September 13, 2021

Taking Stock: September

(Thanks to Pip Lincolne for the list!)

Taking Stock

Making: lunches! And I’m so goshdarn happy about it. (Mostly because I don’t have to make them all by myself. So happy to have kids back to school.

Getting: ready to go camping the weekend after next! Bringing a little summer into September is important.

Cooking: SmittenKitchen’s corn chowder on the weekend. It was delicious.

Sipping: Yorkshire gold tea. As usual.

Reading: Beautiful World Where Are You, by Sally Rooney

Thinking: too much about the perspective of people refusing to be vaccinated, twisting my brain into knots.

Remembering: the surreal month of September 20 years ago, which would have been significant to me even without what happened on that Tuesday.

Looking: at the golden sunshine in my kitchen, which means the end of summer, and that the end of summer brings beautiful things.

Listening: to someone drilling or sawing something in my neighbourhood, OBVIOUSLY. Never stops. Before that, I was listening to the new episode of You’re Wrong About but had to turn it off so I could think about this post!

Wishing: that everybody would just calm down.

Enjoying: a return to normalish life in Toronto and that our vaccination rates are high and ever climbing.

Appreciating: that after a summer of outdoor swimming, I am able to book lane swims at a local community centre’s salt water pool!

Wanting: to hear from my kid about their days at school.

Eating: will shortly be eating a coronation grape muffin I baked last evening. A return to baking muffins and packing lunches is just the quotidian I’ve been longing for.

Finishing: peaches. Only another week or two left, if we’re lucky, and then it’s APPLE SEASON

Liking: taking Iris to school in the morning

Loving: the writers in my September blogging course!!

Buying: Orange shirts for Orange Shirt Day

Watching: Wandavision! I am totally obsessed.

Hoping: For a less disrupted school year in Toronto/Ontario

Wearing: My Zuri dress, because this still warm but crisp September day is the weather it was made for.

Walking: to school to drop off Iris (this morning, at least). Have I mentioned that this makes me happy?

Following: Five gorgeous new-to-me blogs from the writers in my course. Check out “Gleanings” tomorrow for a selection.

Noticing: That angry white women protesting outside hospitals under the auspices of “rights” look like the same people who picketed against integrated schools 60 years ago under the auspices of “rights”, and the expressions on their faces are terrifying.

Saving: The whole chicken in my freezer for that perfect day for roasting/boiling stock. (PS I originally wrong “the whole children” in my freezer, which is weird, especially since my freezer is quite small.)

Waiting: For edits on my next novel!

Bookmarking: Elizabeth Renzetti’s amazing article on Little Free Libraries

Coveting: Nothing? I’m good.

Feeling: All right.

Hearing: A DRILL! It just started again. Somebody whistling. A distant siren. No cicadas for the first time in weeks.