Lots of Life

We're winding down on our home front just as all this party into paradise planning kicks in. The garden is still waiting for us to plow up our last potatoes, but I've done all the canning I intend to do, except for the bunches of beets still in the earth.

I'm not as fond of this year's grape jam, but that's because I had to use a different type of grape. These grapes were larger and darker, but produced a garnet-colored grape jam rather than the rich deep purple of the batches in years past. Oh well, the grapes were free for the picking off Mamie's trellises, and our didn't bear anything worth worrying over.

October will be quite busy beginning with Don's party on the first of next month, followed the next weekend by the Coker Creek Ruritan's big fortieth annual fundraiser, the Autumn Gold Festival. Richard and I will both be working booths, Richard collecting cash at the Ruritan roach coach and me bragging about Jack's book to generate sales.

I had hoped to have Nancy's book finished by now, but we're still running into technical difficulties with the cover. Persistence will finally pay, but it sure is frustrating getting from "G" to "O." (That spells "GO" -- for those not familiar with that colloquialism.)

I'm really looking forward to a visit by a friend of mine since we were in high school. She's actually the woman who picked up the father of my children on Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras Day, back when we were both sixteen. I haven't seen her for years, but I'm sure she's still a man magnet, even though we're both bumping up against sixty.

As soon as Annette leaves, after seeing all our colorful fall leaves, I'm heading south for an extended stay. My baby boy's birthday is on Halloween. I like to go down and play with people's children while they go to my wild child's Halloween party.

With a wedding to attend in Houston in November, and a visit to our newly married nephew and his wife, followed by Thanksgiving and Santa's workshop cranking up in earnest, I don't think we'll have time to be bored until well into the new year.

Oh, and did I mention that we're hoping to host several families for "Holidays in the Holler" between Christmas and New Years Day?

I warned Richard before he married me that he didn't know what he was asking for when he stated that he wanted me to bring "life into his house." I told him he may not be ready for all the life forms I brought around, but did he listen? No...