Back for Fall

Ah, an absence.  When I was a kid, I had diaries that I'd neglect for months at a time. I'd come back and the first thing I would write was some semblance of, "I'm sorry I haven't written for so long!". As though the gold-rimmed pages of my, lockable might I add, diary had noticed my lack of words.  Of course you're real people, if you're out there, that is.  So let me say, in true to myself form, "I'm sorry I haven't written in so long!"

My reasoning for neglecting my diary back then and for neglecting this blog are of course different.  Back then I was probably just doodling somewhere else.  I guess I've been doing that - projects, work, etc. - but mostly, life's been swirling itself around me and holding me captive, but in a good way.  Garret and I got married this summer.  Then we went to Mexico for five days of beautiful honeymoon bliss.  We ate, we drank, we relaxed.  It was a wonderful slice of beachy beauty.  The rest of the summer was also spent traveling - seeing family, continuing to celebrate our newfound status as "married".  We had a great marathon of a summer.  I'll never forget it, but I also won't try to sum it up in words.  It was a whirlwind and I loved it.

September came, which although we were having fun through our travels in August, felt like a bit of a light at the end of a tunnel.  There was a notion that once September came, we could come home and settle back into our "normal" life.  Normal life - which, incidentally over these two years, has now completely come to mean "Our life in our little sleepy town in VT".

September flew by.  Coming off of such a busy summer is like a series of Mondays where you're always pouring another cup of coffee, trying to readjust to mundane.  October's here now, and so are cooler temperatures.  I finally feel settled in.  Garret's in the kitchen cooking up a storm.  It's his night to cook dinner.  I've been cooking a lot, and two nights ago he said he'd make dinner.  Last night he suggested we go out to dinner, which I teased was his way of not having to make dinner.  It was all with good intentions and either way, he's now making one of the more elaborate dinners I've seen cooked in our kitchen.  Pulled pork from scratch with BBQ sauce from scratch, along with homemade coleslaw and homemade sweet potato chorizo soup.  It's a fall schmorgisborg for two.  We'll have leftovers for weeks.

I had a lot of work to get through today, both in my stationery shop on Etsy and in my own writing work.  I decided to work until 8:30 or so - mostly to settle into the idea that I was definitively not going to play a role in the creation of tonight's dinner (a relief in some form).   Somewhere around 6 or 7, when I still had a lot of time to go, I got this buzzy, looking-forward-to-something-autumnal feeling.  It was the same feeling I used to get in high school when my friends and I would have plans to go to a football game that night.  Hot chocolate, lights, cold, brisk air that cools you enough that you can throw on mittens with your brand new perfect-for-fall sweater.  Tonight, though, the buzzy excitement was for this.  Dinner being cooked in our kitchen, me typing away on the computer, and Murgy going crazy over a talking dog toy that she can't seem to get to stop talking no matter how much she barks.  This is the highschool football games of grownup land, I guess.

I think back then I would have rolled my eyes at the notion of staying in on a Friday, though I don't in my present form roll my eyes at the excitement of football games.  They were, indeed, exhilarating. Autumnal. Fun. But so is this.  So go the days, I suppose.

Xoxo,
LSH

Some Pictures of Lately

Here are some pictures of lately in life.

A place I go to write, sometimes.

Garret down by the stream, taken from the new footbridge in town.

Ice cream in town on a Sunday afternoon.

My little family on the deck, on a warm(ish) night in June.

A heifer, taken at the festival following Brattelboro's annual
Strolling of the Heifers

Garret looks through some records in Gloucester, Massachusetts

A "sneak peek" we received from our wedding photographers from our
engagement shoot at Quonquont Farm in Hadley,  MA.
We'll get the rest of the pictures later this week.

A little project we have cooking for the wedding.

A Pool Party with Lasers, Rain, etc.

It's cold again.  I'm wrapped in a blanket and sitting next to a candle as I write, trying hard not to take it personally that it's June and gloom has invited itself back the air.  My house is being hugged by trees that are unsure of what to do with the weight of so much water on their leaves.  I think they'd crawl under my blankets with me if I let them in, but I like the comforting green they're lending to the windows, blocking my view of wet muddy roads and slick rocks.

Tomorrow is the annual Strolling of the Heifers in Brattleboro, VT.  We were out of town and missed it last year, and I've been looking forward to experiencing it.  I don't know what to expect -- a lot of cows, I suppose.  I suspect the sight of cows strolling down Main Street will stump the sogginess of another weekend of rain.

Two weekends ago, Memorial Day Weekend, was also wet.  That weekend we were in Gloucester, Massachusetts.  Soggy isn't the right word for that weekend - it was bone chilling.  The Tuesday prior had been rather lovely, though, so the sunshine and I booked a room for Garret and I at a little motel on the marina.  We had an errand in that area that we had to accomplish for the wedding, so I figured we might as well spend a weekend by the water.  Of course, there was water everywhere... falling from the sky, resting outside our window... everywhere.

The motel we were staying at was apparently had planned a big outdoor concert thing for that Saturday night, but since it was a deluge of cold water, they decided to instead host a DJ at their indoor pool.  We went out to a nice dinner in Gloucester and were on our way back and decided - eh, let's see what this thing is all about.

The air by the pool, unlike the air outside, was warm and cozy - and sweet with the smell of chlorine mixed with a fog machine that the DJ brought along.  There were lights going, and the bar was - to our surprise - two people deep the entire length it.  At that point, the rest of the room was fairly empty.  We each grabbed a beer and sat down in some lounge chairs by the pool.  We sat and chatted, listening to the selections of the DJ, which were pretty 90's-School-Dance centric, as, I suppose, was the audience.

Then something started to happen.  More and more people started trickling into this "pool party", and before we knew it, practically everyone staying at the motel was at this crazy dance party.  And people were having fun.  I guess when you're stuck in a rainy motel, Memorial Day Weekend, and a dance party has found its way to you... you might as well dance.

I just kept having these overwhelming waves of whatever the emotion we express with "Wow" is.  Here I was in this little motel that most of the world doesn't know exists, at this dance party that felt very one-time-only.  And I couldn't have been happier to be experiencing this weird serendipitous hour or two of totally bizarre fun, and I just kept thinking - who knew of all these places that exist, if you go to them? 

The pool dance party, before it was populated.