Blustery Days

I am sitting at our kitchen table, wrapped in the intoxicating aroma of a Spiced Pumpkin Yankee Candle (thanks, Laurie!), watching leaves fall from the trees outside. The yards on our street are absolutely covered, thanks to the fact that our street is very nearly totally canopied. According to our neighbor Pete, when he and his wife purchased their home across the street from us over 30 years ago, this in fact was a canopied street. Over the years trees have been lost to storms and the like (including the bad storm in August that felled many trees, including two within a two-house radius of us), but there are still many large, mature ones that delight in bursting into color in October and shedding a thick layer of leaves in November. Yesterday Stephen was excited to report seeing a large public works truck with a huge vacuum on the back, sucking up leaves and other debris. This explains why people don't take the time to bag their leaves in the area and instead simply rake or blow them into the street. I'm not so irritated at them anymore.

It certainly feels like November here, what with the suddenly blustery, overcast days we have started to experience. Steve dutifully rides his scooter into work every day, but I honestly don't know how much longer he can do that. It's dark by 5:30 or earlier, which adds a bit of melancholy to the long evenings, I must admit. We are doing our best to keep ourselves entertained as a family at night, but it is harder without a TV--it just feels like the time to curl up in front of a brainless sitcom or an old movie. Stephen has taken to reading long passages from books to the boys. Actually, he sits on the floor, perhaps holding the baby, while I clean the kitchen and the boys run around like banshees. They don't really understand being read to quite yet, even though we have been doing it since they were cozily curled together in my tummy. His intentions are good, I assure you.

Fall days like these make me want to cook thick, hearty meals that warm me to my bones. Yesterday I was preparing a new crock pot recipe, Hearty Lamb (or Beef) Stew, that needed to be put together five hours before dinner time. I was so proud that I was preparing such a healthy meal--I was even going to make a cauliflower mash to go with the stew! (Take that, picky eater boys!) I had all of the stew vegetables, including a stubborn butternut squash, cut and ready, and then I reached into the fridge for the lamb stew meat I had bought not two days prior. Imagine my horror upon finding that it had already gone bad and was well on its way to turning a sickly shade of green. (Best By Date: yesterday.) Yuck. I was tremendously disappointed and had to set the vegetables back in the fridge for another night. So we feasted on macaroni and cheese and hot dogs (which I don't normally have but had bought at Stephen's request) and managed to survive. The boys were happy, at least. Hopefully tonight we will have better luck with some new stew meat Steve picked up this morning.

I hope that you find some time to curl up with a good book and a mug of hot tea sometime today. Seek out a fireplace, relax, and enjoy this time of change as we prepare our hearts for the most joyous season that approaches. (I, for one, can hardly contain my enthusiasm, and my husband must use bodily force to keep me from hauling up the evergreen and the mistletoe. For now I will get my fix listening to a scratchy holiday record.) Enjoy these blustery days.