For Lack of a Topic

Since there doesn't seem to be any one thought floating about in my head waiting to be posted (rather, many thought snippets), I have decided to upload all of the recent photos from my camera to my computer and type whatever I feel like about them. Besides, a picture is worth a thousand words . . . so . . . here are several thousand words via photo.

1. First off, who needs real friends? Seeing your kids own little unprompted creations is the best thing. It always makes me smile and shake my head at the same time.

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2. Lately I keep looking at Abe and thinking how old he is getting. There is a certain age when kids are no longer just "little kids"-- when they reach a point that people are not quite as sure how to go about entertaining them, conversing with them, etc. because they don't know if they should be doing kid stuff with them or treating them more grown up. I think it is a little trickier for babysitters and aunts and uncles when kids aren't simply, "little" anymore. As I watch Abe going about his life these days -- asking me for permission to do things, helping me with things, etc. I feel so happy that I don't wonder those things about him -- that I know who he is and what he likes and what he's all about at this stage. I love that boy.

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3. Oh, well, and this is important. I have always thought long sweaters were flattering, and last Fall I kept wishing I had a good open fronted sweater to put on when the weather didn't quite call for a coat, but for some reason, I have never had a nice long sweater . . . and then, the other day, I bought TWO. Goldie took this picture of me trying on the first one. I look a bit as if I am feigning enthusiasm, but in my heart of hearts (what on earth does that mean -- I know Anatomy and there is nooo mini heart in your heart) . . . but, back to what I was saying, in my heart of hearts I was nothing but purely and completely enthusiastic about my sweaters (plus, they were on a great sale).
4. I walked in my room the other day to this:

I'm normally a flip flop kind of girl. Winters are rough for me because as much as I love the idea of shoes, I just don't seem to like to put them on. But, it was a Sunday so fancy shoes were the order of the day, and something about this little sight -- my obviously female shoes (much more obvious than flip flops) next to my husbands struck me and made me feel so happy that I have the man I love so well -- that, just like those shoes left lying there, our lives are so intermingled. It made me think of other little signs of his presence left about the house -- a cereal bowl on the counter, a razor on the edge of the sink. How empty and lonely my life would be if those things were ever to cease being left about (Mike, this is not to say that you should avoid cleaning up in the future -- signs that you have been cleaning are even more endearing).

5. Maybe that had something to do with why this sight made me pause and smile on the following day. It made me want to go around my house taking pictures of all of the things that would give someone a clue as to who we are and what we do. I kept looking at things all day as if I were a stranger peering in this home with the task of deducing all I could about its occupants.
6. The kids and I are very excited for tomorrow. It is Oct. 1st AND they have no school. The reason that is special is that I told them we would decorate for Halloween on Oct. 1st -- so how lucky that it ended up being a vacation day (plus the weather has obliged us by switching from 90 degrees two days ago, to a forecasted 52 degrees for tomorrow -- just to help us feel that the Fall and Winter holiday season is for real). Anyway, we snuck out one early decoration -- this candy bowl:

For some reason it reminded Goldie very much of the little lidded sample containers at Target and other stores, and she insisted on eating her allotted number of candy corns one at a time so she could keep coming back and pretending to get a store sample. She thought it was so much more enjoyable eating her treats when they seemed sample-ish.

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It reminded me of tearing bread into little pieces with my sisters when we were little in the hopes that it would somehow taste as delicious as the sacrament bread. I suppose that was a bit sacrilegious; be that as it may, it never did taste as good. Looking back now, it occurs to me that our wheat bread could never mimic the taste of that delectable and seldom-seen-in-our-home white bread that the deacons passed about -- no matter how small we tore the pieces.

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7. Lastly, I don't know how smart Penny thinks I am -- apparently not very. She is insanely full of mischief lately (drawing on walls and the like), and about ten times a day she looks at something, thinks twice about it, and then, rather than opting to not commit the infraction, she says, "Mom, Could you go away?" Sometimes it is so painfully obvious what she has planned. Like tonight when I warned her to quit turning on our bathtub water (as she recently flooded one bathroom with buckets of water on the floor). She turned the faucet off, looked at it longingly and then, "Mom, could you go away?" That girl.
Well, that is that. The end of my photo essay. If the pictures really did paint a thousand words, then I probably shouldn't have gone ahead and typed a thousand extra with each picture, but such is my nature. Good night.