A day when you make mugs of hot cocoa.

Even though it was the Swiss Miss packaged variety, it tasted grand. He likes marshmallows. I prefer whipped cream. (OK…Cool Whip. So when it comes to my hot cocoa, I’m no gourmet.) I found some sprinkles the other day that were hidden amongst some other items in the cabinet and though they’d make a grand addition too. We just have to dig out the holiday mugs to make the ensuing occasions all the more festive.

I’m a bit cheerful about the coming winter and this time of year. Because I know it’s inevitable. And there is a certain magic about the snow and ice. It’s just that I’m pretty much tired of it by January. So my warm and toasty winter-themed posts will probably be long gone by then. Get ‘em while you can!

The warmth is leeching from my body.

In Arizona, I was frying. Hot, hot, hot. And now I’m cold, of course. I left that lovely sunshine behind too. Although it must not be so unbearable because I took Juliette for a walk tonight in my PJ pants. In the rain. I’m crazy like that.

Snapped beneath cloudy, breezy skies at Robinette’s.

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I’m bummed. It’s been raining for days. The sun peeks in once in a while and then burrows behind the clouds again. The leaves are just beginning to change colors, but the ones that have fallen from the trees are lying in soggy disarray on the grass.

Fall is my favorite season. And I feel like it’s avoiding me. I need crunchy leaves. I need vivid bright blue skies. I need trips to the pumpkin patch. I need time to put my garden to bed and tidy up the yard.

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The thing about me and this site is that I feel that every single post should include a photo — whether or not that photo is relevant to the topic of discourse. So when I haven’t snapped photos for days, I feel disinclined to post. I’m slightly neurotic, I know. Luckily I visited my mother this weekend and snapped some shots of her elderly yorkie. She doesn’t look bad for 16, does she?

A week or so ago, a co-worker asked me if I’d take her daughter’s one-year photos. I was surprised. I’ve never really considered photographing other people’s kids. (Self-confidence issues, no doubt.) And the only other time someone asked me to be a pretend professional photographer was when I snapped the pics for my friend Renee’s wedding.

Those moments just seem so precious to me and there’s this sense of responsibility that comes with that. What if I screw it up? I’m pretty proud of a lot of the photographs I’ve taken of Dev, sure, but those come out of no-pressure, everyday moments.

Although my first instinct was to say no, I decided to ignore myself and do it.

I’m so glad I did! The rest of the little lady is as completely adorable as those toes, I can assure you. And I managed to get quite a few decent shots. In record time, I might add, because she was quite devastated when her mom wouldn’t let her eat the wood chips and immediately collapsed into a pool of tears. And, of course, I had to take a few photos of those too.

It’s really just that I’ve fallen in love with my 15-year-old bike. I’ve had affection for it many times over the years, but this is a bit different. On the nights when Scott has bedtime duty, I’ve begun to hop on my two wheels and explore. It’s nice and quiet and the light is just right in the almost-evening sky. And it feels so good when the muscles in my legs are burning and I feel like there’s just no way I’m going to make it up that hill. But I do. Bikes are good things. So are hills. And so are summer evenings when I have half an hour to myself to pedal through the nooks and crannies of my neighborhood.

Last night I kicked back on the deck for a bit. Tonight I’m listening to my kid trash his room. A kid who was supposed to be asleep almost two hours ago. Variety is the spice of life, ya know.

Mondays have all of this angst surrounding them. There’s an assumption that things will go badly or that if they are going badly, then it surely must be because it’s a Monday. How many times have you asked someone on a Monday morning how they’re doing and they respond, “Well, it’s Monday”?

So I’m not going to give Monday a bad rap. This could have happened on any other day of the week too. It just happened to be bright and early yesterday morning. Which was? Monday.

I was supposed to go to the gym yesterday, but I couldn’t get to sleep the night before. And I kept waking up. And then I felt like I was dreaming all night long. Just plain restless. At one point, I swore I heard strange noises in our house. But the dog was in our room and hadn’t moved a muscle, so another dream.

Then it was time to get up. Oh, joy. I let the dog out, came upstairs to shower and get dressed, then went back downstairs. Maggie was on the counter where she wasn’t supposed to be. I gave her the evil eye and told her I’d be back for her in after I let the dog in. I kept my promise and went to shoo her off the counter. But I noticed she was watching something intently, and assumed it was a bug. So I followed her gaze to the sink. There were still a couple of inches of water in there from last night’s dishes.

But there was also something else in there. Swimming around. It took me about five seconds to fully comprehend what I was seeing: A BAT!!!!

Where did I go next. I ran upstairs as fast as I could, because that’s how I roll. I tried not to scream at Scott. Instead I loudly and excitedly whispered, in a voice verging on a slight scream, “Scott! Scott! There’s a bat in the kitchen!!!”

He was up fast. So was Devin. And I was pacing the hallway trying to calm down. Scott made us stay put while he went down to catch it. Dev wanted to see it, but Scott very forcefully told us to STAY. OK. So we did. Then he had the bat in a big plastic cup and he was yelling to me, “What do I do with it?” Hello? You put it outside, silly. And he did.

So that’s how we woke up yesterday. Monday. I can assure you the flue is now closed on the fireplace.

(And the cat, who commenced vomiting not long after the bat flew the coop, is now OK as well. The apron string she swallowed came back up, saving us a trip to the vet and the ensuing bills. That would have made me blame Monday indeed.)

The day ended, though, on a much better note. The construction crews showed up with a huge digger right at bedtime last night. Here’s one of the very happy faces my kid was making as he watched the proceedings.

Just two grad parties this year, and both on the same weeken. Stepahnie yesterday. Shane today. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m one of the old people at these gatherings. Those teenagers definitely look a lot younger than me, but I swear it was only yesterday when high school ended. I know, too, that I didn’t appreciate my youth and the opportunities in front of me. And I’m sure that I squandered a few of those. But can you really offer advice to 18-year-olds? Because we kind of poo-poo’d the words of wisdom passed to us, I think. When you’re a teenager you tend to think you know way more than you really do. There are definitely times I wish I could go back to my young-adult self and have a conversation that would help to avoid a few of the mistakes I’ve made. To instill some more confidence in that younger me who may just have gone for a few of the opportunities that I let slip by. But, hey, I managed to navigate to a pretty happy spot, so it’s all good.