Oh my...October has been dishing up goodies so fast.
My eyes and brain and camera are taking it all in; my blogging fingers are falling behind!
So...
I think I will just blog several posts back to back.
I don't want to miss a thing for my blog memory book, which I use for both happy returns to pleasant moments and for documentation as to when those moments happened, calendar wise.
Catch up time: Here we go!
Last Thursday, October 17th, I got to have Luke all to myself for the day.
I dished up some of his favorite yogurt and prepared to sit and spoon feed him.
A jingle went off in my mind.
I fished in the silverware drawer for the toddler spoon that came with his baby spoon set and handed it to him, wondering if I was courting a full-on yogurt mess.
Delightful!
He is spooning away rather neatly I'd say.
And apparently he is a right handed eater.
(He did later on do a full flat hand dip into the yogurt and then proceeded to suck the goop off, but he even did that neatly too. Ah well. We will not be attending formal dinners for a while yet anyway.)
He howled about being put into his crib for nap time, even though he had been rubbing his eyes and staring blankly earlier.
After 20 minutes of sitting out on the deck to try to ignore his protests, I gave up and popped him into his car seat and drove him up Mill Creek Canyon instead.
He was fast asleep before we were half way up the canyon.
Near the top of the canyon I pulled over, parked and watched the aspen leaves falling like rain all around me.
After a bit, I rolled down the car window and breathed in the snow fresh mountain air.
Then, with a grateful heart, I prayed.
It was wonderful to have no place else I needed to be and nothing else I needed to do.
That combination, plus shifting sunlight on golden aspen and the soft breathing of a sleeping baby made the time incomparable to me.
When Luke finally awoke, I drove down the canyon for a drive through hamburger to share with him, and then we visited a garden center.
Another wild pumpkin was admired.
A sweet black cat played "Catch me if you can" with Luke.
Then the black cat drifted away into the Halloween themed garden area.
I wish I could say that I was totally pleased with our Halloween garden visit.
Luke stared hard at some of the more alarming ghouls and monsters.
Such things I did not wish for him to consider.
Our October day's beauty felt besmirched by the ugliness.
I scooped him up and we retreated back to my house where we frolicked in my garden and finished up our day.
Our encounter with Halloween made me recall something I had read earlier in the month, in my absolute favorite magazine Southern Living.
It is the magazine whose arrival makes me drop whatever I am doing and settle in for a reading treat.
There is a page called "Editor's Welcome" at the beginning of the magazine; it is the page which I always read first.
October's Editor's Welcome had me cheering and thanking heaven that SOMEONE was willing to go on record about Ugly Halloween.
Editor M. Lindsay Bierman had this to say on the subject:
"When it comes to seasonal decorating, we're not known for our restrain-except around Halloween time. Year after year, as soon as October planning kicks into high gear here at SL HQ, all sorts of requests and proposals for ghoulish, spooky, and witchy ideas return from their editorial graves.
I've said it on this page before, and I'll keep saying it until my eyes bulge out of my head:
NO!
Serve me up some divine, crowd-pleasing Cinderella Cheesecake (page 130) any day over tombstone-shaped cookies iced with the letters "RIP" rising from the mock soil surface of dark chocolate sheet cake. (Google it, if the spirit moves you, but you may want to think twice before serving it to young children.)
All this month's glorification of death and dismemberment runs counter to the beauty of changing leaves, cool temperatures, and warm casseroles popping out of ovens (and our test kitchen) right now all across the South.
There's enough angst in the world these days, and folks seem plenty on edge without editors like me having to come up with new ways to frighten their friends and neighbors.
I figure I can shock mine by doing something that no one would ever expect: bake up one of the breads featured on page 111.
I know-I need to let it go.
But before I do, let me just say this issue is all about celebrating our magical change of season, not piling on more dark imagery to mourn it.
To me, autumn...should be hailed as a second spring-a blissful moment between extremes of temperature that allows us to stop and appreciate the cycles of nature and the promise, once again, of a new beginning.
Well said Mr. Bierman!!!
Happy Gentle Autumn to you!
And perhaps, someday, the idea of a Hallowed Evening and Hallowed Day of remembering the Saints who have passed onto heaven will once again come back into favor.
Perhaps all the splendid Fall colors are God's offering to celebrate them after all.
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