December, where the days fly by

I'm not really sure where the whole month has gone, but sure enough it's the end of the month. The end of the year, in fact. This has been a great month. My son turned 8 and had a party at the roller skating rink and no one got hurt! Christmas was full of family time, great food and thoughtful, wonderful presents. I'm taking a week's vacation in January and really looking forward to it. Until then I can look at this picture of my Christmas tree from this year and think of what a great month, and what a great year, it's been.

It's a whirlwind

I have no clue how it can possibly be December already. One week into December. Where has the year gone? I feel a certain gloominess just thinking about it all. I don't know why it expresses itself that way. The year has been a good one. Maybe it's because I'm behind on so many things, and instead of celebrating all the triumphs of the year my mind is focusing (today at least) on the mile-long list of things that didn't get done. Tomorrow will be better. I know it.

The picture above was taken in my office, while spinning in my chair. It captures the outside world (gray and bright in anticipation of snow) and one of the plants on my windowsill. The picture alone lightens the load.

Thanksgiving visitor

I should probably post a picture of Sean toiling away in the kitchen making the stuffing, since that more accurately depicts the day (food and whatnot), but I'm still pretty impressed with this little guy.

Forward thinking, looking back

I took this picture (of my favorite flower, by the bye) with my first digital camera. I was at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I love so much about my years in Brooklyn and on the East Coast and carry with me so many great memories, large and small.

I've been back in the Midwest for two and a half years and I can't imagine any better place for me right now. There's a lot that goes into that statement, which I won't go into here. I bring it up only to say that as I think about my future, I smile. And as I discover more about my past and misperceptions and whatnot, I smile.

It is, as it used to be said, all good.

When October Goes. . .

I love autumn. I think I'm repeating myself by saying that, but it's true. It's a wonderful time of year. Pumpkin pie. The crunching of leaves as you stroll along. Fires. Getting all toasty warm one way or another.I wish I had had a real camera with me this morning instead of my camera phone, but I still like the feeling that was captured, even if it's not artistically up to snuff. The brick road, the yellow leaves carpeting the ground. It's a powerful swelling of emotions and I feel spectacularly incapable of expressing said feelings with mere words. Pictures only begin to shed light on it. How to grasp all five senses and express the joy, the melancholy, and all the other myriad aspects of what it means to be touched so deeply by something that I have no control over. There's a psychological study in here somewhere, but I really don't want to take this beautiful feeling and undermine it with comparisons to the other areas of my life where my emotions are so well guarded that even I don't get to experience them. Yarg! This just isn't right.

geeky

For those people who really know me this won't come as a shock: I'm a geek. Or a nerd. Or whatever word you want to use along those lines. Not the cool, hip kind of nerdiness that some people have going for them. Just your run-of-the-mill kind. I can easily laugh at myself about this, and I frequently find great joy in it.

Related in a geeky/nerdy/Jen-like kind of way: in cleaning up files on my computer I came across this shot, which shows many pictures, taken by others, that I've "favorited" on Flickr.What can we learn about me here? Clearly, I am amused by funny/cute/silly animals. I'm way into nature. What you can't so easily see are the ones that really give insight into me: the ones I favorited not so much for the picture, but for the captions added to them by the photographers. One of the shots is of a cat's face in a hole in the side of a barn. The caption is "let meow-t". Ha ha ha. Ahem. Well, anyhow, I found it funny.

October is wonderful

pumpkin painting, originally uploaded by Jen!!.

Pumpkinpalooza, year two. Once again, we went with Sheila and her boys and had a blast. The kids got to paint pumpkins, have their faces painted, bowl with a pumpkin, and other various activities. We were there for hours but it seemed to me that it all blew by in a matter of minutes. That's been happening to me a lot recently. Time slips by. Life is good, and whizzing by too fast.