Ten Days of Little Celebrations - October 2012

Back in mid-August I posted about finding things to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and getting into the habit of writing it down each day reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are some ‘little celebrations’ I’ve noted this month:

Sleeping late. The night had gotten cold and we didn’t have the heat coming on yet. It was so wonderful to stay under the warm blankets just a little longer than usual.

A rainy day. I like to work when it is raining. There is no temptation to get outdoors and the little bit of noise from the rain on the roof provides the white noise to keep my focus on whatever I am doing. It’s a day to where concentration comes easily.

Pink mushrooms in the grass. Mushrooms seem to come up very quickly after a rain. These were almost hidden in the grass. At first I thought they were scraps of fall leaves. But from the side or underneath ---- they were this wonder color.

Watkins Glen. A beautiful place any time but I enjoyed it in the fall.

Corning Museum of Glass.  I like glass in just about all its forms. Every time I go to this museum I find some other beautiful piece that I’d failed to notice before.

Home again. I always celebrate the first day back home even if I was only gone a relatively short time.

Writing 3,000 words to start a short story. I’ve signed up to participate in the National Novel Writing Month in November. So - I am busily practicing writing something every day and preparing a chapter by chapter outline to be ready to get 50,000 words written in November. Writing a 3,000 word chunk of a short story in a day was one of my practices that was successful! Hurray!

Sweet potato harvest. The weather dictated that it was time. It’s a lot like unwrapping a present although, in this case, you know there will be sweet potatoes. The surprise is how many there might be and how big are they.

Magnificent maple seen on the drive to the grocery store. Sometimes a path we take frequently has something of temporarily extraordinary beauty: in this case - a tree that has a glorious week every year in the fall….and somehow I always notice it.

Bean soup. Humble fare that was exactly what I wanted on a cool fall day.

Watkins Glen in the Fall

Watkins Glen State Park was the first destination of our fall foliage trip last week. The views in the gorge (the slide show below) were full of water exposed layers of rock, colorful leaves, and water flowing over rock ledges. The sounds of falling water were ever present and, when the wind blew, leaves swirled. As usual, some parts of the path were wet (the price one pays for having a path behind a falls!). It’s a path to take slowly and savor the richness of the natural world of Watkins Glen.

In addition to the gorge and broad views of fall foliage - I enjoyed some closer looks at fall plants - and the tile on the outside of the park building.