my bad on the blog, boss ;-)

My eastcoast "editor" emailed and told me to get back to work on the blog! Hard to believe it's almost November when I feel like the last blog was still summer. Since then:

Wine & Harvest Festival.

The 'burg is turned into a mainstreet festival with music, arts, food, drink, dancin' in the streets, events, fresh produce, mouth-watering carmel apples, locals, tourists and this year--beautiful weather. It is one of those 'burg events that makes you appreciate the uniqueness of living in a place so many others come to visit.

I was on my way walking down to the Harvest Festival to bring my daughter, a retro music groupie-vinyl album collector, money to buy an art poster of Mick Jaeger and the Rollings Stones, for whom I have a sentimental weakness. I happened to run into a long-time acquaintance; someone who has always been very kind to me and shared some artistic interests. They recently had renovated their home and invited me over for a tour. Having spent more than a few years married to an architect and the better part of a decade remodelling and designing/building a substantial addition to an old farmhouse, doing much of the work ourselves, I have great appreciation for the creative process that elevates a house into an aesthetic work of art.

I expected to be inspired by the detail, design, color and elements. And I was. I didn't expect to be caught off guard by the serenity, beauty, clean lines, earthy tones of the home and setting that took me back to that same feeling of our old/new farmhouse. I had not realized how much I missed living in a home that housed not only our physical selves but our creative souls as well. It was a brief moment of grief, in a bigger moment of beauty. Of friendship by a person, who in that moment, understood my loss and offered inspiration for what will be again.

Homecoming was next. Not so lucky weatherwise that weekend. The parade flew by at lightening speed to beat the rain. The half-time marching band and color guard, the main event I wanted to see as my son's sweetie was guard captain, was cancelled. But the hometeam kicked ass and won the football game with a blowout.

The dance was the next night. My kids let me chaperone. Well, truth is I didn't ask them. The Vegas-theme decorations transformed the field house into a fun place--who knew a simple run-way platform for the Homecoming court would prove so entertaining for all the rest of the kids. Practically every one of them, girls and guys, gave it a go as if they were on Project Runway! The more things change, the more they stay the same--goofy high schoolers all dressed up but still kids at heart. That's a good thing.


There's another story from Homecoming and that cosmic alignment thing, but that's next blog. (Have to space them out for time and editor's sake).