Nose tracks. My front windows are covered with nose tracks – dog-height smudges and smears made up of dried slobber and snot. At this moment, two of our dogs are busy creating more. They’re seated in front of my office window, gazing out at the street.

The dogs are waiting for something – anything – to appear in their line of vision, because they believe that if they can see it, it must be invading their territory. Since they can see the neighbors’ yards and the cul-de-sac where cars turn around, this leads to a lot of pointless commotion. And excited smudging of the window glass.

I really need to clean those windows, but the only time it occurs to me, I’m always in the middle of something else – like writing this post. Okay, I COULD get up right now and retrieve the Windex and a paper towel, but you and I both know THAT’s not going to happen.

Oh! So, Hey! How have you been?

Here I am, making an appearance after my self-imposed exile from this blog. Postwise, I skipped right from Halloween to the new year. You might be asking, why did I exile myself? Well, for a while last year, I questioned whether this blog served any purpose. If it was worth spending the time on. I felt that I needed to evaluate what I was writing and why. To figure out whether there was a better use of my time and energy. So around Thanksgiving, I decided to step back. I wanted to take a break from writing here and see if I missed it – if my thoughts still needed a place to land. If my unique perspective on my life needed to be shared.

You know what I learned? Not much. If I’m honest, I’ll admit that I didn’t even miss writing here very much. It took me until about now to even WANT to blog. And I’m still not sure WHY I’m supposed to write about the funny stuff that happens around here. I think I struggle with assigning value to something that’s usually just pure entertainment. (At least I hope it’s entertaining.) How does humor fulfill my purpose? How does art fulfill the Great Commission?

I really don’t know. A friend who’s an artist said that he believed that I should let the fingers write what they want to write. Just put it out there.

So here I am. I’m back. I can’t promise to post daily or anything, but I’m back at my post, like my dogs at the front window. Hopefully not just creating a pointless commotion. Then again, if I am, at least I’ll have fun smudging the glass.

I know Halloween is now far in the past, what with all the Christmas displays up in malls and stores. But for me it feels like just yesterday. That’s probably because I spent November 1-5 in Seattle, WA, for a John Maxwell conference called Exchange. Highlights of that include touring the Boeing plant, visiting Microsoft, and touching a fish during a presentation by the guys from Pike Place Fish Market. Oh, and we ate really well. The one disappointment occurred when a group of us walked from our hotel to the Space Needle, only to arrive and find that it had closed just five minutes before we got there. I can now say I’ve “been” to the Space Needle – and attest that the gift shop was quite scenic.

Anyway, back to Halloween. This was the first year that we didn’t get together with our good friends Barry and Casey. In the past, we always trick-or-treated together in their neighborhood. This year, we had this (ultimately misguided) notion of visiting the houses in our VERY OWN NEIGHBORHOOD. (This is the first time we’ve lived in a neighborhood for a decade.)

We planned for Hannah to trick-or-treat with her friend C, and for me and Abby to visit our subdivision and then drive to another to get more loot. Charlie and LC would stay home to hand out (and munch on) candy.

Both girls wanted to be zombies, so their costumes were just ripped up dirty clothes. Easy enough. And then Charlie did their zombie makeup. He says that at one time a long time ago, he thought of becoming a special-effects makeup artist:

The girls were impressed and happy with their icky scars and pale complexions. They demonstrated their satisfaction by trying to eat their Daddy’s brains:

Unfortunately, trick-or-treating didn’t go quite as well. At dusk, Abby and I ventured out the front door to our neighbors’ houses. One problem: Not a single porch light in the whole subdivision was on. And everyone appeared to be completely gone. Gah. It was a ghost town. Not a single trick-or-treater in sight either. Which meant that the FOUR BIG BAGS of candy I’d bought were being steadily consumed by the two Charlies.

By now Abby was moping and wishing that she had just trick-or-treated with her friend Matt like last year. Fortunately, I’d made a call earlier to a classmate to see if we could visit her neighborhood, and she called me back just before we gave up in ours.

The evening began to look better when we discovered that Abby’s friend K lives in a townhome community. Where there are lots of kids. And everyone expects trick-or-treaters. WIN. We came home with a sackful of loot.

Poor Hannah didn’t fare as well. They got started late and only gathered a handful of candy before it was time for her to come home.

(It was weird to say, “Be home by 9:30.” I hadn’t expected the Curfew Phase to come so early with her. She’s only 12!)

Luckily, the two Charlies hadn’t had enough time to plow through all FOUR bags, so Hannah was able to raid our stash. All went well. And we were actually able to remove the girls’ makeup before bed.

I was all, “So how DO you remove theatre makeup anyway?” Charlie answered, “The usual way. With cold cream.” “COLD CREAM?? Who has COLD CREAM anymore?!” That’s what I thought. What I said was, “I hope that the makeup remover wipes work.” (They did.)

