Weather has been nicer atimes the past couple of weeks. The hold that Summer has is slipping, Autumn is in the air just a bit, length of days, feel of the Sun, how the plants are getting ready for the change, good old crisp, clean air is coming. Eventually.

But DH has had a problem he gets every so often, not for sure every year, but when he gets it, it is the same as other years, nasty sinus/headache thing that goes on and on for a couple or few weeks, then vanishes completely out of the blue. Right now it’s in the middle of it, and it seems like it won’t ever stop. History says it will though.

So, it’s December, the weather is up and down, and it’s definitely late Autumn in how we are doing. Blah, blah, blah, not enough sunlight, and blah gray weather all day long some days, which makes things so ugly to me. Even on the days when there IS full sun, it just doesn’t seem enough. That’s partially because of the way our house is, the “front” is so dark, even though it’s now connected to the “back” on the main level, but there in the back we don’t have outside access yet, just one window looking out. We are supposed to have a sliding glass door there, we have it, but it’s not installed, still. If it was installed we’d have much more light on the main level finally (since some time ago we removed part of a wall, so with that gone and the double sliding glass door behind, ooh the light that will finally flow to the front. )

As for how it is now though, it’s so easy to feel so blah when the weather is just too warm to have a fire in the fireplace. Especially when DH is out of town, which he is off and on. When he’s home we do go “out” occasionally and THAT gets us more sunlight, driving around just offers that so much more than staying in the house.

We’ve had to go out, even feeling so bad, just to “get stuff” we need to get. Today I was really feeling yucky, and did what I normally don’t do, took 2 Sudafed tablets close together, in about a half hour’s space of time. 2 is the “regular dose” but I only ever take 1, since 2 make me feel so loopy it’s not fun at all. This morning I was so bad off though, with the sinus issues I’ve had it’s like I have tons of stuff (but I’m not “clogged up” in my nose) I have icky stuff I can feel in my sinuses, hard, scratchy, drippy, choky as some of it starts to go down my throat … but mostly it just sits there bothering me. One Sudafed often “does the trick” to rid the nighttime icks in the morning, but today it was worse than usual, and so I was “out of it” all morning, but my sinus cavities did feel so much better, I must admit. We had to get a few things before my DH leaves for a trip, so that got me out of the house in the afternoon, and that helped.

I just so dislike these “colds” and other “viruses” that leave one feeling so icky for days after the other symptoms clear out. I do have allergy troubles year round some too, so couple that with leftover illness, and it sure can be hard to feel like getting up, or staying up all day. But with children, and especially a new baby, one has to get up anyhow. That’s just the way it is.

The weather site I use says it’s 30 degrees with a 28-feels-like temp. It’s not super warm in the house, but going outside and then back inside, the house interior does feel quite warm, for a bit.

I’m not putting the fireplace into full force work yet, just a morning fire today, maybe something later on after sundown, or right around it. The fire isn’t only about warmth, but about living light and spark of spirit. The days are getting darker, it’s a needful thing for us humans to get light from nature, and I do think the old-fashioned fireplace is something we do need in Autumn and Winter climes of less daylight than nightdark.

My sweet Baby Q wasn’t comfortable during the night. He’s exhibiting his first Cold signs. Poor baby. I heard funny sniffling coming from another child’s room too.

I meant to start vit. D stuff (cod liver oil, etc.) with the children earlier, but didn’t. Oops. Less light means less vit. D production in our bodies. I keep the children in from mass sun exposure year round, so with the different light now shining daily, they need a bit more sun exposure than “the norm” and 3 days to have the body convert that to usefulness. Supplements are useful

So the weather outlook for the next 15-days isn’t looking to be as cold as yesterday and today have been. Even so, a nice little fire some mornings will continue to work, for the comfort of spirit and soul they bring to us.

This will be our 11th Winter season in this house. I didn’t grow up in houses that had fireplaces. I lived in PA until I was 13, and I don’t know of anyone then that had a fireplace. Hmmm. I read about them and longed for those days in my books. I’m glad we can have lovely fires in a box, and that my children have this experience.

