Ahh, the memories.

Today I got to help Ella carve a pumpkin at preschool. Now, I have four memories of preschool. I remember playing in a sandtable that was kind of like Mr. Rogers'. I remember picking out Christmas presents for our parents. I remember going to my classmate's horse farm (I guess it was a ranch, but I don't really think of MN as having ranches), and seeing the puppies (although I'm sure we were supposed to be looking at horses). One of those puppies later went to work at the nursing home my mom worked at, and ended up living with us. Best dog ever -- Snickers.

And I remember carving a pumpkin. My dad came to help me, which was pretty cool in itself. I remember sitting on the floor, over squares of Pope County Tribune newspaper. And I remember thinking it was really, really cool that we were using my dad's newspaper (as in he made the newspaper, rather than just reading it). After we were done, we cleaned the seeds and baked them at the school. I don't remember if I liked them then, but I love them now.

So today, I dug out pumpkin guts with my little girl. A little girl who, frankly, was not very interested in participating in the carving. Too slimey. Which I remembered from last year, so I brought a smaller pumpkin this year. And I bagged up the seeds, brought them home and roasted them (for the first time). I think I went a little too heavy on the vegetable oil spray, but all in all, they're good. Ella won't even try one, which is not surprising. Luckily, I'm thinking it's the time together that is remembered over the actual pumpkin or seeds. After all, I remember sitting down with Dad to carve it, but I have no idea what it looked like when we were done.

I should have written this yesterday, but...

Have I mentioned I'm a procrastinator? I probably hadn't thought to do that yet. Yesterday we had fall pictures done for Ella & Natalie. Been meaning to do them since late August. I think it went relatively well, but since I waited til the last second it was in the 40s. Brrr. I plan to order almost immediately. Last year I never got pictures ordered. Seriously. Just ask my family, who all enjoy giving me endless flack about it.

Today I went out in search of a pumpkin (at 5 p.m.), because we have to carve them at Ella's school tomorrow morning. Even at the SuperWal there were about six pumpkins left, all looking like the pumpkin version of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. I found a smallish one, decently round, but it has no stem. That was the best I could do at this late date.

I often read my Bible study book in the car on the way there. When I was running the monthly high school newspaper for the 22 high schools in the Iron Range, I'd put most of it together in about two days. Wrote most college papers the night before they were due. Why do you think my blogging is so infrequent? I have no deadline. Til Amy starts asking for posts.

Oh, and I seem to now be a minimum of 5 to 10 minutes late to anything.

In other news, I have lost my voice. I think it might be allergy induced from yesterday's jaunt through the woods.

Crunch, crunch

The leaves are finally crunching again! After a week of rain, gloom and sog, fall is back where it's supposed to be. Fall is my favorite season, and I'm stealing my friend Jersey's blog technique --
5 things I love about Fall
1. The crunch of colorful leaves under my feet (makes me feel like I should be at Fall Retreat again).
2. Honeycrisp apples (have you tried these??? YUM)
3. I can drink hot tea again. I'm mostly into the red teas these days. No caffeine, no bitter taste, but a lot of flavor.
4. Clothing options. I love that I can wear a skirt, jeans, long sleeves, short sleeves, jacket, sweater, flats, heels, socks, no socks... We're past the heat of summer, but not into parka weather yet and there's no ice to slip on.
5. Pumpkins! Pumpkin pie is my favorite of all the pies, with cherry coming in second. I love pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bars, pumpkin candles. I think I would love the pumpkin spice shake at Culvers if I could get myself past the calories (I am by no means a calorie nut, but the small shakes are over 750 calories, which is a little outrageous when you're trying to stay in the 1400-1600 range in a day).

I'd love to hear your favorite fall thing. I mean, you know fall's special -- it's the only season with two names.