Monday, Monday

Lying in bed last night, before I fell asleep, I made the decision that I wasn't going to do anything today except for three things: 1) the weekly laundry, 2) make and can applesauce from the two grocery bags full of apples waiting for me in our cool garage, and 3) get my ironing done while watching 'Dancing with the Stars' tonight.

It's now 4 p.m. as I write and I do have the laundry done. (Hurray for our side!) I started that as soon as I was outta bed this morning and worked on it all during the day. Haven't even looked at the apples yet and I sure don't want to tear into that project now. That needs to be a first-of-the-morning started project to insure completion in a day.

So what the heck have I done today? First off . . . well, I don't know what's come over me. I never used to be that thrilled by pumpkin pie even thought it's always been my daughter's favorite. (To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, "The best pumpkin pie you've ever tasted is not that much different than the worst one.") However, in the last year or so, I've found myself craving pumpkin pie. And what's more appropriate for this time of year? The devil made me do it. I just HAD to make one!

As soon as the pie was out of the oven, I took a quick, short run to town with only two stops. We were out of bananas and I really don't enjoy my fruit smoothie for lunch without the banana for thickener so I dashed in and out of our whole foods co-op for bananas. And a red kuri squash. And a couple of lemons. And some black pepper. And a short chat with the produce manager who I haven't seen for a while. Then I swung by the library drop box to chuck in multitudinous audio tapes and a few books that were getting close to their due date.

Zipping back home, I was struck by how pretty our driveway is beginning to look with the fall colors becoming more and more evident. We don't have any maples, other than two we've planted by the house, on our property (not many deciduous trees actually) but I still love the look of our driveway in the fall. I stopped to take a few photos as I drove in.

Then Roy asked for my help in moving three canoes and a kayak. One end of our canoe rack had collapsed so we had to move the boats so he could do some repair work.

Roy had said he was going to go into the lumber yard for some supplies during the day so I sat down at my desk, paid a couple of bills and got a deposit ready for him to take in when he went.

Checked e-mail and answered a few that needed attention. Boiled some hot dogs (chicken franks) to use in the casserole I'm making for dinner tonight. Washed eggs that were waiting in the egg basket. Watered the houseplants. Did what seemed to me to be a rather large batch of dishes. Why are there so many dirty dishes? There are only two people living here! Made a little lunch. Noticed the zinnias on the kitchen half-wall were looking a little worse for wear so dumped them and went out into the garden to cut a new bouquet. Got bread out of the freezer. Remembered a pot of artificial fall mums I usually put on top of a storage unit that's right inside the back porch entrance . . . some decoration looks nice there but it's too dark to keep a potted plant, not enough light . . . so I went back to the storage shed to get the mums.

Well, you're getting the idea of how a day can be frittered away doing things that do need to be done, but don't seem to amount to a hill of beans at the end of the day. And why I sometimes never seem to get to the "big" projects.

I just came in from helping Roy put the three canoes and kayak back onto the repaired canoe rack and if I don't stop this and go whip up the casserole and get it into the oven, we won't be eating at a decent time tonight. And then I won't be set up and ready to iron while watching 'Dancing with the Stars'. Oh my, what a full life.