It always makes for a more hectic last-half-of-November than ever since 1998.

I’m in the mood for Pumpkin Pie, which it doesn’t have to be Turkey Day, November or December to have, but I haven’t made any “out of season” this year, I haven’t done much cooking overall (with a new baby in the house!) At this point I consider it best to wait until Thanksgiving Day to have Pumpkin Pie, but the urge is so strong to have some NOW so I don’t know what I’ll do in the coming days leading up to TD. Why do I consider it best to wait? So I’m not “Pumkined OUT” by TD, which is possible if I give in to my urge now. FWIW. :blush:

The weather has been cooler lately. Finally Summer has broken in NE Georgia. It’s still getting quite warm, into the 70′s, some days, but getting down in the 60′s at the most at night, all the way down way into the 40′s many nights. This makes things seem more Fall-like, and gets me in the mood for Autumn/Winter thicker clothing, crisp new clothes that just wouldn’t work in the Summer, no way. Boots are my love, for instance, and jackets.

I’m still not fitting into my old things to wear, post-pardum 4-months, so I’m going through my things and trying to figure out what I’m going to do about it. I hate buying “fat skirts” and such, when I know they won’t be needed. I’ve gotten away with wearing my summer skirts just not done up, they stay on and the openings don’t show with my Nursing (BF) Blouses usually covering them up fine. That won’t cut it for the cooler times outside, nor inside the house eventually (as Winter sets in.)

I’ve been Dresses/Skirts only for quite a few years, and did cave to wear pants sometimes when I was pregnant (starting in late ’06) and have a couple of pairs of jeans now for the “transition” but I don’t like them, I am supposing I wouldn’t mind some jeans now if they fit me nicely, but none actually do (since I’m still toting baby fat, which is alright since I am BF the baby, of course. It’d just be nice to have something to wear that looked good and fit nice. :rolleyes: Especially for “winter” wear.)

My DD got a toy sewing machine last Nov. for her BD, but since I was newly preggo then and since and also now have a still “little” baby, I hadn’t showed her how to use it yet … but the other day she was bugging me about it and I told her to just get it out and read the booklet about it. So she did that and started pestering me about this and that in the booklet, and I finally just had her get the machine by me and I showed her some stuff … and thus I now also have the ‘sewing’ bug and want to find a place to put my big machine so that i can use it. Lastly I used it way back in 2000/2001 when I had my 3rd baby, to sew for.

I have had the idea to make nice simple things for DD and myself all along, but I just “haven’t” done that. I really want to and now that I am so blah shaped, it’d be nice to have skirts that worked the way I need them to, you know, custom made by one’s self. I’m going to do that, therefore. I have gotten my DD to want to make T-Shirt Dresses since I told her how easy they are to make, and she wants to get a purple T-shirt for that purpose and is nearly wearing me thin talking about it, so I will have to be sure to find her one ASAP – and get to a fabric store as well.

I did get some Hanna Andersson dresses and tights and leggings and socks and clogs, this week, for DD. Every thing like that has “Blossoming Pink” in it. Also got another skirt and blouse that are not “pink” at all. So a custom made T-Shirt dress that has a purple top will have to have NO PINK in the skirt at all, IMO. In any case, the HA stuff is really nice, a good base for getting more things to mix and match with, every day wear. The blouse I got is has a peter pan collar and buttons up the front. It’s white Pima interlock cotton, long sleeves, very fine yet not “too fine” and will go well under the winter jumpers she has (I bought them a couple of years ago, big on purpose to have later, and later is now!)

We got the boys a few new things from Osh Kosh this past week, as well. Jeans and shirts. The baby too, as well as Carters for the baby. All three of the boys have shirts from Osh Kosh that match each other. A is 7 years old and I have determined (since last year) that he actually looks great in Orange, so he has an orange plaid flannel shirt, R is 11 years old, he and Baby Q both are blonde haired with blue eyes and have fair blue-toned skin and look awesome in blue, so they have the same dark blue plaid flannel shirt as each other, in respective sizes, R has 12 and Baby Q has 6m All three have neat Osh Kosh jeans too, so I hope to get a nice Brothers photo with them wearing all that stuff, very soon.

