Pumpkins, Pie, Rollercoasters and Stories!

Today was a wonderful day!  For one thing, I am off for the entire weekend!!  My boss tried to pressure me into working both Saturday and Sunday, but I wasn’t having any of it!!

We had a reenactment group event planned for this weekend, but, due to our schedules of late, we both decided that we wanted the weekend to spend together.. meaning only us so, we aren’t going to be attending…

I was so shot last night, that I dropped off at about nine o’clock.  I slept until I woke up, no alarm clock, no schedule, nothing… just sleeping until I couldn’t sleep any longer.  I got up at around seven-thirty this morning and spent about twenty minutes just standing at the window watching the critters playing in the garden.  There were the usual squirrels, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, and mourning doves… but there were also a pair of blue jays and a couple of cardinals.  They were all pushing and shoving and chasing and cavorting about the feeder!  I enjoyed the feeling of being able to do absolutely nothing, and not have to worry about being late for anything…  I also love the feeling of having a whole weekend ahead of me, and being up early enough to feel all of the possibilities laid out before me…!!  After looking out the window, I wandered in to the computer room and went online for a while… again, no time pressure, no purpose… just fuffing about, enjoying the tranquility.

Once Elysia woke up, I started a pot of coffee and we decided to go out and join Costco.  We picked up a gift basket for the UPS Store folks who are retiring on Monday.  We love them, and we’ll be sorry to see them go.  We dropped the gift basket off, hugs all around, and a few tears… then we met the new proprietor, and wished him luck in his new enterprise.  We’ll be getting to know him over the years, I suppose.  We came home and offloaded the stuff we picked up at Costco, then headed out east (the east end of Long Island has a number of farms and vineyards… this time of year you can go and pick pumpkins.. other times you can pick strawberries, buy corn, peaches, beans, tomatoes, and all sorts of fresh produce.. but this time of year its all about the pumpkins!) picked a few pumpkins, bought a fresh pie (wildberry!), then stopped at one of the beverage places out there for some pumpkin ale.

We listened to the newest Diana Gabaldon story on tape (“Breath of Snow and Ashes”) while we drove, holding hands.. (Puking on my blog is strictly prohibited, by the way…) and enjoyed the fall foliage.

** for those of you who haven’t read Diana Gabaldon, I recommend her.  The first book in this series is entitled “Outlander”, though in the UK, I believe it was called “Cross-stitch”, but I’m not entirely sure.  I have conversed with Diana via email, and she is a very cool person.  (So is Charles De Lint, by the way… and his books are fabulous!  See that??  Read my blog, get book reviews, next I’ll be handing out cups of coffee and giving you all back rubs.  This is a very cool place to hang out!)

When we got home, we put on some coffee (we roast and grind the beans ourselves… yummy!) and heated up a couple slices of pie, put on “Nightmare Before Christmas” and snuggled up.  We got a cryptic phone message during the movie, (we blow off phone calls during movies, just so you know….) which turned out to be Elysia’s dad.  He referenced an email, which turned out to be a clue to a treasure hunt here at Thistlebright Cottage!  We put on our shoes, grabbed our coats, and armed ourselves with flashlights, and went tromping around the property in the dark finding little but spiders and frightened raccoons and such….  We came back inside, puzzled and befuddled, and wracked our brains over the clue;  “Many Phrases…Fifty!”.  Finally, it occurred to me that the only time that Elysia’s dad was out of anyone’s sight the last time he was here was when he went upstairs to use the bathroom.  In the bathroom there is a book of phrase and word origins!  I breeped upstairs (yes.. I said ‘breeped’) and turned to page fifty, and there before my very eyes was the treasure!!  I closed the book and called Elysia up to join in the hunt, and she then turned to page fifty to find a crisp new fifty dollar bill snuggled in between page forty-nine and page fifty.  Sneaky, clever Dad!!

As soon as I post this, I’m off to watch scary movies, carve pumpkins, and eat more pie and drink more coffee!  Elysia will doubtless spend much of the evening drying out pumpkin seeds in the oven.. and then I plan on climbing up one side of her and down the other (evil grin!)

Tomorrow, we are going to Six Flags Great Adventure for ‘Fright Fest’.  We have a pair of free passes, and we are going to make use of them!!  We are hoping to ride ‘King Da Ka’, which is currently billed as the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world!!  I’ll let you know how it went!

I’m having a blast with my beautiful wife and time to enjoy her company.

Bear is happy!!