Another October Monday Morning

What a lovely fall and beautiful October it has been so far. I did have to wear my winter coat when I went down to get my granddog this morning but that's OK. We really haven't had to have the furnace on too much yet and when we have I welcomed that warm cozy feeling wood heat brings,as the days shorten and the dark evenings descend on us. Burton is in the woods and the winter's wood will soon be brought in. Caleb and Ashlie pulled the carrots yesterday so the garden has been harvested. The leaves continue to fall and cover the lawn and I will not mow again until spring. The leaves cover the wood road and the tall ferns are now brown and bending to the ground. The road is easier to navigate and Burton's daily trips with the tractor are creating more trails to follow. Biscuit, our new addition now happily follows me most days completely enjoying his new found freedom . His gait is quicker and he even gallops which is exactly the right word for his long legs. This morning I will read through my manuscript with the first round of edits complete to make sure every sentence and paragraph are what I want them to be. I hope to finish that today and get back to the book that has been in the forefront of my mind this fall. A few more weeks should finish that one and I will mull over what my next one will be. I have a few more market days before it closes on November 22. I have so enjoyed the weekly interaction with readers, buyers and passerbys. Even if someone walks away with a bookmark I am happy to have made a connection. So today I am reading The Memory Chair out loud to myself as if I were reading it to my class. How wonderful is that? I get to write and I get to read and after the reading there is no playground duty. I do miss the real students though but look forward to my next book that real students will someday hold in their hands.

Days of Being Thankful

We have just finished three days of being thankful. I would like to think that being thankful is something I am everyday. I know some days it is easier to keep a grateful outlook than others but if I take the time to process and reflect I can usually put things in perspective and clearly see how much I have to be thankful for. Being a list maker I sometimes list pros and cons when considering something and often list worries and blessings. Too much time on my hands? Maybe. But often when I see my worries beside my blessings the worries fade and take up less room in my head. Because really as more years on this earth keep teaching me,often the things we worry about the most are things we have no control over. Yesterday,we walked the roadways and paths of Kings Landing. We have been taking our kids on that walk for 28 years. It feels like coming home and just as home goes through changes, Kings Landing has too. I spent eleven summers volunteering there and most of the people I met are no longer working there or have passed away. I predicted that I would see Evelyn still there and was happy to run into her in front of the Morehouse house. It was great to see her. It was somewhat sad to see some of the changes and things deteriorating in buildings, bridges and fences. I hope Kings Landing gets the funding it needs to upgrade the facility. It would be such a shame to let this gem disappear. I certainly understand change. As my kids grew that growth was documented in annual Kings Landing pictures. My fashion and hair styles were also documented. Whenever we are lucky enough to have Meg, Cody and the girls join us for Thanksgiving we will also see our granddaughters in those pictures, as they grow. And I will always be able to find Zac on those roadways, in the houses and barns. When he was twelve he spent a week as a visiting cousin. In his costume which included pants way too short, held up by knitted suspenders and with a straw hat on his head he fit into the scene at the Joslin farm as if he were born in 1878 instead of 1978.So yesterday I took pictures of Chapin, Brianne ,Caleb ,Ashlie and Burton. I got in a picture so that in years to come my outfit and hair can be commented on. Changes will continue and pictures taken in the years to come will document them. We have had another Thanksgiving with so much to remember and treasure and so much to be truly thankful for.

Fog Lifts and Gives Way to Turkeys

Yesterday brought some heavy rain in the morning. The fog lifted in the afternoon bringing beautiful double rainbows which many people photographed yesterday and shared on their facebook pages. This morning the sun shines brightly, the air and the promise of a new week is fresh and inviting. Our troop of turkeys are enjoying a new found freedom now that they are allowed to roam at will through the mostly harvested garden. Their freedom will be short lived, but for today they are in their glory. I love the personalities of turkeys. They are so much more social than chickens and definitely not as nasty as geese. Last week was the 2nd annual Fog Lit Festival. From all reports it was very successful. I attended Words and Wine Thursday night hearing readings from Beatrice MacNeil, Gerard Beirne, Lesley Crewe and Jonathan Roy. Saturday I did a story time at SJFPL with some active and enthusiastic children. I was thankful for the musical offerings of the girls from InterActions. Yesterday I picked Riel up and we spent the morning at the BigTide Brewing Company for Books and Brunch. We enjoyed the good company of other readers and writers at the final Fog Lit event. Clyde Wray and Joan Hovey were the host authors. I enjoyed hearing the readings of Rosi, Annette, Max, Andrea, Rosalyn and Abby as well. Good job and congrats to all the organizers of Fog Lit. I am sure they are breathing a sigh of relief on this sunny ,morning after. So we look ahead to Thanksgiving. I wish our family celebrations could include Meg, Cody and the girls but we will hope for that for next year. Oh so many things to be thankful for! On this day I will, just like the roaming turkeys, concentrate on the blessings and gifts of the day and not let the worry of things to come and things beyond our control cloud this beautiful sunny day.