I haven’t uploaded any baby pictures to the web still, as I haven’t yet gotten those announcements sent out :veryshocked: I’m appalled at myself for this. I have finally determined that I like one photo I have from September, right after Baby Q turned 3 months old, which I like enough to duplicate, so I’ll use that one, or maybe take something in the next couple of days that will be good enough, and more recent … and have wallet or some other small-ish size photos printed out at a shop, to include with the announcements. I really, really, really intend to get this done THIS COMING WEEK!!! I hope I can do so.

So with all that pressure, needing to get some sort of warmer clothing figured out for me, get the right clothing ready for the children, and get the announcements mailed, and plan Thanksgiving and V’s 9th Birthday, plus wishing to really start sewing parts of us girl’s wardrobe, and bake for the holidays and get things ready for Christmas, which hopefully will be a Christmas Card that will get mailed this year (for the first time in many) … pressure … it’s heavy, tight, pressing down.

On a good note though, I have a more comfortable bed now: we got a topper for the mattress at Costco this week. It’s a micro filled top with something like 3 inches of memory foam beneath that. It was a pain to open and unfold … the foam was vacuum sealed into a tiny (for it) package. Literally the hardest work I’ve done all week, or in many, many, months. That is on the mattress and I have a waterproof/allergy cover over that (it goes around the whole mattress, zips up to keep all ickies out of the bed) then a thin mattress cover and the sheets. The next thing I want then is a memory foam pillow (with an allergy cover sealing it) as the memory foam is a dream to be on, no pressure points. Lovely to sit up in bed and feed the baby now, just need to get the pillow situation fixed to complete the comfort. Sleeping is nice too, no need to shift around finding a comfy way to be, I mean, just choose what direction to lay in, and if it’s the way you want to be, it’s comfy now.

A second good note: I now have a chair in the “dining room/living area” next to the kitchen. The couch was moved downstairs and I was without a nice place to be with the baby (not liking the “basement” as it is currently) and wanting to be on the main level with the baby mostly anyhow.

So I now have an Ektorp chair and a Bromma foot stool, with white covers. From IKEA, for those not familiar with those product names. Our couch is an Ektorp Corner sofa 2+2. (corner seat with 2 seats on each side, a couch with 5 seat cushions that can hold up to 6 people if you don’t mind sitting right by someone, not bad for visiting, just annoying for basic TV watching, reading, with children, everyone wanting lounging space.)

What is so great about that IKEA Ektorp line? The styling is classically beautiful, in my mind’s eye, and the outside of the couches and chairs are slipcovers entirely, so it’s easy to get a clean couch when needed or wanted. Unzip all the cushions and take the cover off of the frame, into the washer, then drier, then back onto the frame and cushions. It’s work, but worth it. The chair is even easier since it’s just a chair, compared to the corner 2+2 couch. Not only that though, the next best thing is: extra slip covers. The white is cheap, $29 to get an extra set. Other colors start at $79 and go up. The couch, we can get a color we like for $199,a complete new set of slipcovers, making the couch so versatile, brand new-like when wanted. We only have one set of slipcovers for the couch and also the chair right now, but will be getting extra’s sometime sooner than later, I hope. I also want to get an Ektorp Loveseat, which has a really cheap white slipcover set, just $11 … FWIW

To have all this furniture it will be separated in the house we live in now, but I hope to have a house with a very large family room someday …

For now though, I’m more comfy in the main living area again. A place to rest, feed the baby day or night other than in bed, watch TV, read, or even nap … a nice chair that is Mama’s and no one else may sit in it unless I say they may, which is no one.

Baby Q is 2+ months old and getting cuter and cuter, of course. He’s getting longer and fatter — smiles a lot, and laughs. He’s very active — very strong. He holds his head up, just isn’t a pro at it yet, but his daily strength conditioning exercises are working out well for that and his legs and arms. He’s able to push himself here and there while on his back, nearly able to turn over at times, it won’t be too far down the road for that.

