october

Welcome to November, aka National Blog Posting Month, or for the more ambitious, National Novel Writing Month!

Okay, now that the welcome is out of the way, I'd like to look back on October.

What would have been a month of mainly me, on my own, beginning a new programme, securing lodging and child-schooling, ended up being very different. It ended up being a month of semi-hibernation, of sorts, and quiet adventures. I wrote about some yesterday (it doesn't take much to constitute an adventure for La Famiglia B).

Very early in the month, we had a chance encounter with a friend I haven't recently seen and who I haven't heard much from lately (yes, just what everyone else is thinking about me, I know and I apologize). Because of that encounter -- and my own hiding out -- I've been doing a lot of thinking about friendship, but I'll save that rambling for later. Let me just suffice it to say that I have amazing friends. Truly amazing. I thank you all for your patience with me while I attempt to figure things out for myself.

A bit later in the month, we took a short family trip to our western neighbor. The first part of the trip was business-related, but, after that, we made it over to Monterey. We usually go to the aquarium (of course), but we passed on it this time. We had a great (and much-less-expensive) time, nonetheless. (I still am hoping that we will be able to go to the aquarium next time though.)



Recently, we've gone to visit our capital, taking in the Halloween sights as we do every year, playing at a pumpkin patch we happened upon last year and returned to this year.



We also took that Virginia City trip, but I apparently took zero pictures, although I wore the camera so attractively attached to my hip the whole time.

Pic and I made her costume, following a great many of the instructions, ignoring others. We went trick-or-treating for the second year in a row with Coach J and her family. I can't describe how happy I am to see Pic and Destructor together. I love watching Pic grow, but it's been such a treat to also watch Destructor grow and to watch their friendship grow. I feel lucky to have the Coach J family in our lives.



There has been so much more, of course. We've caught up a bit with my godparents. We've made a new family friend who we immediately loved. There has been reading, learning, walking, growing. I've been trying to learn who I am and shape myself into who I want to be. I've been so lucky to be able to watch Pic grow into herself more and more each day.

There have definitely been some rocky times, but overall, I've been soaking up this autumn. It is, after all, my favorite season and I certainly don't want to waste it.