What’s the moral of the story? When you buy four bags of candy, and add in what your kids gather on Halloween night, it’s a very good idea to have a five-day trip planned the next day, so that all that’s left when you get home is a handful of Skittles and Dum-Dum lollipops.

Waving in the wind
In layers of color, leaves
Shift and fall to earth

Today is a rather blustery day. The wind, cold from the north, swept in on the heels of yesterday’s rain. I turned on the heater for the first time this morning. The kids all willingly wore their jackets to school. I think it’s finally time to say that fall is here.

I’m enjoying the changing view outside the windows of this new house. When we moved in June, the view from our back windows was like that of a treehouse. The leaves on the trees between us and the lake were so thick during summer that we were able to see only a sliver of lake near the shoreline. Now, every day the leaves drop a little more, and the blue of the water seeps through a curtain of red and gold.

This time of year holds so many memories for me. For one thing, in 1997 and 1999, at this point in October I was tremendously, uncomfortably pregnant. When I went into the hospital LC on the 25^th and then Hannah on the 26^th, the leaves on the trees were in the early stages of changing – like now. When I exited a few days later, it seemed that they had undergone a huge shift and were ablaze with color.

So now, every year since then, the change in the leaves has meant birthdays were coming. And with Abby’s birthday in November, late October launches a busy season that doesn’t let up until New Year’s Day. Oddly, as lazy as I am, I love the busyness. Planning birthday parties and trick-or-treating, and looking ahead to Thanksgiving and Christmas, I feel swept along on a wave of celebration.

And today? Today holds ordinary tasks, like laundry and blog post editing. Nothing celebratory. But the colors and temperature give a hint of the party to come, and I find myself excited about the weeks to come.

So over the weekend, I made another recipe for pumpkin bread, and it was also delicious and cake-like. Unfortunately, it also totally fell in the oven. I haven’t baked something that could fall in, like, EVER. So it was a surprise. Let’s just say that it was a little DENSER than it was probably supposed to be.

And here’s something I discovered yesterday: Apparently, I’m very predictable at this time of year. Last week, I wrote about pumpkin. Last November, I also wrote a post on the wonderfulness of pumpkin. Take a look: Pontificating on the power of pumpkin.

Did you notice that in the year-old post …

a)    I described my love for all things pumpkin,

b)   I referenced my need to get used to pumpkin spice lattes every year, and

c)    I shared a recipe?

Pay extra close attention to the submitter of the recipe. Yes. It’s Delora Lucas. Again. What this means is that I posted the same recipe two different times, almost a year apart. Unintentionally. I could’ve saved a lot of time if I’d just read my archives.

What other evidence is needed to prove my forgetfulness? Next year, I really need someone to call me in September and remind me about my favorite vegetable and recipe. Otherwise, I predict a repeat of this year. And last year.

You know how on Sunday, I spent a lot of time philosophizing and navel-gazing? Well, that’s not all I did. I also spent some time baking. I was in the mood to make something with pumpkin, so I went in search of a pumpkin bread recipe.

I have this odd habit of never using the same recipe twice. I know I’ve made some good pumpkin bread in the past, but I have no idea where any past recipes are. So essentially, the reason I never repeat recipes is because I lose them. I’m truly a domestic goddess.

Anyway, I looked for a new recipe, using my handy-dandy AllRecipes.com app on my iPhone. After viewing a couple highly-rated versions, I landed on this one by Delora Lucas:

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients

• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 (16oz) can of solid pack pumpkin
• 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• ½ cup water

Instructions

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine sugar, oil and eggs. Add pumpkin and mix well. Combine dry ingredients. Add to the pumpkin mixture alternately with water. Pour into two greased 9”x5”x3” loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-65 minutes or until bread tests done. Cool in pans 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Cool completely.

If I were a clever food blogger, I would’ve taken mouth-watering photos of all the different steps of making this bread. However, I am not a food blogger. And it never even occurred to me. So no photos from me.

But I can still tell you what worked and what didn’t with the recipe.

First, I edited what was written because you can take the editrix out of editing, but you can’t take editing out of the editrix. However, the only thing I added was preheating instructions, since I personally need those at the front end of the recipe or I forget to do it.

Second, when it says to cool 10 minutes in the pans, 3 minutes won’t do the job. The bread fell apart a little when I took it out too soon. (I then devoured the crumbly bits with a spoon, so I wouldn’t call it a total loss.)

Third, I hereby pronounce this pumpkin CAKE, rather than bread. This stuff was so sweet and gooey and rich that it went better with whipped cream than with butter. Not that I’m complaining.

I saved the recipe to my favorites in the app, so IN THEORY I should be able to find it again. Next year, when I’m in the mood to bake pumpkin bread again, can one of you remind me of where to find it? Kthxbai.

Abby, creating edible art for Halloween

They tasted as good as they looked!