We had been traveling a lot, and finally are home for a time. Baseball (MiLB) was our August pastime which took much of our IRL time. We saw games in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina. 3 different leagues — The International League, Florida State League, and The South Atlantic League.  We mostly combined that traveling with hubbies work travel needs.

The MLB season is getting nearer to the end, while the MiLB (minor league teams) regular season is now over and in playoffs — we have thought of trying to see a playoff game in Augusta, but don’t know if we will. We do watch our favorite MLB teams on TV and PC and are happy to see our favorites each (Him – Det. ; Her – NYY) doing well as can be, still “in it” but not “on top” — yet. NYY is the leading AL-Wild Card of late, though The last two games have been fun to see, with Seattle falling apart in the 7th. They are the team to keep down on both sides of the AL-Wild Card game … NYY is on top of them and Det. is right below them. NYY took 2 of 3 this week. Det. took CSW last night in extra innings, which hubby is happy about. They have one more game in the series today — NYY is off today. Det. starts a series with Seattle on Friday. So I am rooting for Det. in that case, but don’t want them getting too rowdy less they try to really take over the AL-Wild Card. Things are possible for Det. to take the AL-Central Division — and for NYY to take the AL-Eastern Division — but it’s not a sure thing, and since NYY is on top of the AL-Wild Card it’s just important to me that they stay on top of that while trying to rise up to the top of the AL-Eastern Division. Of course, hubby wishes for Det. to do that in the AL-Central Division. :shocked: 

Little niceties: Boston lost last night, while NYY and Det. both won. And Joba Chamberlain got his first W in the majors with that NYY win (with the Yanks taking the lead in the bottom of 7th while Joba was the pitcher of record, having pitched a 1-2-3 top of the 7th relief session.)  A-rod got two homeruns in the 7th as well. Yup, they batted around and he led off with a single homerun and then had a 2-RBI homerun near the end of the inning. Fun stuff to watch the MVP of the AL *the Should Be MVP* that is.

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7 years ago today I was about 3 days “overdue” with baby #3 — and had another week to go, though I didn’t know it then. So that means my “baby” — who had that status his whole life, until just recently –  will be 7 years old in a week. He was my 1st homebirth baby, something that was so wonderful. He was a great baby, easy, and turned into a tornado, being very extroverted, while my first two are introverts (which doesn’t mean they aren’t “tornatic” themselves, just not “most of the time” like their little brother is.)

I never imagined back then, 7 years ago, that I’d have a newborn in the house 7 years later. Not that I didn’t think I’d have no more children, I have always thought I’d have more than 3, but letting it happen in God’s timing, it just didn’t happen until much later than earlier.

The years in-between were somewhat hard, with getting pregnant finally after 4 years, then losing that baby very soon after finding out. After that it was harder, not knowing what would happen, and feeling the loss deeply, so the joy of finding myself expecting not long after I turned 40 was so lovely.

So, I have a little baby to take care of while I have a child’s birthday party to plan … it’s been a llloooooooonnnnngggg time since that was the case. I also STILL have to create the baby’s birth announcement :blush:

I didn’t get that annoucement made in the first month, and knew it’d be hard, so I didn’t do it, but also knew I’d be traveling to FL just after the first month of the baby being born, for a wedding, and figured I’d get the annoucement made after that. BUT … we have ended up doing more and more traveling since then, the work/baseball travel … and I’ve not been home long enough to do anything with it, though I could have gotten it some or mostly done if I’d wanted to I bet, but I haven’t wanted to, not having a clue what picture I want to use and how to use the cards I got for the announcements (blank to print/stamp/scrap onto.) I had ideas, but since getting the supplies I needed haven’t liked what I got to make what I thought of … having changed the ideas around and just phooey-ing the whole thing hoping to get “inspired” by something all of the sudden, and waiting and waiting … so today it’s bugging me more than ever, and waiting must end and I HAVE to force spontaneous creativity today. –eewwww.

