What's that big, bright light in the sky....?

Oh, that's the SUN! Gee, it's been so long, I didn't know.... But it's definitely nice!

And now the leaves are falling like rain, and getting crunchy on the ground. I need to take a nice long walk in the crunchies--it cheers me up.

Friday and Saturday Hubby and GuitarGeek and I played with One Chord, a itinerant worship team we play with several times a year. It was fabulous and very enjoyable. We play again with the team in a couple weeks, one night at the prison, and again in November for a whole weekend conference. I'm looking forward to it.

Plus, we have hooked up with another couple who plays music and we already have a "gig" (I hate that word, but it's useful) lined up in December. Now we just need to practice and come up with a name for ourselves!

But that's all for another day. Today? I'm packing a birthday box for DrummerDude who is in Montana at YWAM DTS(Youth With A Mission, Discipleship Training School). His birthday is next Saturday--he turns 21!-- and I want to send him a party in a box!

I know I said I was looking forward to it, but...

The last three days have been cloudy, cloudy (sad face); and cold enough to keep the wood stove going (smiley face). The east wind has been blowing (sad face) and that makes me ache all over (sad face). Hubby is feeling kinda low (sad face) and I'm having trouble with procrastinating (sad face).

Actually to be completely accurate, I'm not having trouble with procrastinating, I'm doing very well at it, thank you (sad face, again).

It looks like the score is Six to Zero in favor of the Sad Face. I think I need a little help!

And I'm looking forward to winter too!

Shortly after I wrote my last post, my laptop cord died again. Ho hum, here we again, sharing the main computer.

Ornery's Wife, at Thoughts from Miller Manor, wrote a list of things she's loving about life lately, and I decided to steal her idea. Here are some things I'm enjoying:

--Putting up garden produce as a hobby instead of a project. You know, where you only do it as long as it's fun and then you quit. Quite a change. So instead of two hundred quarts of tomato-ey stuff, I have eight pints and six quarts of tomato juice--I had a great time making them.

--Sitting by our woodstove on these chilly evenings. I LOVE heating our house with wood, especially with our stove that has glass windows so you can see the fire. It creates such a cozy atmosphere.

--Spending lots of one-on-one time with my youngest son. He hasn't had as much of that as I would have liked over the years, being the youngest of four.

--Using my cloth shopping bags when I buy groceries. It gives me great satisfaction to use them; for one thing, they're pretty, and for another, I no longer have to deal with hundreds of throwaways.

--The feeling I'm having lately of being a floating cork that's had some weight lifted off of it. I realized that, in truth, I have quite a bit of natural buoyancy but it's been held under water for a while by much responsibility, or emotional stress, making me tired and inefficient, or worse, lazy. At this stage of my life some of those things are letting up and, once I've gotten used to it, I've been liking the sense of freedom and renewed energy.

And? The first snowfall! It's snowing today, and it also happens to be our 28th wedding anniversary, so it's a very good day.

A Few Changes

I had a week or so where I was without my laptop because my cord died; it died while I was using it, and I didn't realize it till my battery switched to reserve power, and there I was-- a dead cord and a dead battery.

So I had to go back to sharing the desktop computer with my husband, which made me be frugal with my computer time! Instead of using my feed reader to check blogs multiple times a day, I used the links on my blog page-- which were not up to date since I was using my reader instead-- to check blogs once in the morning, and maybe once in the evening.

Oddly, I found it freeing. I thought I was using my feed reader to make following blogs easier. Well, it was easier, compared to keeping a bookmark list in my browser, where I had to go to each blog every day and see if they'd posted anything new. The feed reader told me instantly whenever there were updates.

And therein in lay the difficulty: I was being controlled by the crazy thing. Every time it updated it dinged a nice little update noise and added a little number to the reader icon. I would hear the ding from across the room and come running. Oh look! 27 updates! And being slightly compulsive about lists, I felt I had to look at each one so I could "check it off," so to speak.

I had no idea this was what was happening until I had a week without my laptop, using my link list and whatever blog addresses I could recall from memory. Now that I know, I've decided I don't like that compulsive feeling.

So I've moved all my links to my blog page, using Blogger's new "Blog List" gadget, which is basically a feed reader. It lets me see who has updated recently, and the title of the post, and I can choose whether I want to go look or not.

