Time for a Break

After what seemed an endless stretch, fall quarter is finally over. I'm still adjusting to the quarters idea, especially since I am now done with homework and studying until next year. Pretty crazy thought... After each quarter, I clean out my backpack, put school books away, and reorganize my desk. Keeping with that tradition, I figured this entry could be my metaphorical cleaning out the closet, except for my brain. So it may jump a little chaotically from subject to subject (and for the sake of my metaphor, I'll pretend that's a new thing).

Finally we have some fall weather. We spent the bulk of November with upper 60's and sun. A great weather streak for February or March when you're sick of the cold and yuckies. However, when all I can think about is the upcoming holidays, the warm weather becomes a total downer. Yesterday we were graced with a high of 45 and rain, and it's expected to continue through the week!!!! I can now justify pulling out Christmas music and watching specials on Food Network. Which is absolutely fantastic.

Moving on, you know how they say that people take on each other's traits the more time they spend together? I know this typically is reserved for married couples, but I'm convinced the same thing happens with pets. I, like probably everyone else, love the smell of newly cleaned clothes, sheets, etc. I think my cats have picked up on this, as they can't resist jumping into a basket of just washed clothes. Now you may say that maybe they just love laundry baskets of any clothes. I would counter with the fact that they don't do this with dirty clothes, only the clean ones. Azzie has even developed a penchant for rolling maniacally on the sheets after I make the bed. She sits impatiently next to the bed just waiting for the sheets to go on before she indulges. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen, next to watching her punch the mini-vacuum (more on that in a later post).

Since there's still time to enjoy fall before we move into the wonderful craziness that is Christmas, here are a couple of things I've been enjoying lately. Our fall mugs especially made for drinking pumpkin spice coffee, fall scented candles alight, pumpkins everywhere, and of course, a horn of plenty on the kitchen table. The pumpkin on our bookshelf is a tradition held over from last year. Drew happened upon a pie pumpkin in the store that he had to have, so it came home with us. He then refused to get rid of the pumpkin after the holidays, so it sat on the bottom shelf, in the corner, until the next spring. It made it about 9 months before beginning to rot. For 9 months, I begrudged this orange squash sitting in my living room. And this year apparently we're continuing this beloved tradition. But that's what holidays are all about I guess, continuing family traditions, even the bad ones.