I had the tatas smashed yesterday…October was National Breast Cancer Awareness Month so I always try to get my mammogram done that month. Unfortunately, yesterday was the last day that will happen in October because Medicare makes you wait a year and a day after your last one…and that was yesterday. Now, I’m out of October days for the future. This time was a lot easier and less painful, for some reason. I was in and out of there in fifteen minutes.
Since I was so close to the bridge over to Belpre, I made a trip to my favorite Kroger store. We usually purchase a few items at a time…once or twice a week. This time I had to do a big purchase spree and restock some basics so that’s always a little more pricey. I’m really careful when I shop these days and I watch for coupons in the app of the store I’m in. I was pretty surprised it wasn’t much more expensive than usual. Fortunately, other than bread and milk, we shouldn’t have to go to the store for a while. I bought pecans and buttermilk to make pralines! More on that when I get the time to make some.
While I was at the store, I bought a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups on the off chance that we would have Trick or Treaters. I’ve lived here for five years now, and we’ve never had a single one. So…we have candy! I remember so many Halloweens…Trick or Treating with my friends. Getting a popcorn ball or a candy apple. Getting full sized Snickers or Three Musketeers bars. Learning if you take a pillowcase, it holds a lot more candy than that little plastic pumpkin we used to carry.
My most memorable Halloween was around fourth or fifth grade. I had chicken pox so I couldn’t go out with my friends. I was allowed to lay on the couch and look at the kids in their costumes. Nothing like exposing the entire neighborhood to a contagious disease, right? Most people didn’t understand contagion back then, either.
When my kids were little, Hubby #2 took them out to do the rounds of the neighborhood while I stayed home and handed out candy. When Daughter #1 was little, we bought her a Wonder Woman costume. It was the late ‘70s. The costume was plastic. It’s always cold in Colorado this time of year. By the time they got back home, her costume was hanging in shreds and my daughter was in tears. Turns out, it was SO cold her costume literally broke into pieces. It was pretty traumatic.
And so…it’s November. I’ll be decorating for Christmas soon. I love the lights and the festive atmosphere. It brings joy and light into the dreary darkness. I used to wait till after Thanksgiving, but…you know what? The heck with that! Life is short…and times are uncertain. I need a little Baby Jesus energy around me. It doesn’t dilute any holiday to expand it and make it bigger.
I remember growing up…my dad would pile us into the Oldsmobile just a few days before Christmas and take us to the neighborhood tree lot. Dad would walk around and look and shake every tree till he found the perfect one. He’s make the guy pick it up and stomp it down on its trunk to make sure the needles weren’t falling off. Then he’d start the dickering. I remember one time he got a tree for $2.50 but they were usually at least $5.
The most disappointing thing came when he made us take the tree down just a day or two after Christmas. My friends had their trees up for weeks…but not us. Now I’m the boss of me…and if I want the tree up for three months, by golly losing Mr. Virgo and living through the lockdown has shown me that’s just fine!
This is the cusp of winter. As I lay here writing this, I can hear the crickets outside the window here on Marshmallow Ranch. When I drove home from down with a trunk full of groceries yesterday, a rain shower had left the road dark and glistening in the sunlight that broke through the clouds. The last of the changing leaves glowed deep copper, brilliant scarlet, rusty brown. I remember walking through the leaves on my way to school as a little girl…my shoes going swoosh-swoosh-swoosh with every step. We’re in a kind of limbo now…holding our breath for the time change and the onslaught of winter’s greeting. That time when the birds start fighting over the feeders and cat’s coat starts getting a little thicker. When the crickets try desperately to cling to their last few nights of raucous love songs before they’re silenced by the northern winds.
The nether-lands of “between”…waiting.
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“but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:31 ESV