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This sweet face brightened the end of my last walk. If (s?)he continues gracing the window this fall, I'll be delighted. The wagging tail and lively eyes that followed my steps the other night were my favorite things about what was, hopefully, one of the last ultra-humid walks of summer 2018.
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I was nursing a headache most of yesterday--yes, my turn, Lisa!--but am feeling better today for Day Off #2 and have gotten a lot done. And am just enjoying myself. Seven sweet things this week:
1.) 'Am still working on my 80s childhood memoir. Loving! It! ♥ That pile of paper scraps in the photo above is all the remaining notes that need to be turned into index cards--which will later be turned into "real" writing. The pile has shrunk so much since I started this in earnest earlier this year. My goal for the rest of today is to get as many scraps onto cards as possible so I can move on to the filling-the-notebooks-with-rough-drafts stage of things. Progress!
2.) The building manager and a plumber had to stop by earlier this week for routine winter-prep radiator maintenance, and as I welcomed them in, the plumber glanced around and unexpectedly greeted me with "Oh, I like it in here! It's very family-oriented!" and moments later commented, "It smells really good in here too!" as he left. I hardly knew what to say besides thank you, but both remarks made me laugh. A sweet encounter.
3.) A coworker left a thank you on my note that accompanied the cookies I'd brought into work last week and later thanked me in-person. A day-brightener for me.
5.) Chicago Cubs in the World Series playoffs! I'm not wildly enthusiastic about any one team--I tend to wish them all well--and it would have been a treat for Dad if his Pirates had advanced in the playoffs, but how fun to see the Cubs and their fans having such a great ride this fall.
6.) This pup, an English Yellow Lab--
--is now my younger brother's dog. So sweet! ♥ My brother, his wife, and somehow-almost-two-year-old Bianca have all wanted a dog for ages, and this one looks so dear.
7.) Chilly fall weather has returned, and with it, a pot on the stove here of simmering cinnamon water. Today's mix is simply cinnamon with vanilla, but as I finish my iced teas while I write this afternoon, I'll throw in the lemon slices too. Snow flurries and a frost warning are in the forecast for the next few days. Oh, fall! Love, love, love.
'Back to the index cards. 'A sweet weekend to you all.
'Got up hours before Mike this morning. 'Walked to Target hoping to find one of the $1 "L♥VE" Christmas tree ornaments I'd seen on their website before the Black Friday shopper hoopla begins later this week and they all get snatched-up. I found two, one for the tree and one to keep out year-round. And two little birds to add to my flock that flutters against our red gingham curtains. At our old apartment, we had a view of both the backyard and side yard and could watch Cardinals, Robins, and Chickadees (←my favorites) flit around for the seed we would scatter for them, but our new apartment has no real yard and sees no birds, so for now, it's an ever-growing collection of curtain birds. 'Picked out some Thanksgiving cards and Snoopy-themed Thanksgiving stickers to mail out tomorrow. 'Found four plates and two books at Goodwill. Have I mentioned that I actually hate shopping? I try to do as much online as possible. After today, I am aiming for one more Target trip for Christmas gifts and hoping I can finish the rest online. I usually succeed at this. 'Definitely a "Far from the Maddening Crowd" person.
'Annoyed Stuffed by taking his picture while he sat on his window perch, but his posture was so cute and the trees in the neighbor's yard so glowing, I couldn't resist. He spent last week determined to rub his nose against every corner in the apartment and is now black and white with a gray-until-all-his-fur-grows-back nose, but he is as adorable as ever. While I was at work one night last week, he played fetch with one of his cat toys with Mike, trotting down the hall with the toy in his mouth and then returning to the living room with it. I always tell Mike that if Stuffed didn't have claws, I'd be tempted to walk around holding him like a toy all day long, he's just so soft and cuddly and so purely CUTE, my favorite stuffed animal come-to-life. 'Love, love, love this shy little soul. ♥
'Got my Thanksgiving cards ready to mail. Last month, I pressed a bunch of colorful leaves into the pages of a book to include in future letters, and they're now preserved in Thanksgiving mail with transparent tape over them. I only remembered at the last minute today to buy Thanksgiving cards, so to end up even this on-top-of-things tonight is a pleasant surprise. I volunteered to work Thanksgiving again this year so I can have Christmas off instead, so it just really hasn't been on my mind. Mike will be spending Thursday with his family, and he and I will have a Thanksgiving dinner together sometime next week, I suppose.