Summer ends this month. I’ve got to get that announcement done this month. My previous baby turns 7 this month. I’ve got to get stuff done for that really soon. And there is just so much more about this month and the time is flying. :shocked:

At some points time seems to crawl and others to fly fastly by, but this is not what I mean, I mean a general overall trend of quicker passage of years.

Time for me personally is something that has never been static, it’s always been extremely “elastic”. So parts of days can be longer or shorter, eb and flow, in other words. The overall General Sense of time is met by the Calendar that we use, which plots out days, weeks, months in a year. This is separate from my inner being, and is what I mean by time going faster, it’s the calendar that goes faster and faster, not actual “time” per se.

I find it interesting to think about time, we are stuck in it – only to escape it entirely when this life of ours ends. God is the Creator, and in His precense Time is not ours. To him a day is like a thousand years, a thousands years like a day. What does that mean? It may be unfathomable by many people, to me it’s fathomable to a large degree. I can grasp it with the understanding my “elastic time” gives me, as pathetic as it is compared to God’s.

So then, November Ushers In The Holidays. Firstly we have a Stryper concert in a couple of days, November 3rd. Then it’s Thanksgiving Day, the next day is Victoria’s birthday, then the Christmas season begins. This might not seem like a lot to some people. for me it is. I mean, it’s not that there are many things we do in the Christmas season, in fact we do little. For me though as an introvert it’s fun atimes, but gets weary and the blanc of January 1 is welcomed. I’ve written of it before, how it’s like a great empty stark white day. The romaticism of Christmas wiped away with the New Year … I like romatic stuff, to a point. The logicalness of New Years Day draws me to it gladly. I prefer to be outdoors and hiking or walking somewhere, with my camera. We have seldom done that. I am hoping we’ll do it this year though, (the dependence on the TV is gone, we now have TIVO!)

For me the day is a pristine winter outdoorsy day, or at least a re-arrangement of some furniture of a room day. In the South it’s usually a crisp bright sunny day, a blue sky that only Winter can show off. There is rarely any snow on the ground, the ice storms generally come later in the month, so it’s a cool to cold day of brilliance. Not a day to be watching football on TV, in my very humble opinion. It’s a day to use to be and do and create. Start the calendar off with activity that is envigorating. Outdoorsy hiking is just that for me. Put me in a football watching party and I’ll wear out fast.

I will come to this point eventually, and I must think of it in advance: I need to do my January One outdoorsy hiking photographing whether or not my whole family wants to, so I have to plan to do it alone, or with the children. I’m not usually the driver, in fact haven’t driven but once or twice in the last couple of years. Frank takes me everywhere. So I have to prepare myself to be independent in order to have my vision of the day fulfilled. This will take lots of energy to plan, then all can come to aught if I chicken out. In the end, I may have hubbied company though.

Other people like to Shop on New Years Day, or go the movies or out to eat or all of these things. I like outdoors with nature and few people. Hubby likes indoors with TV and remote and snacks. My second for the day is rearranging furniture, but I do that year round, in fact I’m in the middle of re-arranging my kitchen stuff again, I don’t mean the sluggish re-vamping of the kitchen, I mean the literal “moving the movable pieces around — again”.

I moved the TV armoire to the other side of the room the other day (a miserly 10 feet.) I like it there, but inevitably I’ll want to move it back to where it just was once more. It’s hard in this house to have this way about oneself, the builder plan is bad for this personality, believe me, it’s hard to deal with.

Part of the ideas I have for this whole affair is building in as much “furniture” as wall permanent units as we can so that the functionality of the place is locked, and then I can fiddle with the stuff in some other way, keeping the functionality in place.

My prayers for the remainder of the year rest on God, to give us in this household the motivation and energy to complete the kitchen, to build as much of it that we can, and be able to afford the window, door, sink, faucet, and other things that need to be purchased.

Well the weather of late has been very much “autumn” weather. It’s glorious and nice in the afternoon, nearly too warm some days, but nice and cool to cold at night. Our A/C days are over for 2005. It’s natural air we have once again! I like Autmn and Winter.

