Rugs Bloom In This Heat

When it is hotter than can be believed outside, I hide. While hiding I: read extra, drink inordinate amounts of seltzer with ice and re-discover all the little projects I wanted to accomplish in our house. I have been painting trim like mad and spackling little dings and holes and nail pokes in all the walls. I established a secure relationship with our drill (I can now drill in and reverse out all screws with straight confidence...no fear). I made and hung tissue flowers from the dining room ceiling and then got all inspired and re-organized the pantry. But sometimes the best projects come on you in a fit of random inspiration....

One very lazy day I began to doodle on a plain green carpet I'd picked up at a local tag sale and the paint and doodling just kept on creeping along. Pretty soon there was a long trailing bloom explosion expanding pinkly from one corner of the plain, faded green. I passed through several stages of terrified and exhilerated while painting...worrying by turns that I was destroying the rug or exulting over having really *made* the rug work. I love it. Sometimes you just have to take leaps and do crazy random things because the spirit moved you, urges can be genius.

Falling Along

The dogwood in our neighbor's yard is turning a misty burgundy. I can see it well out the window to my left when I sit here on the second floor at our computer even though on ground level, standing in the garden, picking tomatoes view of it is entirely blocked by the large viburnum hedge that divides our yards. The dogwoods are changing, the bees are going into a genuine work-halt at nighttimes now, the cucumbers have petered out completely and gone to a new life on the compost pile and the boys and I had our first little hearth fire this morning during our story hour. We are on to the chicken roasting season of the year. Time for baking and interior design and teetering stacks at the library every week.

I have begun a Pinterest page all about Autumn pleasures (so much fun!) and am working to carve out time again for reading. I find it more difficult suddenly with so much school happening. Am also finding that fall means more volume of clothing to wash and put away since everyone's wearing layers, cold weather in the morning and night and then hot by peak of day.....clothes, clothes everywhere. I feel like I spend all day collecting things and tossing them basementward for washing. On the upside, my new attention to life indoors here has meant that I am getting into a housekeeping rhythm for the first time in my life. I am sweeping the kitchen floor, wiping down the counters, swiping out the bathroom sinks and getting a little laundry moving, almost without fail every morning. Not bad for 10 years of housewifery lessons. Finally getting a little somewhere!

And now I'm off to heat up the oven for roasting dinner and take a quick breeze out to the garden to pull old plants and put in a few more fall crops....better late than never.

Poetry Friday: A Mug of Verse

All this snow has created a wild trend for hot drinks in our house (not that we weren't already headed down that road on our own, I'm just saying...) which translates to a lot of hot tea downing and increased hot cocoa consumption in the last few days. 

To top it off, I just finished a fabulous book you should all read on chocolate. Chocolate Unwrapped by Rowan Jacobsen...the long and short of which is...the Meso-Americans were right...chocolate is good for us. I once doubted but, having read an entire, very short book on the subject I'm a believer and will now join A in his nightly dark chocolate tastings. I also encourage you (if you're curious about the book) to check out the review post at The Bonny Glen by the inspiring Melissa Wiley which led me to it in the first place.

And yes, Today is Poetry Friday which means....hot chocolate becomes a poem. Enjoy...and make yourself a mug, you deserve it! :)

Aztec Drink In January

Hot cocoa in my mug
Puffed whipped-cream peak, soft umber in the cup, the glinting handle-arch
Velvet smell of cocoa, comforting whiff of hot milk, acrid scent of glowing burner 

Bubbling whisper in the pan, gurgling cascade pour, chiming ting of whirling spoon
Inviting sweet of sugar, soft round of creamy milk, hint of bitter cacao kick
Toasty heat under the palm, moist twirl of rising steam, warm river down the throat
Hot cocoa in my mug

If you enjoy poetry and want to read more from the other bloggers participating today you can check out the host of Poetry Friday this week, Wild Rose Reader.