So It's Been Since Spring...

Yeah, since Spring. I've been swamped with classes - hey, I am in nursing school, after all. But I have just a little over a month to go (yay!), with my pinning ceremony being scheduled for Halloween, of all days. My favorite holiday and I'll have to spend most of the day doing rehearsal and the actual ceremony, instead of cooking and doing last minute costume edits, as usual. I am *not* complaining, however; just making observations.

Autumn is just about here, the equinox being on September 23 this year, at 09:04 to be exact. We've been so blessed here South Carolina with unusually cool weather in the last week. Well, I say unusual but what I really mean is unusually cool for the last 10 years since global warming has been worsening. By cool I mean with highs in the 70s and low 80s (even one day with a high in the mid-60s!); yes, folks, this is now considered cool weather for SC in September. All the folks up in Maine and Vermont would be sweating, wearing tank tops & shorts, and going swimming in lakes & oceans; but if it's in the 70s, many women are wearing light cotton sweaters here. I was wearing a sweatshirt the other morning when the low was 58 degrees (F). Egad, I was shivering! But I certainly was not sorry to shiver; this summer was so brutally hot and dry for our lovely upstate Piedmont (that's the foothills of the Blue Ridge & Appalachians for y'all geographically-challenged peeps) that I am more than welcoming the cool weather.

It's funny, but when I was a kid, I loved summer. I looked forward to it all year. Now that I'm in my late 30s, I find myself dreading it and begging for autumn and winter. It may be time to move a bit further north. Like Nova Scotia or something. I don't like the heat like I used to do. I blame it on hormones. Though I suspect the extra 15 lbs I'm now hauling around don't help, either. I need less insulation, in other words. And I need to eat better - more fresh veggies!

Speaking of veggies... Our garden totally pooped out this year. We had a pretty good harvest of tomatoes, cukes, squash, eggplant, and chiles going until we went on vacation for a week; our backup plan didn't work out like we'd hoped. So kerrrrrr-pluuuuunk went the garden. I really didn't relish the thought of canning this year because I've been so wrapped up in finishing up my ADN, so in a way I'm glad that it did go kerphlooey, but I really miss having lots of fresh tomatoes to make salsa and spaghetti sauce on the fly. Actually, I miss cooking the from-scratch meals that I used to whip up. Most of our meals have been very simple comfort foods, like spaghetti, meatloaf, etc. (Oh - and that's another thing - no I have not kept to my New Year's resolutions. Screw it. Too stressed to bother.) But Bob is starting spinach, Swiss chard, onions, garlic, and other various fall planting so hopefully soon I'll be back to eating yummies.

Things I am looking forward to when I am done with school: cooking more, reading (other than medical textbooks), running, yoga classes, dance classes (can't wait!) ,shopping, having money to do said shopping (mostly to buy books), having money to do anything fun at all, traveling (gee, our big trip this year was to coastal NC - can't wait for a real vacation like we used to do, i.e., Mexico, South America, et al.), and other assorted hobbies that I once had or wanted to develop and haven't had the time and/or money for the past 2 years. (Ahem, well Bob has had the money but I haven't. If that tells you anything. Let's just say that I'll remember this when he's retired, which will likely be in the next 5 years.) Oh yeah, and most of all, the things I am looking forward to: A LIFE.