I thought about it, I was glad…more for me to eat! In the last week, I’ve made a pot of chili, apple streusel coffee cake for breakfast on Sunday, an apple pie (of course!), and chicken noodle soup. I’ve also eaten way too many honey crisp apples.



Those things are like crack…I can’t get enough of them. Kind of like how I feel about fresh tomatoes in the summer—I gorge myself on them because I know they are only around for a short time. Unfortunately, they are also about as expensive as crack.

And in honor of soup season, I bought these cute little bowls because I was tired of eating soup out of the kids plastic cereal bowls.



I really am drooling over red and yellow Fiestaware dishes right now, but since Fiestaware isn’t in my budget…buck fifty Mainstay bowls from Walmart will have to do.

I was in Gordmans the other day, and HAD to buy this bag of coffee.



First of all, I love pumpkin spice coffee. It’s my second crack. I’ve already bought some, but I thought the bag was too cute. And bonus…it was WAY cheaper than the pumpkin spice coffee I buy at the grocery store.

I also have a new addiction that may or may not be limited to fall…homemade caramels. I’ve spent so much money on white sugar, brown sugar, butter, baking chocolate…all in search of THE perfect caramel. I think I have it perfected, but I may need to do many more taste tests, just to be 100% sure.

One more sign of fall and the impending winter…today was Justin’s last ever cross country meet. It’s kind of sad in a way…by this time next year, he will likely be away at college, and while I have known that, it just kind of hit me this morning. Here is a picture of him ready to cross the finish line at his last meet. Sniff sniff...



I will leave this lonnnnnggggg post with this photo:



I found that at Gordmans and of course, I had to buy it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it...maybe put it on the desk and use it for bills. Maybe paying bills won't be so depressing if I have that motivational quote to look at every time I place another one in the box.

October 15

How’s that for a creative, original blog post title? A date…October 15. Yet this date is significant for a couple of reasons. Yesterday would have been my dear Aunt Mary’s 100th birthday if she were still alive. She died nearly 10 years ago, just a few months after her 90th birthday, and not many days go by that I don’t think of her and miss her much.

Saying she was my dear aunt doesn’t begin to describe my relationship with Aunt Mary. I know there are folks out there who have loving and close relationships with an aunt or a niece. I have a niece I have always had a pretty awesome closeness to, but it is nothing comparable to what I had with my Aunt Mary. In so many ways, she was like a second mother to me.

Aunt Mary was my great aunt…my dad’s aunt, his mother’s only sister, and she could not have children. I don’t know what was wrong that made her unable to, but she told me once it could have been corrected with a simple surgery. However, her husband, my Uncle Dan, wouldn’t allow her to have the surgery; he told her that if God had meant for her to have children, he would have made her so she could. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for her because she loved children. And children loved her. I know I did. She was a gentle, sweet lady filled with so much love to give as well as genuine goodness. When she turned 90, in October of 2001, our family threw a surprise birthday party for her, and close to 100 people attended. When we sent out the invitations, we asked those invited to either send or bring a letter about their favorite memory of Aunt Mary, and we read them at the party. The memories and love shared in those letters was truly heartwarming, and I loved every minute of watching her face as she intently listened to every story…I loved watching as she smiled that beautiful smile of hers and as she wiped away the tears at times. Even now, nearly 10 years later, I am in awe of this woman who had no children yet had so very many people who adored her.

From the time I was a little girl, I was always told by my mom that Aunt Mary “spoiled” me. I don’t remember ever feeling spoiled by her, at least not in the way that most people think of being spoiled—I think that most think of a spoiled child as one who is showered with material things, who comes to expect them, and is somewhat of a brat. But that is not how Aunt Mary spoiled me. She lavished me with her love and care…her favorite “pet name” to call me was Dear One…even through the teen years, and college years, and even after I married and had children. No letter or card ever came to me without the greeting, “Dear One” as the salutation. And the really special thing about her…she had many nieces and nephews, many great nieces and nephews, and even a few great-great nieces and nephews, and everyone felt just as loved by her as I did. My kids still tell me at random times out of the blue how much they miss Aunt Mary. She celebrated every new baby that arrived in the family with much fanfare. Perhaps this was because she truly knew what a miracle they were since she was unable to have her own.

I have written many things over the years about this lovely woman who was so very dear to me; I could probably write a book about all of the reasons why. But a blog post will have to do! I tried to post this last night, but I was so tired and nodding off at my computer as I tried to write, so I gave up and decided to try again today. Although maybe I should have kept the oil burning last night because now that it’s a new day and I am feeling quite refreshed, I could sit here and write about her all day! I won’t, I promise!

I will make do with saying that I loved her with all my heart, and I know she loved me with all her heart. She never said a critical or unkind thing to me or about me. I loved spending time with her, even when I was a teenager. Aunt Mary had a profound impact on my life in many ways. Again, I could write so many of them, but it would take me all day. And in the grand scheme of things, the reasons really don’t matter. All that really matters is that I loved her dearly and I miss her terribly. One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou and always makes me think of Aunt Mary.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I don’t remember every little thing Aunt Mary did or said over my life, but I will never forget how she made me feel…which was special, loved and cherished. She gave her love and her compliments freely. I often wonder if that is where the sappy side of my personality came from.

