Tuesday Tea

Just another dreary autumn afternoon. I'm sipping Earl of Bengal tea - apparently a "new take on Earl Grey" and a new one for me (a definite perk of dog sitting for the neighbors on a fairly regular basis this past month is fairly regular deliveries of tea and local craft beer.) - and thought it was an excellent time for our weekly Of Woods and Words chat. Brew yourself a cuppa and stay for a while, won't you?

Did you have a nice Halloween? Judging by my Facebook feed full of costumes, I think you did. Halloween's a pretty low-key affair around here. The two neighborhood kids (who live a good 15 miles away) are still too little for trick or treating and a mere bag of M&Ms, which were mostly incorporated into a batch of monster cookies, made up the extent of our Halloween candy intake. After taking a couple of pumpkin carving years off after the epicness of the Smokey Bear pumpkin, I decided to go for a Game of Throne, Winterfell inspired pumpkin this year. I think I overestimated my pumpkin carving skills a bit with this undertaking and my next Jack-o-Lantern will probably be a face with a triangle nose that's hastily designed right on the pumpkin with a Sharpie.

Yes, that is a thin layer of snow you see in the foreground. It's a very prophetic pumpkin this year.

Other than devoting an embarrassing amount of time to the above pumpkin, it's been a quiet week. I'm slowly getting a schedule in place for this winter's freelance work and deciding what writing projects to focus on. I love a good routine and set expectations, so the sooner my days fall into a predictable cadence, the better it will be for everyone.

Of course, we're on the doorstep of deer hunting, and next week I'll spend more time away from home than not (large charity event, my weekly Kings and Queens of England class, out of town girls weekend, et. al), so pretending that a set schedule is going to happen any time soon is probably a bit of a laugh. But as Dwija writes over at HouseUnseen, the least I can do is try.

Along with getting all of my work ducks in a row, I'm also embarking on a six week running workout plan. Since doing the half marathon back in May, my running schedule has been full of halfassery - about 30 minutes a couple times a week, when I feel like it. While it's been nice to maintain a certain level of fitness, I'd like actually get to a point where I'm a little faster and my stomach is a little firmer. One thing that really surprised me about the half marathon was how sore my core muscles were during the last three miles. Not sure why I didn't think holding myself upright for nearly three hours while running wouldn't hurt, but obviously, some sit ups are in order.

One thing I've been meaning to show you is the progress made by the little Meyer lemon seed I planted back in late January. At the last update, sometime in April, I think, the teeny tree looked like this:

And now? 

Isn't it glorious? It makes me happy every time I look at it. It really is amazing what a little summer sunshine can do to a lemon tree (and everything, really). We'll see how tree holds up during the winter months. With the end of daylight saving time on Sunday, the great darkness is upon us once again.