The next task we have for this season is getting more firewood. We have some left over from last fireplace season, enough for a few days. Traditionally our first fire in the fireplace is nearer to the end of November. It’ll be interesting to note it this year, to see when it’s “the day”. So far the coldest nights into the mid-to-high 30′s haven’t made for needing more than wearing socks or tights and shoes or boots in the early AM, long sleeves or sweater, etc.

It’s within this branch of thinking that I’m re-arranging the furniture, to take possession of better spots to watch TV or read nearer to the fireplace, and to have work spaces in the kitchen nearer to the one window that is there, and also closer to the fireplace, though that won’t have much affect, as the fireplace has no blower on it.

The cool weather has finally arrived. It was unseasonably warm (really hot) just the other week, and the last four or five days has been heavenly. Tonight we have frost advisories out and just to the north in the more mountainous areas there are freeze warnings.

I find that I have come alive now that Autumn is here in truth and spirit. Summer is nice (when in A/C), but it puts me in doldrum mode moreso than not overall, dulled senses. Autumn means I can wear boots and heavier skirts and I LIKE that, for some reason, though I am a very sensitive person to too many layers, itchy seams, bulky seams, ick ugh gooky yuk.

In this vein I like cashmere, thin soft sweaters made of cashmere are so ultra lightweight and oh so very warm.

Silk mixed with cotton or cashmere or wool makes for a nice garment. In the south the cotton mix is alright for some things, but you Northern-Clime folks, don’t do cotton. Due wool and silk.

Pure silk is pure heaven. Silk dresses, skirts, hosiery, underthings, blouses. Ah, so sweet and warming, light and soft and silky. I have a few silk things, not quite what I deem as what I really need though. The few things are better than none though.

Wool can be itchy, so silk underneath and wool overtop are nice mates.

So in summer-time lighter clothing can be worn, barefoot-ness in the house and yard is nice, but I don’t like the overall heat of the days, and the whole thing gets old after awhile. The cold of Autumn and Winter can be drudgery when it comes to putting on the clothes needed to outdoors, and to keep warm in a colder house if you have one (as we do). But it’s aliveness, it’s senses undulled, not dulled at all, so very brimming with life and energy. It’s the intellect sparking. That’s what it is. That’s why I like the colder weather so much, I guess. It IS because I like the cool, I respond well to it, but it’s the underlying how real do I feel, the real me, my mind … Ah yes, the cold is my friend, it aides the real me in appearing.

As long as the conditions are right.

What can dull me during winter … buildings with artificial heat. Like at church. In some stores. In some peoples cars. In some peoples houses.

What happens to me is: my sinuses close up, gooky or dry and I can’t barely breath, all the while that is happening I yawn and start getting sleepier and sleepier and sleepier … it’s my mind, it sinks far away into the depths of the folds of oblivion. lolling tongue feeling.

Give me the freezing air, let me wear the light warm clothing to keep my body warm enough and give me that cool to cold air to breathe… it is full of life, and the heated air feels nearly depleted of oxygen.

Falsely cooled (A/C) buildings seem devoid of air unless the system is moving air all of the time.

What it feels to me like is slow suffocation.

I have no such problem with my house in the winter. In the old days we had a heat pump and it couldn’t keep our house warm … good job it did. It’s a gentler heat and less stuffy even if it does warm up the house, but it’s still better all around for the air to be natural as possible … we don’t use that now, it broke. The fireplace we use, it makes a nice heat that is natural and doesn’t fill up even one room, but takes the edge of cold off nicely. The air is full of breathability. With the heatpump we used the fireplace before, so the heatpump not being used is only the corners of the house that are left without help … and an electric space heater here and there help out when it worse out (like the days of low 30′s or 20′s and no sun for days and day [2 or more]). I like it when it snows or ices over. Everything stops and it gets warmer in the house. I mean, there’s no going anywhere, no one out there moving about, and the house gets warmer from the insulation of the whole region from snow or ice.

