It’s that time again, fall is ending, officially and probably in terms of the weather. It feels kind of like there were mostly just lots of encores of summer, but I guess officially it’s fall and all we have a few weeks of it left.

So time to prepare a new pile of books for the upcoming season! Some previous books return, some I’ve read before but not recently and a whole lot of favorites. The world is not a great place so it’s time to re-read some favorite series. Plus some for projects and/or skills to learn. Those are always good ones too.

So for reasons that are probably obvious the current emotions are exhaustion and rage and how-do-we-deal-with-this and a tinge of despair looking at the size of the various dooms looking over the horizon and it’s hard to plan or look forward to or prepare or work towards anything. But…giving up doesn’t work either? So I guess I’ll just look at the horizon outside of my window and not that big one over there with the giant monstrosities lurking at the edges and do my best. Because I have to get up each morning and things need to get done and getting those things done will help whether a giant monster wanders over here or goes somewhere else and I just have to watch it destroying things on the news.

Food Preservation and Gardening

Winter involves no food preservation! Or planting stuff to preserve! It is going to involve going over plans for next spring and hopefully actually really making it happen this year. The smallest will be 3 so it should be easier right? It’s not really a fun sort of planning since most of the what-to-plants are clear and it’s about getting the basics to work again, not about having fun experiments. But hey, this year we had tomatoes and peppers and it worked. Also our herb plants really took off so there have been lots of fresh herbs. Now it’s just getting the basics all going in the same direction again. And if we can do that, then there can be the fun parts of gardening. And we did make lots of space up front which will be flowers or vegetables or both, so there’s that too.

And I am hoping to start seeds (it might be a try and do it and if it fails get plants year). Here’s hoping it works! That’s more for March or later though.

Sewing

It’s on the list, for real! So that shows some things have improved. I made a Christmas present a few months ago and I made slipcovers for two of the cushions on the old sofa. I have two more to make and then a cover for the frame. Making a slipcover I can wash rather than reupholstering the whole thing seemed the way to go with 3 tiny people and 4 cats. When the tiny people are less sticky and messy then I can be fancier. The first two covers went well, so it’s onward to the rest!

And if that goes ok, maybe there can be sewing clothes for the kids in spring. I still have the fabric for those, and summer dresses for me. It’d be nice…so here’s hoping.

Knitting

I am turning leftover yarn into a blanket. In this case I’m knitting hexagons that I’ll sew together into a sort of knitted quilt. It’s fun and I like it but part of my is terrified I’m ‘wasting’ the yarn. Which, it’s leftover sweater yarn, and everyone has hats and scarves and things and more wool blankets are definitely on the wish list. I think it’ll feel better when I start sewing them together and it’s obviously a blanket.

Having a simple project is nice though and it is easy to move around since it’s just 6-8 inch hexagons.

There are also things to make, small things for the kids, house projects (shelves, basement space set up, etc) and others.

And there’s also trying to do fun and happy things, baking cookies, going and seeing lights, doing the things that make all the rest of this worth doing. Puzzles with the kids (and by myself!) reading, watching silly movies.

So maybe that’s the biggest goal? Keep it all together and set it up to be better and make sure to do the things that make the rest of it worth it.

There, that’s the plan.