A Day of Rest

It rained here... <doing happy dance> and it was a great day to stay home! I really do love cold, nasty weather. It makes me feel so secure to be in a warm house with a fire going in the fireplace and bread baking and stew in the crock pot.

I know why diets never work for me. I find food too sensual. I love tasting it and cooking it and smelling it cook. It just never tires for me. I like most everything, even the weird stuff that most people don't. When I was a kid my mom used to make stuffed beef heart. I know that sounds disgusting, but it's really very good. I even had her make it once for my special birthday meal. I was, and still am, rather fond of liver and onions. I evidently had a bad experience once as a child with popcorn, however, as I really hated it until I got into my late 20's. I figure at some point I probably over-indulged and we all know what happens when that occurs. Since I can't remember, I probably blocked it from my mind - it being such a painful experience. At any rate, there are very few things that I won't eat and don't love.

Mid-afternoon the wind came up and the leaves were blowing across the lawn in such a mass - it looked like snow! Won't be long and we won't have many leaves left and then we'll lose some of our privacy. We have a timber and a creek that is between our house and the road and in the summer you can't even tell our house is here! In the winter when the leaves fall off the trees you are then able to see our house. I planted some Blue Spruce fir trees near the road to someday protect our privacy in the winter, but it'll be many years before they are big enough to make any kind of a difference.

I love fall. Walking outside you can smell the leaves as they are crushed beneath your feet. You feel the cool, crisp air on your face as you finally cuddle up in your fleece you've been waiting all summer to get back out. You smell the woodsmoke from fireplaces and leafburning and the sun goes down earlier so you find yourself walking in the dusk when you get home from work. When I was young I used to have to walk across several blocks across town to get home from band practice. The schoolbus would take us from the elementary school to the high school for practice, but afterwards you had to make your own way home. We lived in a smaller college town then, but still in Iowa, and I had to walk across campus to get home. I used to love walking across town in that fall dusk and look inside the houses all lit up for suppertime. When you would go past a lit window you would make up stories about the people you would see and what was going on...something to keep your mind occupied on the journey. The fall always reminds me of those long walks home - how peaceful they were.

Today was a good day. I got a lot done at home, but didn't feel as though they were chores today. It just felt unhurried and peaceful to fold warm laundry and bake bread.

Too bad I have to go to work tomorrow to make up for it...