We live in Georgia, so it’s not a whole season of snow and ice, but fits and starts of it, then it goes away and mild cold days reign again, till another ice storm comes. We get cold weather in October sometimes, but mostly it awaits November, and we sometimes get some flurries or snow before the end of the year. It’s usually January though, mid or later, when the weather gets seriously icy or snowy. Last year it wasn’t until February. Overall last year was a very mild winter for us.

I’m just thrilled that the weather has changed finally. The trees that still have leaves (some dropped them or part of them in September, curiously) are beginning to really start to show colours changing. Peak colour is usually mid-November. Right on schedule now.

My hens are mostly all molting again. They were laying great just a few weeks ago, then suddenly dropped to only one hen laying, then she quit after a week or so of solo laying. Then about a week ago Hawklady started to lay every other day and a few days in a row as well, with nothing today, but yesterday and the day before, yes. (she’s still in her own little overturned basket area.)

The Leghorns have a flood of white fluff in their pen. The other hens have a sea of mostly black and a little bit of brown fluff all about them (Autralorps and Golden-laced Wyandottes)

I still want to get a pen made for just the Wyandottes and Hawklady, that’d be three of them. It seems nice to segregate them, they tend towards self looking behaviour. Really they do, in my backyard at least.

So it’s colder time and the Leghorns are now sleeping in their laying box, you can tell from all the feather and poop in their every morning. No more eggs being layed, so go for it ladies. Seven of them crammed in that there box.

So then, this weather, it’s bright and fluffy stuff, envigoration-ating. So what nice when it gets cooler, and darker sooner, but some good old-fashion spooky reading … and nothing like hearing it read to you.

This is the audio book I got today: Great Classic Hauntings: Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, Robert Louis Stevenson and a couple more.

They are having a sale there on Audible.com, 50% off of many books, not all, just many. Each on-sale item has an orange pumpkin next to it. The book I got was a lower priced book and exactly what I had in mind to get, a selection of something, including Poe, but not limited to him, though I’m interested in getting more Poe-only audio books in the future.

So the days are less light, well, very light and bright indeed, but less of it time-wise. This next weekend is when the clocks change for us from EDT to EST. Then it’ll be darker earlier in the evening. It has seemed like the last month the light has gone noticeably earlier, so that the time change will make it shockingly earlier. It’s mostly the lack of light we have in the house due to removing our deck French doors this year. It darkened things up intensely. We had a window A/C unit in over the sink and just took that out today, so now we have a smidgen more light in here again. (House back faces South) It’ll be interesting to see how it feels, light-wise, in here after a few more days of a window view there again, before the Fall Backwards-ness of time on Sunday early AM.

I guess it was late last Winter that I was on Stryper’s website wishing for news of a tour nearby, or some material being recorded. There was something, I’m not sure what, a hint or something, maybe. I don’t recall, only that I stopped going there and thought about it at one point to remind myself to check back sooner than later. Well, I didn’t. I forgot. I have even played the albums I have of theirs on my computer many times over this Summer, no thoughts of them beyond that, for some reason.

So needless to say I was SHOCKED when I found the CD ‘Reborn’. It’s a really neat cover. The music is incredible. If you ever loved Stryper before you must love this CD, I think. I know. I feel it myself. I loved them in the 80′s and never stopped loving their music. They are the only “Christian” band I’ve been able to tolerate, and it isn’t toleration at all for me, I really like them, and their simple lyrics that don’t mince words. The music is complex and wonderful.

Their newest then is new. It’s better than ever, truly. One that is really nice is an updated In God We Trust, titled I.G.W.T. this time around. The overall tone of the album is true about this one too: it’s hard, a bit melancholy, moreso glowingly minor and melodic and heavy hard undertone and overtones all at once. Another familiar song, Amazing Grace … done over Stryper “Reborn” style … really good to hear that updated too. The rest is all new material, delicious as chocolate in any way you like it the most.

