September

 Hello, friends! At last our weather seems to have broken. We had storms and high winds, and now the sun is out again ... and our highs are in the upper 70s, which is lovely. I'm lighting candles, setting out autumn decor, and generally snuggling into my favorite time of year.

I'm also messing about with lots of fiber -- cleaning, carding and spinning brown wool for (hopefully) finishing a knitted sweater before winter. I wanted to finish it last year, but it's such a long process! I'm knitting socks too -- that pair is the 4th pair of socks I've ever knitted, and the 2nd pair of decent, long-wearing socks made from the correct kind of sock yarn (75% wool, 25% nylon). It's taken me years to get to this simple stage of sock-knitting.

I found a Wool Winder at the thrift store, a little hand-cranked device that turns your yarn from a tangle-prone skein into a lovely center-pull cake. Quite handy.

Adam brought me flowers yesterday, just because he loves me. It is possible to be very much in love, very romantic, very happy together, at 35 years. It takes years of hard work too! But the rewards are quite fine.

I'm back at the farmers market for the fall with my soaps, balms, and watercolor cards. Seeing fellow vendors and faithful customers on Saturday morning was very fun.

Enjoy your September!

Cool!

 At last, it's cool! Well, cooler. We've enjoyed the mornings especially. Adam's been digging in his sweaters.

Leo has become a very snoozy old fellow. He spends a lot of the day like this, and a bit of the day running away from Lucy.

For me, it's time to light the candles, turn on the twinkle lights, listen to George Winston and Narada Christmas Collection, and basically breathe a deep sigh of relief that I survived another hot summer. Now I want time to slow, for the weeks between now and Christmas to drift along at snail's pace so I can squeeze every moment of joy and peace out of it -- autumn!

Did you notice that hummingbird in the photo with the lantana? Yes! My first hummer!

And the last two are a couple of the autumn watercolor cards I've been painting to sell at the market.

Happy Autumn, all!

the phone

 I'm a grandma now, but I remember being 19 years old, in college. One pay phone serviced our  residence hall of about 30 girls. Most calls were made in the evenings -- calls to and from home, to and from boyfriends, scheduling appointments. There were no computers per se, no email, no internet, no cell phones. If there was communication between me and my parents hundreds of miles away, it happened with snail mail letters (which I never wrote) or paying for a phone call in the hallway with girls squealing around me. That didn't happen often either. 

This was normal, and we thought nothing of it. Somehow we still knew if major events or trips happened. Otherwise, we got on with our lives apart from each other. I traveled in Europe for 6 months after college and barely corresponded with my folks at home.

Now, our grown children are assailed with phone calls, emails, text messages, Facebook messages, video chats, Instagram reels, and who knows what other subtle means of messaging from us. There's hardly any privacy for the average 30 year old being scolded by society for not being independent enough.

I've pondered lately about parent and grown-child relationships. They seem fraught for many of my friends these days. Is it in part because they can't seem to get away from us. I sometimes worry that I'm an emotional slave to my grown children, desperate for contact, panicked if I don't hear from them every week. My parents didn't do that! They were content, as far as I knew, to send me off into the blue yonder and hear from me a few months later, if that. On a postcard, that probably said, "Yes, I'm alive." Did they worry? Maybe. Did they let me know? No. When did we become so dependent?

Any thoughts, you ladies (or gentlemen) of my generation? 

Home

 I returned on Friday evening from a trip to West Virginia to visit my mother and other family. It was a quick trip, with too much driving, but it was a good visit with everyone I saw. 

I drove to my brother's apple orchard, deep in the mountains and quite remote, for an overnight visit. It was wonderful! It is a quiet, beautiful place -- no internet, no cell reception. A real escape. Adam couldn't even follow me on Google Maps for that 24 hours!

I had a good, but brief, time with Mother, and an absolutely wonderful dinner out with 7 of us extended family at my favorite restaurant in Lewisburg. That was a great evening.

Now I'm back home, knitting a pair of socks, gathering marigold blooms for dyeing wool ... later. Watching the cats play. And oh-so thankful that it's September at last.