It’s my most favorite time of the year…

Ahhh, October. My very favorite and my best time of year. It’s cool in the mornings (yaaay!), and it’s chilly at  night (sweaters!), and I can turn the oven on, and Tasha can play outside again:

Okay, so it’s more likely she can sit outside again. ahem. Kitty’s do as kitty’s will. Anyway, It’s finally Autumn in these here parts, with the long suffering days and nights of stifling heat long behind us. We should only have a few spots of dry heat here and there this month, so here’s hoping and fingers crossed and all that!

September was full of new starts, doing, life, and dreaming of better days to come. I started taking a class, which is going well. I have officially left the community garden that I joined at the start of this summer. After dreaming and planning for vegetable gardens my entire adult life, it seems that the practice is not as satisfying as the dream. But, you know what they say- try everything in life once, the fun things twice! So, I’ve let it go and am refocusing on my herbs and flowers here at the house (which is much more satisfying, truth be told! Snip snip right outside the door and voila! instant yummyness in the kitchen.) It’s also allowed me to get back to my morning walks. With scenes like this to wake up to, I’m definitely not regretting my decision:

I also worked up the courage to start running a table at the weekly Dungeons and Dragons night at our local gaming store. Such a lot of fun! But it’s really just a disguise for a lot of hard work, planning, rules lawyering, and meeting new people once a week. Oh, and playing with toys a bit, too. Painting figurines, sourcing rule books, gaming mats, rules cheatsheets, tokens, and figuring out how to transport all of the above once a week is a bit of a chore, but I’ve learned a lot over the last few months. And it’s a great cure for my crippling case of shyness, at any rate!

Trying new things is important aspect of life- it keeps you engaged, happy, and active. Keeps the mind agile and your outlook positive, which I believe are very important to a happy, productive life. But there is such a thing as trying to do too much, and it seems it’s time to take a few things off my plate. I want to do so much, but there is only so many hours in the day. Studying for school has taken precedence over my hobbies. Cooking dinner is more important than chores. It’s a give and take. I absolutely love Fall, and start to shift over into Making mode this time of year, but I’ve had to be a lot more selective of what I put on my crafting list. Knitting mittens instead of blankets, sewing napkins instead of another quilt, tote bags instead of purses, that sort of thing. Now that California has passed a Bill to ban plastic grocery bags, I want to make a few of my grocery totes in plain brown linen, something that won’t shout “I’m a homemade bag”, but will be nicer and cheaper than the ready made, over priced things out in the shops. I’ve already made a quick Fall couch throw, and have a new round of cloth napkins in creamy off-white linen planned that will work for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Easy peasy, and fun to do to boot!

So, the start of another new school year, a lovely new brisk Fall, and a new personal schedule. Now, if I can just get my new textbook away from the Faeries- they’re using it as a ping pong table!