Saturday

We had a lovely, lazy morning. R and I played with his trains in his room, while A made pancakes and sausages for breakfast. Around 11, we headed out to the Museum of Science for a couple of hours. We have a membership, and it's really nice because we can get there in about 10 minutes door to door, and then we have two hours at the museum (before we have to start paying for parking). Today, we let R spend a long time staring at the big ball moving sculpture. It's a mechanical piece of art that has all these crazy tracks for billiard balls to go through. Hard to describe, but it's mesmerizing. And, it's set up right next to a wall of windows overlooking the Charles River and the Boston skyline. So, we let R stay there for a long time while A and I soaked up the sun and watched the river. Then, we zipped through a lot of the rest of the museum and made it back to the parking garage with two minutes to spare. :-)

The view of Boston from inside the museum

After a lunch of spicy gumbo soup (yum!), apple slices, and cheese and crackers, we headed out to the bookstore to pick up some more Magic Tree House books for R and then to the grocery store. Then it was home again, a short nap for R on the couch while I did laundry and checked email, and dinner. Not a very exciting day, but it was beautiful nonetheless. I was with my boys and that's what's important.

Tomorrow, we get our pumpkins!

It's playoffs time

Once again, I am reminded why I hate to watch baseball on TV: the spitting. The constant, disgusting spitting that the cameras insist on zooming in on and staying there so we can get the full effect. Blech! It's amazing that whole teams aren't wiped out by the flu each fall and spring, what with all the saliva they're sharing. I can't take it anymore. And, since the Red Sox appear to be getting their heinies whumped by Tampa Bay, I may not have to endure this nausea much longer. :-(

Little prayer request

I signed up at my new church to participate in a community group, which is a small-group Bible study and community service thing. Tomorrow night is the first meeting. I still don't know anyone at the church yet, so I'm hoping this will give me a chance to meet a few people and hopefully make a friend or two. But, being the quiet and shy person that I am, I'm pretty nervous about it. So, if you think of it, say a little prayer for me to just relax, to be myself, and to remember that God is always with me. Thank you!

Maybe I should wear this to break the ice ... what do you think? ;-)

Down on the farm

Our apple picking trip was fun. I found a farm that is only 6 miles from my dad's house, but it was a pretty convoluted 6 miles. It was nice to drive down some very quiet roads and look at the houses all decked out for fall and Halloween.

When we got to the farm, the first thing we saw was a gathering of old cars near the parking lot, so we went to check them out. Good timing on our part because they all drove off 5 minutes later. (Oh, I discovered what was wrong with my camera - I had left it set for fluorescent lighting. That's why everything was bluish. But I thought it gave my apple picking pictures an old-fashioned feel.)

What's a farm without a great old tractor?

Next, we bought our apple bag and our tickets for the corn maze. Inside the farmstand store, I was heartbroken to discover that all the baked goods and apple cider were SOLD OUT! Ack! What's apple picking without donuts and apple cider? Oh well. We hopped on the big tractor that took us to the orchard.



Apple picking goes pretty quickly, except when your four-year-old decides to have a meltdown because he doesn't want anyone else besides him to pick apples and fill the bag. But letting him use the apple picker pole for the ones up high made R happy again.

Next up - the corn maze. I overheard a woman on the tractor say that it takes an hour(!) to get through it, so I started getting nervous. Right away, A went his own direction and my dad and R and I went another way, which made me even more nervous. But it was fun and silly. You're supposed to find three mailboxes within the maze. In each mailbox is a hole punch that punches a different shape. You have a card that you carry with you and once all your holes are punched, you head for the exit. We found two mailboxes pretty quickly, then wandered around nearly lost looking for the third. And, just when we were starting to get antsy about being in the maze any longer (especially when R announced he had to poop), R yelled out, "DADDY!?!?!" And A just happened to be about 5 feet away from us. We found the last mailbox and had some failed attempts to find the exit, but finally we were free!



After a fun couple of hours at the farm, we realized that the real maze was finding the way back to my dad's house!

Now I have to track down some donuts and cider ...

Without the sonlight

Today was supposed to be sunny and cool. The forecasters got the cool part right (47 degrees when I woke up - gah!), but it was completely overcast and a bit damp. There's something about that kind of gray, drizzly weather that gives me the urge to go to the ocean. I want to bundle up and head to the beach in one of my favorite New England harbor towns. I daydream about sitting by a fireplace in some cozy seaside restaurant with a steaming cup of soup while watching the stormy waves crash onto the sand.

But the mist and chill in the air were fine for apple-picking so we headed to my dad's as planned.

Along the way, I noticed that all the trees that have been so incredibly vibrant in autumn color weren't quite as impressive. The colors that have been taking my breath away were muted and less inspiring because of the gray clouds. Without the sun to highlight the leaves and without the blue sky as a backdrop, the beauty was harder to see.

And, I realized that the same is true for my life in general. Without the Son in my life, I'm less able to see beauty around me, especially in other people. It seems that no matter how hard I try, I have this gray film over my eyes that makes me always find the negative, that makes me cynical and impatient and unkind - if not out loud, then in my thoughts.

