So it is fall, usually my favorite time of the year. Some falls are better than others, though, and this one is definitely challenging me.To everyone's surprise, our first snow of the year arrived on October 10th (3.5 inches). On the 9th it was a balmy 78 degrees, but on the morning of the 10th, it was 18 degrees on our front porch, a 60-degree drop. This did not make me happy. The snow didn't last -- in fact, when Rocket Boy showed up a day later, there was barely a trace left on anyone's roof or lawn. But because it got so cold, especially the night of the 10th, many trees' leaves froze. This means they're not turning beautiful colors as they should be. They're just kind of greyish and unpleasant.
Rocket Boy's monthly visit went well -- much better than September. We agreed it must have been partly because he stayed longer. He arrived the night of Friday the 11th, in time to cuddle with the twins while I read from our current chapter book, and left around 11:30 am on Tuesday the 15th, a couple of hours after we sent the twins off on an Outdoor Education trip with their school. So we had three full days plus the two travel days. Even my bad cold didn't detract from it (Kid B was mostly over his cold by then and Kid A didn't come down with his until Outdoor Ed). We worked on lots of tasks, he took the boys and two friends on a Denver trip (museum and botanical garden), we watched silly movies at night (he got the "Tremors" series from the library) and both he and Kid A had dentist appointments. He changed the furnace filter, brought down the Halloween decorations, and dragged an old filing cabinet down to the curb (someone nabbed it a few days later).But when you have a great visit, it's so hard to say goodbye. I've been missing him a lot this time. Of course, the same day he left, the twins also left, and they didn't come home until after 4 pm on Friday the 18th. So I had three and a half days alone, which I did not enjoy.
Last year when the twins did Outdoor Ed with their 5th grade class, Rocket Boy and I had a blast. We ate at non-kid-friendly restaurants and just generally enjoyed ourselves. But I found that it was no fun to be all alone, just me and the cats. My book group met the first night, Tuesday, and that kept the loneliness at bay for a little while. Wednesday I took a walk, and saw one person I knew, but that night I ended up driving to Target, just for some human interaction. I felt very lonely wandering the aisles. Thursday I went to the library and the post office, but otherwise was alone. When I woke up Friday morning I was so relieved! The photo shows the buses arriving back at the school -- I did not manage to take even ONE photo of either twin, packed up to go or coming home, but I got those buses! (Actually, the kids weren't even on these two -- they were on bus #3, which arrived about half an hour later.)
So now the weekend is drawing to a close and the poor twins have to go back to school tomorrow (their last day in the classroom was October 11th). Today was cold and very windy, and tomorrow will be similar. I woke up a few times during the night, the wind was so strong. I tried to take a photo of the blowing trees this morning -- not sure you can get a sense of that, but see how greyish everything is? Still a little green, too, but mostly the leaves just look sad. I didn't go outside today at all (except to take these photos). Too cold and blowy for a walk, plus the wind makes my cough worse.
I need a fall project, something to remind me of how much I like this time of year. I've already read some books with "ghost" in the title this month (American Ghost by Hannah Nordhaus and Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss) but I decided that I needed to read a whole lot more scary books, so I got an armload of them at the library yesterday. So far I've read Alice Isn't Dead and tried The Turn of the Key but decided I didn't like it. I think I'll try Midnight Riot next. There are 11 more days until the end of the month, so we'll see how many I can get through by then. (Come November, I switch back to serious books.) It's a little tricky reading scary books without Rocket Boy next to me in bed. I try to get the cats to come sit on the bed with me, but they won't comply. So I read alone, nervously, telling myself that the creaking noise is the wind, or a twin turning over in bed.Oh yes, you may be wondering what the news is on the job front. There's no news -- I've thought of some things to pursue, but haven't pursued them. One conclusion I have come to is that I really need to stop taking jobs that I'm likely to quit in misery -- which is what happened with three of my last four jobs (with the IRS, the second teaching job, and my research assistant job). So I've been thinking about why I quit those jobs. Some of the reasons: (1) the jobs were low level, not "careers," so I didn't feel like I was losing much by quitting; (2) I had very little control over what I did, had to follow silly rules and orders from people who kept changing their minds; (3) I didn't enjoy the work, wouldn't have chosen it voluntarily; and (4) I didn't value the work enough. I don't think I can do anything about #1. No one is going to hire a 59-year-old for some big career type job, and I don't think I want one anyway. #2 kind of goes along with #1 -- low-level jobs don't usually have much autonomy, although it might be possible to find a more rational boss. So what about #3 and #4? Can I think of something that I would enjoy doing? And/or can I find something to do that I consider important? It's not so bad to be a little cog in a wheel if you value the wheel. Part of what went wrong with my last job was that I wasn't terribly interested in what we were doing. I would tell people about it and they would nod and say, oh yes, very important work. But I didn't really think it was. So that's where I am, trying to think of something I could do that I would find valuable.
