Daily 5 - Day 53

Today's Daily 5:

1. The beauty of heavy wet snowflakes falling (but not sticking around just yet) against the red shale paths, and yellow leaves of autumn as I walked in the park today
2. Going back to "my" park for the first time since coming upon the stabbing site a few weeks back, and meeting Jesus there again, feeling safe enough, unafraid enough to walk there
3. going to church tonight - a much needed time with the corporate body of Christ after this crazy day and week
4. affirming conversations with my mom and my roommate
5. watching episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, and the West Wing as I drifted in and out of a much needed nap for a while this afternoon.
   

Untitled (Because I'm Lacking Creativity This Morning)

I'm still pondering the things I was pondering yesterday, though thankfully the weightiness of yesterday seems to have receeded a bit.

The quote for the day on the calendar on my desk yesterday read, "Give me a heart as big as the universe!" (Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini) Which in the space I was in yesterday made me cringe just a little. I think my exact thoughts as I read were something along the lines of, "Shoot, I just prayed that as I read it. I don't want that. Especially not today when I'm finding just the little space around me overwhelming!" I'm vascillating today between wanting to pray for an ever expanding heart, and wanting desperately to avoid that very idea.

It's definitely autumn now. The weather is dry, and chilly.

I lack the ability to heat my body thoroughly on good days, but the last few days have been brutal. As I sit here writing I have two magic bags wrapped around me and a cup of passion tea at the ready. I caved to the changing weather (and the being tired of being an ice cube all day) and wore knee socks this morning too.

The last two hours of work yesterday were brutal, and produced a long list of extremely ridiculous demands on my time for today. Nothing like completing a project for a clueless manager who sucks up well, knowing that you'll have to redo the entire project sometime within the next two weeks because the requirements for it are being modified again. And I have two or three of those little numbers sitting on my desk today. Hooray! (Can you picture my eyes rolling?)

But, with all that on my plate I'd better get at it I guess... See ya later...

Changing Leaves

I've got to tell you that usually the results of the Blogthings quizzes I do are fairly accurate to my personality, and personality style quizzes always amuse me, so I do many of them. Given my current love affair with fall, and the changing season this year, I was definitely looking forward to seeing the results of the "What Part of Fall Are You?" quiz when I came across it.

Well, the results weren't particularly indicative of anything, but they were so blunt and ridiculous that they made me laugh quite hard. See?

You Are Changing Leaves

Pretty, but soon dead.

What Part of Fall Are You?

Blogthings: If Quizzes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Take Quizzes

Monday Morning

So far, I've got to tell you, I'm having a Monday.

Even if today weren't the official first day of autumn, I'd have been convinced that autumn was here when I went outside this morning. What has, for the last several weeks, been simply a thick and heavy dew on my windshield, was frost this morning, requiring scraping so that I could see enouch to safely drive. I've been looking forward to fall, and I'm loving it, but I really could live without the scraping of the windshield for a few more months.

I forgot to bring my journal with me to work this morning, which isn't really a problem, other than that it throws off my usual routine of spending the fifteen or twenty minutes before the work day begins reflecting on the day before, and the night of dreams. I like routine. (It also means that I need to find time tonight to write instead.)

I wore capri pants to work, thinking that I would probably be okay for warmth. I'm still wearing my jacket, sitting cross legged so as to have as much skin covered for warmth as possible, and, when I'm not typing, I'm clutching a mug of tea. I'm absolutely freezing!

And I woke from weird dreams about water and family, and being inadequate and unable. Funny how those feelings come after a day yesterday that assured me of things in the opposite spirit.

So, it's Monday, and I'm diving into the new week. Our bookkeeper is on vacation, which, in the past, would have meant that I basically didn't get a lunch hour for that week, but, thanks to our newest hire, I have the freedom to still have a lunch hour this week, and that, in my mind is worth celebrating.

Flights!

My roommate and I are buzzing with excitement, since tonight we booked flights for a mid-october vacation!

We're looking forward to nearly 10 days away, in Eastern Canada, checking out the fall colors (which she's definitely never experienced, since they don't have fall in New Zealand, and which I've experienced in only the minor shades that we get here in Western Canada), seeing several good friends of mine, and just generally being tourists.

I was just telling her that I'm absolutely delighted that for the first time in two years I will have more than two work days in a row off, and that, also for the first time in two years, the trip I will be taking will have really absolutely nothing to do with some of the things that created so much stress in my life, and made life generally challenging. I don't think I can even explain how refreshing an idea that is - how it reinforces that I really am coming into a new season again.