who says fall only lasts 2 weeks in alaska?

whoever they are, they're right. i can see the sky through the birch already. the air is crisp, we've had autumn rain (it smells different from summer rain, colder somehow), the birch are bright gold, and we had homemade applesauce with NY apples (expressed to one of chuck's tellers). not much missing from a traditional fall, except all the other colors and a couple extra months to enjoy it.

the chimney sweep dude came today. luckily didn't find anything horribly wrong with the chimney. you never know with dwayne. he was a really nice guy. and, oddly enough, was born in springfield (indian orchard, in a poor project (do those exist in indian orchard?), for those of you who know where that is). that was the cool random moment for the day.

i scattered our poppy seeds today. there's got to be millions in each seed head. if we don't get loads of flowers there's something wrong.

last night we had stepbrats over for dinner. chuck's daughter bridget is going to australia for the winter, because she can (and yes, i'm jealous), so the idea was a goodbye dinner. except bridget had to work. oops. that's chuck's planning for you. but kim and austin came over anyway, and chris with isaac and renee. a nice relaxing night (with apple crisp for dessert - we had a LOT of apples). isaac turns 7 today, so we're having a last minute party tonight (called us at 3.30 or so today). that's even better than chuck's planning. so as soon as chuck gets home we have to run into town and see if we can find a present for him. we've already talked about it, and want one of those model/toys of the human body that shows you how it all fits together and works. gross but fun, right up isaac's alley.

yesterday i went through all the shoe stores in town looking for something to wear with slacks while i boss kids around substitute teach. that was depressing on several counts.

• first, cuz i have to substitute teach. there's some good reasons for it: good pay, flexible schedule that lets me take weeks off for thanksgiving and christmas trips, and most important, they hired me. the one good reason not to do it: i hate it.
• i hate shopping and avoid it unless strictly necessary, because my style is rarely in style and
• i have big feet so if i do by some miracle find shoes i like, another, bigger miracle is required to find ones that fit

i did find some acceptable shoes that i could still walk normally in and climb trees with and run in and kick bratty kids if i had to, but not in my size. *sigh* but we're going to the temple in anchorage this weekend, so we'll cross our fingers and look there since they have more than 5 stores.

substitute teaching i'm just being very firm with myself and trying to brainwash myself into thinking i'll like it, or at the very least not be bored out of my mind. it's not really working, but who knows? i'll just think about bills and my holiday trips to cheer myself up.

the christmas present yarn hasn't come yet. every day it's a struggle to not start something new. i think i have startitis. there's sock yarn in the stash crying out to be knit, and what makes them hard to ignore is they're matched to patterns already. all i have to do is cast on. torture. i'm slowly working on the math for the faroese shawl, but.........what can i say it's math. i avoid it more than shopping. so today i almost finished a project. just have to bind off and weave in some ends. somehow finishing under duress isn't very satisfying. this weekend on the road i will try to devote myself to chuck's sweater. i'll try.

maybe. during the utter boredom of the silk cami stockinette, i made this for some instant gratification.

the pattern, building blocks, is in socks, socks, socks. you knit a straight bit, knit a bit on the side and then fold it up and sew the seams to make this:

pretty cool huh? super easy but brilliant. unfortunately i made it for the process, to see how it worked. so it's been over a month and all i've got is one slipper, cuz now i know how it works, right? so i might take that with me too, since it's such a fast knit. i knit it a bit bigger than the pattern, cuz they had one size to fit a woman's small or kids' large. with my huge feet, that didn't sound very promising. and the original has 3 colors, but i was using up yarn (yay for stash reducing!) so i just did 2 colors. it fits pretty good, just a tad loose, but they're sposed to be slippers so what the heck. i think if i used 3 colors it would have more definition and structure, but that's ok. i'm happy with them. it. i need to make another one.

chuck just came home with roses and chocolate for me. i must have been a good girl today. yay!!

P.S. it's dark chocolate too.