A Former Favorite

Once upon a time, Fall was my favorite season. I loved the crisp air, the changing leaves, the holidays. I loved walking through a pile of leaves just to hear them crunch. Fall hikes were my favorite because it's not too hot, and everything's so beautiful to look at.

Lately I've come to loathe Fall. Maybe "loathe" is too strong a word. Mourn? Remember it wistfully? Pine for it? Maybe those give a better sense of my feelings.

These days, school starts, after school sports start, cyclocross season starts, and those things take up all of our time, leaving little or no time for just plain fun. Earlier this season I mentioned to Mr. T that I really missed going for hikes in the Fall and he helpfully checked his calendar and said "The only day I can give you is ____." (And then I re-injured my ankle and couldn't hike that day, anyway.) There are things around the house that I really need familial help with, but there's never any time to do them. Sigh.

The holidays seem to come quicker and quicker, too. This year is going to be really tough, because Chanukah starts something like 3 days after Thanksgiving break ends. Everyone's coming to my house for Thanksgiving this year, so I don't know when I'll get my Chanukah shopping done. This is where the Internet saves me... I can order some things to have on hand at least.

Speaking of Chanukah, I got the cutest menorah this weekend at the temple:


A bike for the bike racers! It's even got a wee little water bottle in a holder, too :)

I continue to plug away at the spinning I showed you earlier. Well, I didn't spin at all last week. It was a busy week. But I got back to it this week. I'm getting close to the end, sweating every inch, hoping it will all fit on this bobbin:


I have no idea how consistent this bobbin of singles is. I feel like it's getting thinner and thinner as I keep spinning, but I see lots of inconsistency, too. I'm aiming to have the bobbin finished sometime tomorrow, and then hopefully I'll get to do the n-ply over the weekend.

I also finally finished the first sleeve of Paper Crane, and cast on for the second:


And then I set it aside. I promised a friend that I'd make her a pair of Fiddlehead Mittens like the ones I knit for myself last year, and mitten weather is fast approaching. Fiddleheads generally go pretty quickly... with the qualifier that "quickly" is a relative term when you take into account knitting only gets done in spare bits of time.


I'm also continuing to work on stripey socks, slowly.

The school decision continues to confound. I went to a required meeting at our home school yesterday afternoon and came away unimpressed, frankly. I didn't feel like the presentation was very dynamic or that it gave me a compelling reason to send my child to the school. The school is one of the top high schools in the country, so I'm clearly missing something. But I do know from our elementary school experience that the leadership at the top isn't necessarily what makes a school great. The big factors are the quality of the faculty, the motivation of the kids, and involved parents. I know the school scores high on all of those factors. For now, we'll continue with the lottery process and see what happens. We may not even have to make a decision in the end.