Shifting gears in a way…yesterday was our Share walk in honor of babies who died during pregnancy or in the first few months of life. It is also national pregnancy loss and infant loss remembrance day. It is customary to participate in what is called “The Wave of Light” and light a candle at 7 PM in whatever time zone you are in, creating a wave of light around the country. Each year, I do this in remembrance not only of my own babies who didn’t make it, but also in memory of my dear friend’s little girl Hannah and my sister’s little baby boy Daniel. But, in the back of mind of course, is my dear Aunt Mary. Each year on October 15, I imagine this dear, sweet, lovely lady up in heaven in a huge rocking chair cradling and rocking mine and my sister’s babies who didn’t make it to this Earth. I like to take pictures of my candles, and I try to do something different each year. Last year, I took a picture of candles surrounding a Precious Moments figurine that Aunt Mary gave me many years ago called “You Have Touched So Many Hearts.” It is a little girl holding a string of hearts between her hands, and ironically, there are six hearts, which is how many candles I light each year on October 15.

Back to our Share walk yesterday. It is always a rather emotional day for me as I participate in the reading of so very many babies names who died way too soon. Yesterday, we read over 400 names, and I read the last group of them. It is hard to keep my emotions in check as I read the names, especially when I come to the name of a baby who is someone I know personally. And most especially when a family has sadly added another name to the list since the previous year. Preparing the names is a long process…first making sure that every name is accounted for and spelled correctly before being sent to the t-shirt printer, and then again when I have the task of making sure all of the readers know how to say each name correctly. Hearing their baby’s name(s) spoken is the highlight of the walk for many families, and it is so important to not mess it up. It is a lot of work, but a true labor of love, and I always breathe a huge, deep sigh of relief when I step off the stage after the reading of the names is finished. The final part of the ceremony is a song. This year, it was “When I Look to the Sky” by Train. While I have always loved that song, the words have never had the meaning for me that they did yesterday, and, as I listened to the words, I couldn’t help but think of Aunt Mary. A couple of stanzas in particular caused the tears to freely flow down my face and drip onto my shirt.

Cause when I look to the sky something tells me you're here with me
And you make everything alright
And when I feel like I'm lost something tells me you're here with me
And I can always find my way when you are here

It made me think of while Aunt Mary is not physically here with me, she will always be “with” me in my heart. There have been so many times over the years that just thinking of her and her sweet ways and gentle voice was a calming presence in my life. While I wish on many days that I could pick up the phone and call her (and I still remember her phone number!), I am comforted by knowing that much of who I am today is directly related to who she was.

This stanza made the tears flow even more than they already were:

But with you I can spread my wings
to see me over everything that life may send me

Aunt Mary truly helped me spread my wings and saw me through many things that life sent my way. She had a remarkable way of making me look at things in ways I may not have thought of, and she did it in such a way that I felt empowered, not put down for how I was feeling.

Last night, I lit these candles in memory of my babies, my sister’s baby and my friend’s baby. I thought long and hard how to include Aunt Mary this year, and when I walked into the kitchen to fetch my Aim N Flame from a cabinet, this glass bird sitting on the kitchen window ledge caught my eye. I bought it months ago on clearance at Hobby Lobby for $3 because it reminded me of a Cardinal. I had to buy it for a couple of reasons…the obvious one being the St. Louis Cardinals. The second reason was because it reminded me of Aunt Mary. She wasn’t a baseball fan, but she loved cardinals. I remember the year that someone gave her a wreath at Christmas time to hang on the door of her apartment, and she left it up year ‘round because even though it was very Christmas-y, there was a cardinal perched among the fake snow sprinkled holly leaves and pine branches. When I saw the cute little glass bird, I had to buy it, and it has been sitting in my kitchen window since March, and I envisioned placing some holly or pine around it with a candle when I decorate for Christmas. So I added it to my candle display at 7 PM last night.




I also had this candle burning just for Aunt Mary in honor of it being 100 years since this special person came into the world.




I think it is now time to close this. I know my written words are all over the place, but that is because my thoughts are all over the place. I will close with one final thought of Aunt Mary. At her birthday party nearly 10 years ago, I remember thinking how much differently her life could have turned out. She and my uncle lived through really hard times during the depression as a newly married couple. She suffered with not being able to have children when she would have been a terrific mother and wanted to be so desperately. In her lifetime, she watched all of her four siblings have children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. I often think how Aunt Mary could have ended up bitter and alone in her old age instead of surrounded by so many people who cherished her as much as she cherished them. She truly made lovely, refreshing lemonade from a big ol’ bowl of sour lemons. She taught me so many things. The two most important gifts I think of her giving me are the power of unconditional love and the ability to always look for the good things in life.

I will leave this with a picture of my Aunt Mary at her 90th birthday. Sadly, that was the last time I saw her alive. She died a few months later, and I was unable to be with her when she died because we were in the midst of a snowstorm. That is my one regret that I don’t know that I will ever get over…that I didn’t move heaven and earth to be with her when she died. I have prayed and hoped many times over the years that she always knew that I loved her as much as she loved me. But, she taught me something even in death, and that is to never let a day go by without letting those we love know how we feel about them.

My beautiful Aunt Mary:

Something that Made me Smile Yesterday

Yesterday, my co worker Jeanna and I were driving to Subway to pick up lunch, when we spotted this rooster outside a cute litte shop a few blocks from our office. On the way home, I had to stop and take a picture because it made me smile.




If a 5 foot tall pink and red metal rooster standing in a bed of beautiful fall flowers can't make me smile, nothing can...and I need all the "smile moments" I can get these days. I need to get myself back to the whole reason for starting this blog...to dance in the rain because I'm trying to deal with a bit of a crisis and about to have a mental breakdown. Not really, I'm being a drama queen (about the potential breakdown, not the crisis) so no need to call the men in white coats. Not yet anyway. Although my husband might want to call them...I'm very tempted to stop by that shop on my way home from work today and ask the owner if that cute rooster is for sale. Tony would hate it, but I think my backyard would be a nice home for it, don't you? And it would have the added bonus of being payback for his pool-tearing-down episode!

If I buy the rooster, what shall I name her? :-)