September shade garden: Solomon's Seal yellowing and dying back.
Mid-week and feeling tired --- it's all this productivity, I guess. And fitful sleep, though better than Saturday night, when I really didn't sleep at all. BUT the house still feels clean, and yesterday I got some stacked books up off the floor, reduced some clutter on the bookshelf under the kitchen window, and put away everything that had gathered on the deacon's bench in the hall, so what my eye is falling on today is a lot more order than there has been. And that feels good. I also cleared the dining-room table of all the Norway guidebooks, maps, brochures, and other paper items that had had been strewn there, and put them in the binder my husband had made for the trip. AND I changed the sheets on our bed (granted, that's a thing I do regularly, but it always feels good to have it done).
All of this makes me feel a lot more peaceful. I'll continue with small fall-cleaning tasks daily --- at least one a day --- but the monumental sense of task, looming on my mind's horizon like a hurricane making landfall, has largely dispersed. It is downgraded to a tropical depression. It's no longer even a Category One storm. The ADHD brain tries to flood itself --- look! a storm surge! evacuate! shut down! --- but if you can just ride out the actual weather (whether you kick over the garbage or not), it's never as bad as your brain wants to tell you it is.
Today, meanwhile, is cloudy (so far), with a high of 81F again. Again, not so cool, but the nights and mornings are delightful, and the midday warmth isn't an unbearable weight of heat. The autumn equinox this year isn't till the 23rd, but already there's that feeling of having turned a definite corner and left the summer behind. I guess I'll go on using the "summer into fall" label for the duration of this week, but I'm starting to see the distinct, new season take shape.
The agenda today is pretty much what it always is: write at least one Sun essay (I've been doing one a day, but it would be nice to up the number, to get ahead), work on Sonnez Les Matines (wrote some more yesterday, am reareading now for more insights), finish my possible-endorsements list for the new poetry book, and get the actual manuscript ready to send back in. I've been hanging onto it, hoping to hear from at least some of the journals where I have poems out, so that I can update the "Acknowledgments" page before I relinquish it, but I don't want to hold up the lengthy publishing process any more than I have to.
Here's a photo of the soup I made for lunch yesterday, doctored up with peppers from the garden and some sliced kielbasa for my solitary supper last night:
Again, for something made almost entirely of canned goods off the pantry shelf, it was pretty good. The peppers and the sausage were a pleasant addition, and I look forward to finishing it off today. If I were doing this for company, I would use raw carrots, onions, peppers, etc, and sautee them in butter before adding them to the broth. And I'd finish it with heavy cream, not evaporated milk. But for everyday, just us: we're not picky. Groceries are expensive. Canned goods are cheap. And this tasted good.
Wearing today:
For her third September wear: Fiona! She's a little wrinkly from being rolled on the closet shelf, but that will sort itself out. Shown here with thrifted Allbirds merino-blend leggings, which I'm warm-weather testing today. They might not stay on, but for now they're perfectly comfortable, and I like the look. Teal and navy do well together, and while I'm sometimes iffy about leggings with dresses that aren't really short, I have liked Fiona with leggings in the past. These are dark and simple, which helps --- I anticipate wearing them a lot this winter. They replace an old cheap cotton-blend pair that had just gotten sprung beyond redemption (so I cut those off to be bike shorts), and I'm very happy with them. Same old Birk Rosemeads, because they're what I put my feet into when I got up, but I like the purple note. It doesn't match anything, but it goes with both navy and teal.
Here I perform a series of poses and silly maneuvers in my dress and leggings before the mirror:
This dress affords the wearer many things, and freedom of movement is one of them. I've rhapsodized at length, many times, about this style, which I still love. My latest dress purchase is not another Fiona, but if this dress doesn't work for me, then I will very likely revive my plan of buying a second Fiona --- unless the new Talia dress, which is supposed to release next month, looks like an even better bet. The design, as drawn, looks like a Fiona with a v-neck, longer sleeves, and a wider skirt, and that could be great. We shall see . . .
But for now, again, I'm enjoying Fiona. She's comfortable, she's pretty, she's twirly, and I can do anything I want while wearing her. I probably will do some working out again today, with weights and resistance bands: standing, sitting, down on the floor. I love that I can do all that in a dress.
And this feels like a good transitional-weather outfit: not too summery, not too self-consciously fallish in a way that would make me feel I was rushing the season, especially when "the season" here has temperatures in the 80sF.
We'll see how I feel out walking the dog, which I am shortly about to do.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
*Walked the dog for an hour, totaling 3 miles
*Spent a longer time and more energy than I'd expected writing a Sun essay
*Put in a load of laundry
*Made the bed
*Ate some soup
I got a little steamy walking in my dress and leggings, but overall it wasn't bad. I love these leggings --- they just feel breathable, even more than my beloved bamboo-blend leggings do. Already I can tell how much wear they'll get this winter, but I'm liking them with Birks now, as a transitional look with a year-round dress. It'll be interesting to see how my 100% merino leggings perform (the ones I redyed back in July) by comparison. Somebody was asking me the other day how they fit and wore, and I had to say that I really didn't know. I've tried them on, but I didn't wear them in Norway, because it was warm, and then I was home, where it was hot. So we shall see. I love the way they look, but I hope they'll stay up, not pooch at the knees, and generally behave themselves in a day's wear. I think it's going to have to get a lot cooler than this before I find out, though.
I guess I'd better go switch over the laundry, then maybe I'll at least do some upper-body workout this afternoon. I want to sit down and read Sonnez Les Matines, but am fried after cranking out this other essay, so am going to take a significant break before I do anything else serious.
AFTER-DINNER UPDATE:
Made steak and scalloped potatoes and peas. Wore fun apron.
Went for nice cool walk in the dark with husband and dog, and photographed these flowers growing along the perimeter of my neighbor's garden. I don't know what they are, but I notice them every year and think they're pretty.
Red crescent moon --- waning, I think? I've already lost track. Whether it's going or coming, it was large and dramatic, but I didn't photograph it.
Now we're about to drink some tea and pray the rosary and put ourselves and the dog and the whole day to bed.