'Went out to supper with Mike and had two of the best iced teas I've had since Summer of Sun Tea (and Humidity) 2012. Everyone in our section of booths at the restaurant tonight was so appreciative of the server and so pleasant toward her and with each other, it made our simple meal out even better. The last time we went out to eat, everyone in our section was treated to an elderly woman in the booth beside ours who squawked at the harried server--who was a good ten yards away from her at the time--"What happened to the sour cream I was supposed to get THIRTY MINUTES AGO?????" Grrrrrrrr. The server handled it like a champ and later joked about it with us, but rudeness like that just makes my blood boil. It is soooooo much nicer when people are just pleasant to each other. "You know, we're living in a SOCIETY!" as George shouted on "Seinfeld." Mike and I did enjoy barking variations of the elderly woman's line at each other for awhile after returning home tonight, though. "What happened to the [drink/snack/napkin] you were supposed to bring me THIRTY MINUTES AGOOOOOOO?!!??"
'Admired my umpteen layers of clothing while I waited for Mike to get a coffee at Dunkin' Donuts for the walk home after supper. I love this weather. The stars were out as we walked, and it was just breezy enough to feel brisk and not so cold that it hurt our throats to breathe. The houses were not yet decked-out in holiday lights as they'll start to be later this week. For the last Sunday this year, their only glow came from interior lights and nearby street lamps. A few pumpkins still sat on porch steps. We only shared the sidewalks with a few people who were walking their dogs, which reminded us, at it always does, of the time we were walking some of the same streets only to find a tiny dog that had broken free of its fenced-in yard, and while we waited for the owners to meet us at the street we'd called to tell them we were on, I sat on the sidewalk holding the little dog and it rested his head on my thigh as if settling onto its pillow for the night. So dear. The puppy's name was "Coco," the owners told us when they arrived to take him home soon after that, so now every time Mike and I walk in that area, we recount the Coco story to each other and laugh about how, even though he was lost and had never seen us before, Coco had promptly snuggled his teacup-size head onto my lap. ♥
'Talked with Mom and Dad tonight and emailed a couple friends. And now Mike has gone to bed and I am up late, as always, with my books and more iced tea beside me before I join him. The blue floral skirt here is part of the desk re-do I've been working on, a story for another day.
It somehow slipped my mind to take more pictures Thanksgiving Day, but the few I took are proof I was home for the holiday a year I hadn't expected to get the time off to make the trip.
That I will also have a few days off over Christmas is an incredible extra blessing this year.
Hearing that news just a few days before going home for Thanksgiving made the holiday even sweeter and made saying goodbye to everyone a bit easier. I have been dying of homesickness lately, and the thought of not getting to see my family over the holidays had been breaking my heart.
I am thirty-three and getting married next year, and I know it won't be possible to spend every holiday with my family in the future, but I hope to do it as many times as possible, and this year, it was something I just plain needed.
As I told my mom Thanksgiving night while we got ready for bed, we're so lucky that we all enjoy seeing each other and spending the holidays together. Not every family feels that way, and mine is blessed in that we do. I appreciate it more the older I get, and this year, with all the uncertainty about whether I'd even be there to experience either Thanksgiving or Christmas with them, I feel it more deeply than ever. Blessed, blessed, blessed. ♥
I have dreamed of having an Old English Sheepdog since I was a kid. I have cycled through stages of hoping to have children someday and then of not caring if I’m ever anyone’s mom, but I have had three dog names picked out for ages: Buster, Rowlf, and Buckingham--“Buck” for Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac fame. Just thinking about the dog makes me happy. And when I say that I dream of him, I mean it literally: My dog appears in my dreams every few months. Sometimes the dream (or what I remember of it) is simply that he was sitting beside me on the couch or that we were out walking together, and sometimes the dream is about something else entirely but my shaggy gray and white bear of a dog was there during it, plodding alongside me.
In last night’s dream, a bunch of friends, family, coworkers, and I were sleeping over at my grandparents’—camped out on the couch, in the upstairs bedrooms, and on the floor all through the house. I was curled up with a blanket on the living room floor in front of the TV, but I soon decided to get up and find my dog—I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep without him. So, I stood up and tip-toed my way through the room, trying not to step on anyone as I made my way over to the staircase. I was giddy in the dream, somehow thinking “Ooh! I hope there’s a sheepdog in this dream!” and already happy because I knew I was about to see him again. I finally found him—Buster, Rowlf, or Buckingham, I never know which one I'm seeing in the dreams—upstairs in my grandparents’ bedroom. My dog! There was just enough light in the room to make him out on the floor beside their bed. I called out to him in an excited whisper and snuggled up with him there on the floor, his fluffy side as my pillow. That was all there was to the latest dream, my most recent visit with my sheepdog.
I always wake up from these dreams missing my dog but happy—even if it was “just” a dream—to have spent time with him again. And say what you will, but it’s a nice way to start the day. Buster/Rowlf/Buckingham is out there, and someday he will still be there when I awake.
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