Lately I've been...

**Schlepping children to multiple fall festivals, with and without costumes.

**Collecting as much cat hair as possible on everything I wear.

**Switching out the short sleeve t-shirts for the long sleeve t-shirts--hey, nothing like a diverse wardrobe! Now that our daytime highs are only in the lower 70's (and the humidity is down---hooray!!), it's time to pull out the winter clothes . I finally caught on the to fact that, around here, winter clothes are best limited to cotton sweaters and thin long-sleeved shirts. This is, after all, South Carolina, where the heat gets blasted indoors if the temps outdoors fall below60 degrees. You know what they say about cooking a frog by turning up the heat gradually? Well, I so get that now.

**Reading about our own personal star of the month, Loretta Young: beautiful, inspiration, role model. Seems she probably spent more time helping others (hospice, etc) and pointing them toward God, than she spent in front of movie or television cameras. Very cool. ALSO...did you know Ricardo Montalban was her brother-in-law? And Van Johnson once made a guest appearance on "Fantasy Island" (starring Montalban, of course)? And I was once in "Showboat" with Van Johnson? Him: Big-name star attraction, complete with trademark red socks and incredibly boyish grin. Me: Nobody stage crew with walk-on part. We play this little game around here. Kevin Bacon notwithstanding, I can connect to just about any movie star from the Golden Age of Hollywood via~~~~~VAN JOHNSON!!

**Enjoying our first-of-the-year wood fire. No, it's not really That Cold, but it was cooler and quite lovely to crank up the fireplace again.

**Trying not to spaz (does use of that word date me like I think it does??) that Thanksgiving is so close and Christmas is hot on its heels. I have a mere 3.8 things from the Top Secret Christmas Knitting list completed. Not enough to relax yet. Has this stopped me from working on the Shawl to End All Shawls or reading knitting books for more project ideas? Hardly. But it would be so nice to have that yummy bit of alpaca-osity ready when we have our 3 days of winter. And I'll need something to knit once the Christmas projects are done. And I have no self-control sometimes. At least I can admit it.

**Trying to think nice thoughts about whoever came up with Daylight Savings Time. Grrr.....