I spent many years waking up with little kids. None of my kids have been great sleepers (though some have been better than others) and so I really do not take sleep for granted. Now that I have more control over it, I’m doing my best to go to bed at a bedtime and create conditions that are good for sleep. So I was really excited this morning when I popped awake at about 6:40 a.m. — five minutes before my alarm clock. I felt…awake. This probably means I have been getting the amount of sleep I need. It’s especially cool to have this happen on Friday, as I know from looking at time logs that many people go into the weekend with a sleep debt. So, yay, no sleep debt. I know that over the next few years things may get rougher hormonally with sleep so I am definitely enjoying this good sleep while I get it!
Yesterday was Day #2 of my Pennsylvania leaf tourism. My friend Joy and I went to Longwood Gardens to see the leaves and flowers and to have lunch at 1906 (the restaurant there). I was a little disappointed that the flower beds had been cleared for the crews to plant the bulbs for spring, so there weren’t really many flowers left outside (well, there were roses and asters but not the long planted rows of fall flowers). However, they did have the their chrysanthemum festival going, so the greenhouse was lovely, and it was a gorgeous day for walking outside to see the bonsai trees and changing leaves. Kennett Square is known for mushrooms, and so as an appetizer I had the mushroom pate, with little toasts shaped like mushrooms. Cute!
This is my last blogging day in October — it’s been a good month. I was thinking back to the beginning of the month, and it seems like a very long time ago. That’s often the sign of a full calendar, but most of it has been good.
The month’s highlights began with celebrating my 15-year-old daughter’s birthday. I took several of her friends to Topgolf, and they spent the night after. The next day she got family presents, including a guitar, which she has been diligently practicing. She asked to take lessons so I set those up. It’s been fun to watch her develop as a musician. She’s had a total rock star start to her freshman year academically and I am very proud of her!
That first weekend I also went to an Eagles game (with my husband and 17-year-old). This has been a disappointing season in many ways but it is always a fall highlight to go see a game at the stadium.
That first week my husband and I took an afternoon to go see the 17-year-old run a 5k with his cross country team. He got a PR in that race, which was pretty exciting. I wind up picking him up from practice most days at school, so that’s kind of been the rhythm of October — ending my workdays with that. Next year he’ll (I hope) be driving to/from school so that won’t be part of my days — so I’ve been viewing this in the light of enjoying the chance to have some conversations together.
The weekend of October 9-11 I went to Nashville to see my college kid. We had some good meals and I enjoyed catching up with him and seeing where he lived. I also ate an amazing chicken biscuit with my friend Mary Laura Philpott, and I ran in Centennial Park.
This month has featured a lot of kids’ sports too. Baseball and flag football kept getting rained out in late September/early October, but by mid-October everything was back in gear. I’ve watched the 11-year-old and 6-year-old play baseball and work on figuring out this sport — both are new at it this year, so I’ve been grateful that the community little league is welcoming of older kids who are new at a sport. My 11-year-old has worked hard to learn the skills and has made some good plays as the season has progressed.
I got a new car! That was exciting — that had been in process for a while, and I got off the wait list in mid-October but it’s been fun driving that around. After driving the same car for 15 years it’s definitely a change.
On October 17 I sang the Chichester Psalms with my downtown choir. This was a really cool concert that also featured spirituals, Southern Harmony type pieces, hymns, etc. I’ve also been learning Eleanor Daley’s Requiem for my church choir — we’ll be performing that on Nov 1, but much of the learning has happened in October. There are some very cool sonorities in that piece and I’m looking forward to singing it (we have one more rehearsal tomorrow AM).
Last weekend the dinner out with only the 15-year-old was a little treat, plus the Costco trip. I enjoyed hearing the 6-year-old perform in his Halloween piano recital. And then this week I’ve really been loving the fall colors. I went hiking at the Hawk Mountain preserve on Wednesday, and then to Longwood Thursday. Even just driving around is pretty amazing right now — fall makes a suburban parking lot into something sublime.
Professionally I’ve been enjoying working on Golden Hours — I’ve been getting my results from the September Reset Time Tracking Challenge, which focused on evenings. I had a delightful Sunday afternoon at the Barnes & Noble coffee shop going through all my results and highlighting quotes and stats, and then I’ve been putting those into my chapters that I’m turning into my editor. The manuscript is at the fun stage where I do think it’s getting better, which makes editing a lot of fun.
Anyway, all has not been perfect this month for sure. As usual, with older kids you can’t blog about everything. There are work frustrations too. But in general, it’s been a good month and I do want to pause and appreciate that. And then it’s onward to November, which I think is an underrated month. Here we start with peak fall color. Then the month ends with the coziness of the holidays but nothing is in frantic mode yet. This year in particular I’m excited because my nephew will be born in November! It’s been a while since our family got a new niece or nephew!
Now, if you made it through all that… content! Over at Before Breakfast this week, I interviewed Kim Purcell about “How to write your story.” Purcell, a novelist, has a new book out that truly breaks down how to create fiction, with the promise of finishing your novel in 100 days. As a multi-time NaNoWriMo participant, I am a big fan of this idea!
In the short episodes, I talk about how “Time confetti can be Funfetti.” I truly do believe that bits of time can be used for bits of joy. All time matters. All time counts.
Over at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter, I suggest that people “Review the week that was.” Looking back at the previous week on Monday (or Sunday) can give you ideas of what you’d like to keep or change. I also write that “Little extravagances look big.” As a quick summary — giving out full-sized candy bars is a pretty cheap way to make your neighbors think you’re loaded or incredibly generous. Nobody comes to my house on Halloween (we are up a hill, and back a ways, on a dead end road…) but if they did, I think this would be fun to do.
Behind the paywall I wrote about “17 organizing projects that take 15 minutes or less.” Please consider a free or paid subscription!
And if you enjoy my writing, please pick up a copy of Big Time, my newest book. I really enjoyed writing it and I hope you’ll love reading it.
Curious what your plan is for vehicles for your soon-to-be drivers in the family. I am thinking my daughter will inherit my car and maybe will get an electric car for me to roll back and forth to work in, but I’d imagine the calculation might differ when you have more kids around that age. Can’t remember what you did for Jasper, or whether he brought a car to college this year. I have no idea of whether such a thing would make sense in Nashville. Thoughts?