Breadsticks

9

I finally got to talk to R last night.

Pffft. Listen to me, "finally." When he deployed in 2003, it took two months to get my first letter and I thought that was awesome! Of course, we weren't married then, so perhaps my perspective was somewhat different. The other thing that skews my perspective this time is living in Europe. "Down range" is no longer halfway across the world, and in fact is only ahead by a single time zone. It feels closer and quite frankly I don't know if that makes it easier or harder. On the one hand, logistically he could be back home in a couple of hours, but in practice he's as unreachable as the moon.

Took Heidi on a long, meandering walk this morning. Bright fall colors have begun to darken to that charcoal gray grunge look, but this tree is hanging onto its red. These spots reminded me of something utterly alien to northern Europe - as though a bit of Africa had set up shop beside the river. I spent several minutes observing it from different angles, and this shot is my favorite. Very straight forward and direct, which is an acurate reflection of how I'm feeling today.

Family Time

All three of us on the floor today, and Heidi expresses her approval.

Flirty Witch.

Rather at the last minute, Ro decided she wanted to "dress up" to work the school function she was earning extra curricular hours at this evening. So we recycled a costume shirt and hat (for the third time - at least) and in the end she was glad to get in the spirit, as after her shift was over she got her boogie on with her friends and had a great time. This is the only picture I took today, and that's just fine with me.

The scene of the crime

I was really mad today. Like, scrunch my face up and growl menacingly until the dog runs and hides under the bed mad. Unfortunately, my dog doesn't take me at all seriously so it's more like grumble intermittently and pout until I can't stand my own company mad. Is that the next "stage" in this whole, adjusting to the new normal crap? Because it sucks. And it's pissing me off. I'd like to go back to feeling normal now, thankyouverymuch.

I did a lot of cleaning today but I was still mad. So I decided to channel that energy into murdering a plate of brownies. Pretty gruesome, innit? Wait 'til you see me on the scale tomorrow - now that will be ugly.

Day Five

Ugh! Only five days in and I already dropped a day! I really let yesterday get away from me. Started out strong and goal-oriented, but didn't take care of myself and burnt out by noon. I have a little stretch routine I try to do first thing upon waking up - usually right there in the bed, but now that R is gone, I've moved the furniture to have floor space in the living room. Yesterday, not only did I skip the stretching, I pretty much forgot to hydrate after my bagel and two cups of coffee. Yeah. No wonder I crashed at noon and woke up three hours later with a massive headache. The lesson here is not to be so focused on my to do list that I forget the everyday stuff!

Speaking of everyday stuff, I took Heidi out to our favorite walking route this morning and was rewarded with a 20 minute break in the cloud cover, allowing the low, streaking autumn sunrise through. Really magnificent.

Triptych feather

The only thing I can think about when I look at this picture is the old joke:

Erotic is using the feather,

Kinky is using the whole bird.

I guess leaves aren't the only thing that fall in autumn. A flock of pigeons were picking over a recently harvested corn field this morning. Heidi chased them off and dozens of these feathers were left behind.