But when I draw close to the Son and let Him shine in my heart more, that film begins to be lifted. I can begin to see what He sees in other people - the beauty, the potential. And, I begin to have a heart more like His. I'm less inclined to think the worst of people and more inclined to think the best of someone and to pray for people who I would normally just grumble about (like the grouchy woman at the grocery store yesterday who snarled at me and R...). :-)

He has also made me more hopeful about myself. I can see the potential beauty in me, and I'm better able to hear Him pointing out to me the areas I need to work on and give up to Him. Lately, God has been saying, "Here, here, and here" to me, lovingly and gently showing me where that film is still covering my eyes and my heart. I feel like I should get a t-shirt made that reads, "Under Reconstruction." I'm so thankful for this construction work and for being able to see more and more beauty within and without every day. (You should be thankful for this construction work, too, because I asked God for guidance in writing this post and He wisely had me delete an unbelievably corny sentence that would have ended with "let the Sonshine in" - with no disrespect to The Fifth Dimension, of course.)

Lest I make it sound like there's a halo over my head and bluebirds landing on my shoulders wherever I go, however, I am very aware that I am and always will be a work in progress. One of the many things that God has been talking to me about is holding my tongue, which you'd think would be easy for someone as quiet as me. But I'm a very critical person, and of course the people I love take the brunt of this fault of mine. So, while I was typing this testimony of how God is working in my life and helping me to be more like Him, I was fighting the urge to say something rude and to shove a tissue box at A, who was sniffing constantly and driving me bonkers. And, while I managed to hold my tongue in this case (with God's help, of course), He proceeded to point out that rolling my eyes has got to go, too. ;-)


p.s. May God grant me the ability to one day take a non-blurry, in-focus picture. :-)

27 days to go

We're trying not to turn our heat on until November to save money on oil. But I'm not sure we can make it. This morning, when we woke up, it was 61 degrees in the house. We did okay, but that was pretty chilly.

The chill in the air made for an incredibly beautiful fall day, though. We got to spend a lot of it outside because R's friend held a little reunion party for his Pre-K-II class at a local playground. We were there for hours, the kids had a great time, and then R and I had a really nice, long mommy-son walk back to our house. (A went to R's music school parent meeting.)

Tomorrow is apple-picking with my dad and, of course, cinnamon donuts and cider and mums and Indian corn. Yay!

Here are some random photos from this week ...

R flying through the air after launching himself off a pile of pillows in our living room

My mums! I just love the colors, and the plants got so big this year.

R at the playground today after smushing himself into a much too tiny play car

(I need to play with the settings on my camera so that it stops giving everything a bluish hue.)

The origin of fieryboots

The last couple of weeks have been really busy for me and lots of stuff is swirling around in my head, but most of it I can't really talk about here yet, for various reasons. So, I figured I'd take this time to explain what the heck are "fieryboots."

Years ago, I was really into ska music. And, by "really into," I mean obsessed. Luckily, at that time, there was a big ska scene in the Boston area to feed my obsession. Sometimes, my friends and I would go to see ska bands play three nights a week. We had a lot of fun and that's how I met A.

A key part of enjoying ska is dancing. And, it's a particular style of dancing just for ska called skanking. I think a friend of a friend described it as something like crazed bowling. It involves lots of arm-swinging, shoulder-lowering, knee-bending, jumping, and head-bobbing. You could probably use it as a form of self-defense because there are so many limbs flailing around at high speed that you can cause some bodily damage. (Actually, sometimes we did use it that way to clear out people who were blocking our line of sight of the band - isn't that awful?!?) But it's so much fun and I loved doing it for hours on end.

When you're doing that kind of aerobic activity for three and four hours a night, with only a few breaks for water and adult beverages (always making sure someone saved your place right in front of the stage), you need some good, sturdy shoes on your feet. And, my friends and I generally relied on our Dr. Martens boots. My preference was for my vintage 8-eyes. I wore those boots every day, everywhere. To work, out at night, on dates, with pants, with jeans, with skirts, etc. I still have them today, and I love them immensely. I can't bear to throw them away.


But after a while, the leather wore down and they got pretty sad-looking. Plus, Dr. Martens and other companies were coming out with so many cool new colors and designs. One night, I spotted a pair of these amazing boots that were covered in flames. The flames were made of leather and were wrapped around the toes and the heels of the boots. I really, really wanted those boots - enough that I mentioned them to A the next day (he wasn't with me when I discovered them). But they were way too expensive for me in my recently out-of-college job.

A few weeks later, A and I were going on a date (we were still dating! *sniff*) to see a zydeco band, C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band. When A came to pick me up, he was carrying a box. Inside were my beloved fiery boots!

This picture does not do them justice - I'll have to take one myself

Not only had he tracked down the store and the boots, but he somehow figured out my shoe size without my knowing.

I've taken really good care of my fiery boots. They don't see the light of day too much anymore, though. A and I don't get out to see bands much these days and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to wear them to work like I used to. So I let them live on in my username, which is a constant reminder to me of that fun time in my life and, of course, the thoughtfulness of the man who later became my husband.

So, that's the legend of fieryboots!