Dear Mother Nature, where the EFF did you come from??

So, the last week of October was pretty cold. In a good way. Crisp air, clear sky, sparkly stars overhead at night. And then the first two weeks of November were warm and wet. I don't think the sun peeked out for more than a hour during that stretch. It was either raining, or threatening to rain, with lighter-than-air water droplets suspended in the air, sticking to my eyelashes, making my hair think it's supposed to be curly.

(It's not.)

And now. Holy moly! It's suddenly below freezing and we've had some fleeting, forgettable flurries. (I still won the snow bet with Gabe, though, since we didn't have any snow that stuck before November 10. He owes me a new shirt.)

It's been nice, really. Remember that this kind of weather was my life until I was almost 23 years old, and I've only just come back from the southern sauna this year. I like it. I am not complaining. I do have to dig out hats, mittens and scarves for Gabe and myself, but we did Liam's winter shopping at the end of September before our landlords turned on the heat and we were in a popsicle-ass frenzy over how bone-chilling it was in our apartment. Liam is properly equipped with a puffy hooded winter jacket, hat and mittens, plenty of long sleeve shirts and hoodies, and of course his own internal furnace which seems to be set to near-fever without actually making him sick. We do need to pick up some boots for him, but the actual real snow seems a little further off still.

It's time to clean this place top-to-bottom in preparation for the first Thanksgiving we'll ever be hosting in our home, and stock up on some hot chocolate, and bake with apples and cranberries. I'm going to try my very first anadama bread, which I am both nervous and excited about.

My favorite part of this time of year- the smell in the air, and the clarity of the sky at night. Oh, those stars! They are so much clearer from now until spring than they are in the haze of summer. I love the bare trees against the blue-green dusk, the spattering of puffy clouds, the early stars just shining, shining.