Better than finding $20 in your pocket

I counted up my vacation days wrong. Turns out I have two whole days that I need to use or lose before the end of the year. This felt like such a bonus, such a gift, that I couldn't accept the idea of not doing something fun.

So Puck and I decided to use one of them to head up to Lutsen for a weekend of skiing. As the kids used to say last year or thereabouts, WOOT! Mid-December holiday FTW! Maybe this time I'll even try a MEDIUM difficulty run!

We'll be staying at the good ol' trusty Cascade Lodge, in the lodge part. If folks could help me remember which restaurants in Grand Marais are don't-miss, I'd appreciate it. (I do remember The Coho Cafe in Tofte, but that's the only name I recall.)

To NaNo or not to NaNo?

More weekends like that, please

Had a fabulous time out at the farm. Lots of beer (Oktoberfest, of course!), games, a weird and brief polka interlude, kites, and windy, beautiful walks. (That's windy as in lots of air moving around, not windy as in meandering.) Thanks Temp!

Got back in time to do some fall gardening chores in the gorgeous sunshine, eat one of The Beauty Queen's freakishly perfect acorn squashes for supper, then kick back with a glass of scotch and chat about The Dante Club with The Sexy Blonde and All-Knowing Jen.

Feeling pretty contented with life.

...And talk about the weather

We had Christmas in October this past weekend with Puck's paternal grandparents, so the snow was entirely appropriate in my world. Besides, Monday I drove past one of those classic fall maple trees, all luminous in rose and yellow, and with the snow cover on top of that it was too ridiculously beautiful to be believed.

I wouldn't be so cheerful about the early snow and cold if I didn't believe we would still get an autumn. At least a week or two of sunshine and temps in the 50s to 60s. There's still time. The veggie garden looks appalling, since every time I've had the free time to pull it out, there's been precipitation of some sort. It's a little ode to death out there right now, which I suppose is seasonally appropriate if nothing else.

Support local authors!

Especially when they are the sister of a friend of ours!

Rachel Coyne's first novel, Whiskey Heart, is now available on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble. I'm no good at reviews, so I'm just going to quote a random bit. (Random so I don't have to go through and decide what to quote. Gosh I'm being lazy about this.)

Constance's boys and a dozen of their maternal cousins showed up. They poured out of their aunt's car like water from a jug. The boys cut warpaths between the rows of church members, running and screaming at the top of their lungs, playing or dying, I wasn't quite sure which. The church children did not play with our children, but sat serenely at the feet of their elders, looking pale and ill.

The neighbors filed in but didn't stay too long. The women from Momma's work came to eat and seemed determined to outlast the church people. I wasn't sure if this was a gesture of solidarity with Momma or just their love of potato salad. They lined up at the food table, their big hips bumping softly against one another as they moved. In their flowered and polka-dot dresses, the effect was slightly hypnotic, dizzying. Eventually I fled into the house, towards the shelter of my attic, taking the stairs two at a time.

ETA: I just re-read this and realized how indifferent it may sound. I wrote it at work and my brain was in a half-dozen different places. Just to be clear, I think this is a damn solid book. After a couple interrupted starts, I sat down and read the whole thing in a long Sunday afternoon. It's not a happy book, but it is very honest, raw, and ultimately hopeful. Definitely worth a read.

Because I know many of you will appreciate this

Some for the fencing, some for the lightsaber, some for both....

Fall gardening, or lack thereof

Oh right. I keep forgetting that the reason I don't get anything done outside after mid-August isn't because I'm lazy (though I am), it's because of the damn ragweed. Last weekend I tried to break it up some -- half hour here, 45 minutes there, maybe an hour and a half when I got all distracted by deciding to dig out the lily of the valley. Then I spent the next three days mostly unable to breathe despite the allergy meds. Stupid ragweed.

Speaking of lily of the valley, if I could go back in time and deliver one message to myself, it would be, "Don't change the grade of your yard with the dirt from someone's basement, and don't think that piling inches of dead, mostly clay soil on top of lily of the valley will kill it. It won't. It will only make it stronger." I still love lily of the valley, and I'm delighted with it in the shade garden on the northeast corner of the house. But this had been planted on the south side, where all the sun just gives it entirely too much encouragement. Lily of the valley does not need to be encouraged. This year I noticed how much it was encroaching on my iris and lilies, so I figured I'd pull some out and try to restrain it a bit. HA! Silly me, I went in with a little hand cultivator. Isn't that adorably naive? Twenty minutes and a good sharp shovel later, I was pulling up clumps of lily of the valley roots ten inches deep and so dense there was very little room for soil around them. I know I didn't get it all, but I think I've at least slowed it a little.