Frank is away for a couple of days and may be gone longer than scheduled, so after a flurry of “Stryper Talk” I gave him on the phone today, he said I could get a few things I saw and so I was able to order their new album on Vinyl (!) I’ve been buying older vinyl of groups I like, on eBay lately, and this is even better, a brand new just released Stryper albumn, on VINYL! I also ordered a T-shirt and a couple of Stryper buttons.

The other good news is that, if we can get them, Frank agreed to go to their concert in Atlanta in November, actually just one month from today. It’s a small venue and hopefully tickets will be available when he can get there later this week. I saw them long, long ago. I was a young person back then. Now I’m old, of course, they are too

The short sweet version is that I felt very allergic suddenly in the afternoon, worse than I had that morning or the previous days. My left eye felt weird and dry and itchy and I chalked it up to the allergy, my right eye felt similar the week before, but cleared up, wasn’t anything but an allergy. So the point is that yesterday it WAS something other than just an allergy, there was a fleck of something on my eyeball, and tried several things, and it wouldn’t come off. Tamara commented with an idea to try and bless her heart, that’s what helped. Simple old scotch tape did the trick.

But now I realized it’s not that it was just that, it’s more than that. Allergy season has ramped up on me in a big way, and the ragweed map has us in the HIGH zone, just short of totally inundated. I can attest to you that I hadn’t looked up the alllergy map info for a few days. I know that it’s been in the moderate range the last couple of weeks or so, and I’ve been up and down in how I feel allergy-wise. Well yesterday I got really bad and the eye fleck had something to do with it, but once it was out I still felt funny, and funnier all over, and my eyes have been very goopy. I know that my left eye has repercussion to deal with, the underside of my eyelid took a hard scratch hit with that fleck. So I expect irritation of that nature to be healing so it’s not going to feel good at all, beaide that though I have the classic symptoms I get from allergies being pollen related … I can feel it in my chest, itchy dragging feeling there. It’s similar to when you have a cold and first realize that it’s moving into your chest. In my allergies I don’t get a full congestion thing going, it’s only minor and constant and very itchy. My throat gets swollen feeling and eventually raw feeling, and my sinuses clog up inside, or my nose drips, or both, or I get massive mud slides down my throat, or everything all at once. It’s not as bad as it sounds, just sometimes. So today, that’s that. I felt so horrid, and so I went to look at accuweather’s site and they say “air quality is good”. “Pollents counts though are HIGH”. Grass is “moderate” Ragweed is “high”.

When we were new to GA there was a drought going on. Since the drought went away due to rain, rain, rain the other year, I have had a ragweed allergy. I didn’t have massive allergies when I was a child in PA. In FL I had January to March massive allergies due to blooming something, either Mango Trees, or something that bloomed right when they did. Painful times those were. In any case, moving to GA I had the traditional worse in Spring things and the general cruddy reaction to mold, dust, etc. the rest of the year. It wasn’t until the drought released that I had a ragweed-season appearance of allergy symptoms. I took Claratin for my spring allergies the first year it was over-the-counter, it helped some. So I took it again when I had my first taste of ragweed-season that year, and it made me worse. I have realized that Claratin just doesn’t do a lot for me. So I don’t consider it as a useful thing to take.

Benadryl Liquid continues to be my only friend, I take a swig of it if I am overpowered by something only. I take a small swig, I’ll let you know. It’s not a lot, not a full dose. I can’t stand full doses of anti-histamines and decongestants. They hit me hard and leave me high and dry, feeling better, but feeling worse really.

So I took some Benadryl this morning, and I’m awaiting it to take the edge off of the suffering.

My left eye is the one that suffered the fleck issue, and my right eye was fine yesterday, but both eyes seeped more night goo than usual, and both feel like dry gel filled swimming pools, though my left one feels worse.

Allergies like this are just ones that make me feel plugged-out. I can see, but feel like I’m not seeing well, everything is foggy. That’s allergies in full swing.

So we have yet another year of good Ragweed Season coming on, I dont’ have to look at precipitation to know we’ve had enough. :veryshocked:

Check out the above link for links to some great Web Cams for Autumn Foliage views, or just lovely nature views!

I’m linking to it to remind me (moi) to look often.