On to October

As September comes to an end I look ahead to October . First thing, my beautiful granddaughter,Paige has a birthday. I wish I could hop on a plane and be there Saturday morning. On Saturday instead of getting to see my granddaughters I will be reading to other children at the SJFPL during a Story time event for the Fog Lit Festival. There are several other events that I want to attend. Check out the Fog Lit Festival at foglit.com or facebook.com/foglit. Congratulations to Riel Nason for her Saint John Originals Literary Arts award. Louisa, Ashlie and I enjoyed the Gala on Friday night. I was very pleased to have been nominated . (Riel let me hold the award) Saturdays at the market have been great. Book sales are good and I have met some very nice and supportive people. This past Saturday I saw a former student and met her kids. Her daughter told me how much she enjoyed reading my book and shared her love of writing with me. It was so nice to see them. I often get e-mails back from readers. I got a couple of really nice ones last week. One said that she and her daughter really think Ten Thousand Truths should be a movie. Author Lesley Crewe who will be reading at Fog Lit just had her book Relative Happiness made into a movie. Who knows? I am still waiting to begin editing The Memory Chair. Writing continues on the book I am working on now. I am possibly on the last twenty pages. I will miss the characters I have come to know so intimately. I am thinking ahead to the next book though and as with most things, that will come to be when the time is right. So October stretches ahead and this last day of September begins . The drizzle and fog is so much different than the bright, sunny, warm days of the past weekend which were a wonderful goodbye to summer. October will bring the changes we have come to expect, the last of the garden will be harvested ( we ate the last of our delicious corn Sunday night), the winter's wood will start to fill the basement, the furnace will be on more than not , leaves will fall and the temperatures will drop.We will celebrate Paige's birthday from afar, look forward to our Thanksgiving weekend traditions , take our annual girls shopping trip and see what else October brings.

Falling Into Place

I have not written on my blog since September 9th, my blog coach /daughter just reminded me. Being a very busy Executive assistant I'm not sure how she had time to alert me to that fact but with her prompting I tried again. I have been stumped by my blog lately as sometimes when I sign out I can not get back on . There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why sometimes my password gets me right on and other times it doesn't . I have tried a few times lately and not been able to get on and gave up. This time it loaded without even asking me for a password. Oh well, the joys of technology. Just ask the people in charge of New Brunswick's election yesterday. Apparently the electronic system that was going to make everything so much faster did not quite work that way. At this point they are saying that the Liberals won but we shall see. I am not going to talk politics though or dwell on my technical difficulties. Instead I am going to say what a beautiful Fall day this is. The trees are changing color slowly but each day the change becomes more visible and vibrant. The air is certainly cooler and I believe my last lake swim was two days ago. September is moving along. I got grant applications sent away and sent my book week contract. I look forward to the Saint John Originals Gala Friday night. Ashlie will enjoy the evening with me and as they say "it was just an honor to be nominated" no matter the outcome. I am participating in the Fog Lit festival and look forward to several of the events that the hard working committee and my friend Rosalyn Hyslop have organized for the 2nd annual festival. Burton is digging the last of the very poor potato crop. Good thing we are not as dependant on the potato as the Irish were before the Potato famine or we would be immigrating to another country. We had a great corn crop though and have been enjoying corn for over a month. Our new dog Biscuit is settling in very well after being with us for three weeks. He now runs through the fields looking like the horse of a dog he is. For a dog that rarely got outside unless tied on a chain I think he is really enjoying his new home. I am awaiting the start of the edits for The Memory Chair and will share the delightful photograph of my grandmother and her siblings(some of them, there were eventually 19)that was the seed for the story that took shape and will eventually be my fourth book. Now back to my writing and I will try to check in again soon.

Watch Your Step

Yesterday I went back to the woods. If you have been a reader of my blog entries you will understand what that means. I have had this beautiful wood road behind my house for a long time, possibly since we moved here in 1981. Burton has done lots of work to make it a better road but for the most part I have always had access to the winding trail through the woods that I now find so enjoyable. Isn't that the way it often is? The beautiful things right under our noses sometimes go unnoticed or underappreciated. Soon, especially if these early morning temperatures continue to get cooler I will have to give up my lake swims. The wood road will replace the lake to give me my alone time and my daily perspective . Yesterday, I really had to watch my step. It was like wading into the unknown ,navigating through tall ferns and grasses trying to watch for the stumps, roots, uneven ground, wet spots and other hidden obstacles. As with most challenges it will get easier. I will learn what to expect. I will build confidence and know that a path I have done before I can do again. I will see the path change with the seasons and each time it will give me something I least expect. So now, I will get to my day of writing and later find time to take that walk and take whatever it has to offer me on this day.

So With September ,

Sixty six years ago Iva Wetmore married Leverett Bradley on September 4th . A few years later after two boys they had me a tiny ,premature baby that clung to life and beat the odds. Speaking of beating the odds a couple that have been married for sixty six years certainly beats the odds as well. I am so thankful that they are both still well and active. My son Chapin was born 29 years ago on Mom and Dad's anniversary. I love the month of September. I remember the year Chapin was born what a gift it was to be home with my new baby , three year old Meg, and Zac just starting school. Today my granddaughter starts school. I wish I was there but will have to settle on the pictures her mother sends me. This week I got back to my writing and enjoyed every minute of it. I am moving ahead with the book I am working on and don't want to stop at the end of each day. I hope if the writer finds it hard to put it down that the reader will feel the same way. I got introduced to my editor for The Memory Chair and look forward to starting that journey with her towards a finished book. I have to squeeze in pickling, making salsa , other harvesting chores, taking woods road walks again and as many September swims as I can get in. Burton has a birthday this month and I'll invite people( Yes I really will, Meg and Burton) to celebrate with a corn boil, to enjoy the ears of corn that are now ripening in our fourteen rows. What a treat to go out each day and check for the cobs (with the dry silk) that are ready to be picked. Burton believes the best corn is corn just picked and dropped in boiling water for seven minutes. So with September, comes family celebrations, first days of school, long days of writing , corn boils with friends, lots of harvesting and days of beautiful end of summer and into Autumn weather.