Ten.One Hundred & Twenty-Nine

1. The return of the sun. 

2. She is already downstairs. My early bird is earlier than usual. I move around her to make my coffee. She's asking me things my brain can't process just yet.

3. I grab the cookbooks off the windowsill and sit to make the meal plan for the week. Chicken pot pie, skirt steak and baked potatoes, this french-inspired dish called mustard chicken, pot roast. 

4. My teeth are hurting. I can't tell if it's the candy or the onset of a cold. It's funny how you feel and experience illness in the body so differently as you age. Inflamed sinuses now make my gums swell which make my upper teeth ache. Being outside in temperatures below 40 degrees makes my fingertips go numb. I ought to take a break from the candy anyway.

5. The laundry never ends.

6. The tall tree in the corner of our property is beginning to change. Its thinning itself out and the leaves are this lovely soft yellow. It looks so graceful.

7. I kind of like making dinner at 2. The rest of the evening then can be spent of getting homework done without burning a pan. 

8. Today the one-hour practice feels long. I am a little out of it, distracted from my day. But it's fun to play with them. I'm glad that my oldest and I get to have this thing together. I also love that I'm learning to use my voice. 

9. So dark.

10. I am tired tonight. It's not yet 10. The only things that managed to get done today were home things. My "day-job" things like getting kids to and from school, straightening the house, grocery shopping, laundry, cooking. No time to do the creative work I wanted to do. I told her the other day that my advice to creative mothers is to start with a smaller canvas. But right now I'm wanting a larger frame.