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m enjoying my usual spot on the couch, next to my football-watching husband. With the noise of the game in the background, I read the paper, visit Pinterest, Tweet, and write. It’s relaxing, in a strange, noisy way.

Today, for most of the 1:00 game, I wrote in fits and starts. I had a lot of words in a document, but I wasn’t saying much of anything. After grinding to a halt on yet another topic, I started thinking about writing naked. No, not physically naked. Instead, it’s stripping your soul bare as you write. Hemingway is said to have referred to this kind of writing as opening up a vein and bleeding on the page.

As I thought about the concept, I realized that I hadn’t written naked in awhile. Why is that? Well, for one thing, it’s hard to write naked and funny. …I mean, unless you write about being naked in inconvenient situations… No, that’s not it. What I really mean is, I tend to equate authenticity with seriousness. And when I put a burden on myself to always be funny, then I think – wrongly – that I have to be superficial.

I’ve also been busier than before. I spend a lot of time writing on other people’s agenda, which leaves me with less creative time and energy for my own writing. I’m not complaining; I love what I’m doing. But I can’t deny that I often just don’t feel like blogging.

So how do I solve this problem? First, I think I need to give myself permission to be serious more often. I know it kind of bugs me when a really silly blogger suddenly gets philosophical, so I won’t be surprised or hurt if my readership changes.

Second, I need to make time to just write. Today’s fits and starts served a purpose: they led me to my conclusion about authenticity in writing. All those words that went nowhere weren’t wasted; they made me drill down and figure out what I was really feeling.

There you have it. I also get annoyed when a writer writes a lot about writing. It can feel a bit too navel-gazey for my taste. But I’m going to try to take some of the filters off, even if that means spending a lot of time looking inward. Hopefully, it’ll also dredge up some silliness. Like lint in the philosophical belly button of life…

What about you? If you write, do you have a hard time being “naked”? Do you have a strategy for combating it?

I’m eating M&Ms. Dark chocolate. I don’t know why, but somehow telling you what’s going on this instant helps me get in a writing groove. So let’s see, what else is happening? I’m getting a cold sore-like thingy on my tongue from sucking on the aforementioned M&Ms. Does this stop me from eating them? No, it does not.

It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m waiting for my middle school kids to get home from the bus stop. The minute they get here, we have to grab last-minute things and rush out the door because they’re leaving for a church retreat tonight. Of course, when packing last night, we discovered that Hannah needed a jacket and some unmentionables that I’m not allowed to name. (But they rhyme with thunderbear.)

So I visited my local Target this morning to pick up those things and more. Because you never go to Target and get just two things. It’s not possible. Here’s how much I love and depend on Target: when asked for the reasons why I love our new house, “10 minutes from Target” is in the top 10. Maybe the top 5.

With Hannah and LC gone, it’ll just be me, Charlie and Abby. Which is exactly as it should be, according to Abby. The only thing better in her mind would be a weekend alone for just her and me. She can take or leave Daddy. But I am the source of her life force, and she is compelled to suck me dry at every opportunity. We call her the Dementor.

(I volunteered in Abby’s class today, which means she hugged me 36 times in the hour that I was there, fighting off other kids with shouts of “NO! This is MY mom!” I’m sure the teacher considered my presence a great help.)

Anywho, that’s what’s happening around here. I’m sure everyone will have an eventful weekend. (On the kids’ retreat, they’re supposed to bring swimsuits. Swimsuits? In October? In the mountains of Tennessee? They’re gonna come home with blue skin.)

What’s going on this fine autumn weekend where YOU are?

The open door to the deck lets the outdoor breezes in. Which is good because I’m still warm from our walk. Charlie and I decided to go for a walk this morning. I don’t know why I decided to walk outside instead of on the treadmill; the beautiful weather probably had something to do with it. But mostly it just seemed like a good idea to me at the time. And then it seemed like a good idea to invite Charlie along.

He took a few extra minutes changing shirts, and we set out. So when we saw our neighbor – whom I had met but Charlie hadn’t – walking out of HER driveway at the exact moment that we left ours, it felt like a divine appointment.

Meeting neighbors here has been hit and miss. But I met Catherine very soon after we moved in. She’s very friendly – a one-woman welcoming committee. She knows and loves EVERYONE. And she said that she’d been praying when SHE felt like going for a walk.

Today we walked together through the neighborhood. And I wish I could say we talked about something important… something that would obviously be the *reason* [cue trumpets and angels singing] for our meeting. But we didn’t. Instead, we learned a lot about the sailing club, and the nearby federal park, and where she moved here from. Nothing especially special. But it was a good connection time.

When we got back to the house, I told Charlie that this felt a lot like the scene in Harry Potter when Harry drinks the Felix Felicis (good luck) potion and just feels like he should go to Hagrid’s cottage. Makes me wonder if Rowling wrote that scene with divine appointments in mind. And I wonder if we’ll ever know specifically why we walked with Catherine today. Or if we were just supposed to connect more.