Humming along

We enjoyed a really wonderful Thanksgiving weekend filled with friends and relatives, warm sunshine, and scrumptious fall foods, with time for play and time for a little bit of necessary work, too. Friday evening we had fun at a lively Oktoberfest celebration at the home of our friends who moved to Canada from Germany several years ago, and Saturday we enjoyed the good company of visiting family around our own table for a Thanksgiving feast. Later in the weekend, we moved everything out of our basement in preparation for a redecorating project that will be happening soon (exciting!), the guys eagerly watched some baseball, and Will and I played too many games of Yahtzee (Will's latest favourite) to count. We also took advantage of the beautiful weather by going on a long walk out in nature together one afternoon.

While exploring the walking trail, Matt and the boys and I noticed the very obvious beauty of the crimson and golden autumn leaves on the trees all around us, but we also came across a couple of fascinating and unusual sights. The trail was teeming with praying mantises -- we noticed close to a dozen of them in total, each of them sitting quietly in solitude out on the sunlit paved path, so we were able to get down and get a good look at their really interesting forms and wonder aloud what they might be watching for. Near the end of our walk, we almost passed by what appeared to be a very ordinary looking large, grayish stone, until we suddenly realized it was a huge tortoise. He too, was still; he watched us, unblinking, from his shady spot among a pile of fallen leaves, and we stood and marveled for awhile at his wrinkled folds of skin that gave him an air of quiet wisdom. Walking in nature always gives my spirits a boost this time of year, but I loved this surprising little reminder that there are always wonders to be found among seemingly ordinary things when we take the time to see them.

Life continues to hum along at an animated pace this month; the four of us are all happily involved in things that engage and excite us, and we've settled nicely into the routines of fall activities. I haven't had as much time lately to devote to writing as I would like, but I'm very much looking forward to attending the Blissdom Canada conference at Blue Mountain Resort later this week, an event that always fills me with inspiration, ideas, and eagerness to try new things in my work. I hope you're finding your own bliss, whatever it may be, during these beautiful fall weeks, too. I'll be back again soon!