It's amazing, really, how much better this way is for me all around. I no longer feel obligated to read Every.Single.Post RIGHT NOW; there is no insistent little number sitting there! I can read a few now, some later, some never. I can even -*gasp*- save a blog up and read a week's worth of updates all at once!

One interesting little thing I've noticed--for what it's worth--is that now that I must go to the actual website, I feel more satisfied with my blog browsing. Something about seeing the real page, with its graphics and pictures and extra stuff, rather than just plain text in a reader, is a much richer experience. It's sort of like visiting real people instead of just reading emails. If that makes any sense.

You may also notice that I've given myself a new name. I've decided I no longer need to hide behind my role as a mom by calling myself "mom huebert." My new blog name is one of my nicknames, "cindy kay."

I think this is part of my mid-life makeover: I'm ready to face the world as myself, as a woman, and not only as "wife" and "mother." I'm still both of those things, and very glad of it, but I'm ready to be just ME as well.

(Plus, I've begun to feel a little funny about interacting on other blogs with other woman my own age, or close to it, as "mom"!)

Guaranteed To Make You Laugh...Or Your Money Back

At least, I personally laughed until I cried. Your results may vary.

When All Else Fails, Steal a Meme

When All Else Fails, Steal A Meme

I'm stealing this from Beck.!

1. The phone rings. Who will it to be? Someone wanting tree work done.

2. When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart?Yes.

3. In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener?a listener; unless you start asking me about myself, and then I talk too much. Or if you ask me about my kids, and then I monopolize the conversation. You have been warned.

4. Do you take compliments well? I didn't used to, but I think I do now. I try to just say Thanks..

5. Do you play Sudoku? No. just can't seem to get interested.

6. If abandoned alone in the wilderness, would you survive? I like to picture myself as a Wilderness Survivor. I definitely could survive indefinitely in a camping situation, i.e., prepared to live primitively. But to just get plopped down in the middle of nowhere with nothing... I don't really know.

7. Did you ever go to camp as a kid? Absolutely. Every summer of my life from age 8 to age 18, and a couple of years as an adult (working as staff).

8. What was your favorite game as a kid? Spirograph?

9. If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he was married, would you? No. And since I'm already taken, not even if he WASN'T married.

10. Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you? Not if our beliefs were too different.

11. Do you like to pursue or be pursued? Please, come initiate a friendship, a conversation, an outing, a phone call....

12. Use three words to describe yourself? small, bland, quiet

13. Do any songs make you cry? Yes. Last Christmas I bawled over "Santa Will Find You" by Mindy Smith. Otherwise, it's usually worship music or beautiful instrumentals.

14. Are you continuing your education? I read a lot, and positively LOVE to l look stuff up. It's my hobby, researching. I'm the one who jumps up from the dinner table to look up a word in the dictionary... Hubby is like, no, no don't bother, and I'm like, yes, yes, I love this!

15. Do you know how to shoot a gun? Yes. I won pins at camp, and once I impressed my kids by killing a rabbit that was threatening to dismember our garden.

16. Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth? No..

17. How often do you read books? All the time.

18. Do you think more about the past, present or future? I worry a lot about what I'm supposed to be doing right now and hoping I've done well in the past, and wondering what's coming. Does that answer the question? 

19. What is your favorite children’s book? Maybe "Heidi"?

20.What color are your eyes? Green.

21. How tall are you? 5 foot 2. And a half.

22. Where is your dream house located? I don't know anymore, and it probably doesn't matter by now, because I can't see starting now, at nearly 50, to find it. Although, who knows? We're not dead yet.

23. If your house was on fire, what are the first things you grab?My family. Probably nothing else, because how do you prioritize in that panicked moment what should be saved? And even if I made a list now, would it help then? Like, in that moment of emergency I'm running around trying to find MY LIST!

24. When was the last time you were at Olive Garden? .I think last year.

25. Where was the furthest place you traveled today? Today? Across the house to the bathroom. (We have been driving around A LOT lately, and this is a nice change.)

26. Do you like mustard? Yes. Any kind, unless it's too hot, but especially the kind with horseradish in it.

Birthday gift in action...

Last week I made a mini shopping bag for a two-year old's birthday gift.














Here it is in use:















To see another creative use of the same bag, go here.