things to love about fall

Tuesday Randomosity: Feeling Overwhelmed Edition
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Tuesday Randomosity: Feeling Overwhelmed Edition

It is Tuesday and Day Three of NaBloPoMo. I am already feeling Wildly Overwhelmed. It’s a GOOD overwhelm: I am so excited! So many new posts! So many thoughtful comments! And yet, I am feeling a bit like the toddler being attacked by puppies. The joy! The delight! The inability to do anything but lie there helplessly!

A humorous meme depicting a man looking back at a woman in a red shirt labeled 'New Blog Post,' while a woman beside him, labeled 'All the blog posts I still haven't read,' looks disapproving.

What is your strategy for reading and commenting on blog posts? I have no strategy and am therefore already behind.

Perhaps if I had planned my posts, and did not have to write those in the moment, I would have more time to read/comment and be feeling better about the whole thing. (If you have post suggestions for me, please feel free to share them via my Ask Me Anything form.)

Speaking of feeling overwhelmed, I am also feeling overwhelmed by:

…election uncertainty.

I voted. That’s all I can do. While I have no idea what’s going to happen – especially in my state, which feels like it could easily go either way – I am very much looking forward to the end of all the spam texts. There are so many and they are SO RIDICULOUS.

Screenshot of a text conversation featuring humorous comments about a person's candidacy and a playful remark about voting conditional on receiving a text from their dog washer.

…Christmas anticipation.

How’s your Christmas planning going? Mine, so far, encompasses some vague thoughts about potential gift ideas. Like, super vague. I may share some of them in post form, because that helps me organize my thoughts. We’ll see if I can get my act together.

A humorous meme featuring two characters from a sitcom discussing the stress of coming up with Christmas gifts in November. One character expresses their overwhelmed thoughts, while the other responds with a concerned comment.

…exhaustion.

My cat is not dealing well with The Time Change. He is surly and accusatory and runs away from me when I approach him. He came into my room at THREE AY EM to scratch the carpet, which is one of his tried-and-true It’s Time to Wake Up alarm settings. Even if the time hadn’t changed, that’s too early.

My husband and I are not dealing well with The Time Change. I thought we would feel more rested! I thought we’d pop out of bed an hour early! But no. We are both hitting snooze and grumbling at the cat, whose secondary alarm setting is to climb onto various surfaces and knock things onto the floor.  Maybe if the cat would chill out, we’d be able to get some sleep?

A humorous social media post about a cat's mischievous behavior, featuring a caption that contrasts the phrase 'you're such a good girl' with the cat's history of causing trouble.

…fluff.

Speaking of the cat: Lenny is experiencing his fall shed. We got a very brief reprieve from his spring shed, a reprieve of about a month. It was a wonderful month. But now we’re back to tumbleweeds of fur littering our floors. My dutiful robot vacuum Rocky is on the job, although sometimes the fur is too voluminous for him to handle and he has to reroute himself around it. I’ve also purchased a new handheld vacuum for the stairs and furniture. So far, I like it a lot. Our regular vacuum does a great job of cleaning the carpeted areas of our home and I’m contemplating getting a second one, to minimize the amount of lugging it up and down the stairs I do. While I would be 100% happy just getting the exact same vacuum, I kind of have a wandering eye. If you have pets, what kind of vacuum do you use to stem the fluff?

A cat lying on the floor next to a robotic vacuum cleaner in a modern living space.
Lenny loves to lie directly in Rocky’s path, so that Rocky has to go around him.

…routine shakeup.

My child has begun a new set of activities, but they are so new that we haven’t established any sort of a routine. Sometimes it feels to me as though the adults in charge of said activities take the same approach to planning that I have taken toward NaBloPoMo. I do not care for that.

A woman with a stylish black bob hairstyle and dramatic fashion, sitting at a table with a cheerful expression, captioned with a humorous remark about chauffeuring her child.

…fall beauty.

We have had the most glorious, luxuriously long fall. The first photo I have of fall leaves is from October 2. And now, more than a month later, our trees are still gorgeous. Sure, some of them have lost their leaves (do you think they feel jealous of their still-frocked friends? or are they relieved to be able to rest?), but many many are still decked out in the most fanciful array of crimson and gold. I cannot get enough and I have been taking mental pictures and actual photos as often as I can. The photos never quite do justice to the beauty of my surroundings, though.

A close-up view of autumn leaves on trees, showcasing vibrant orange and yellow foliage against a clear blue sky.
A bright, sunny landscape featuring a vast green field, with colorful autumn trees in the background, including vibrant red foliage on the right.
A vibrant autumn scene featuring a tree with bright red and orange leaves against a clear blue sky.
Autumn scene featuring vibrant trees with red, orange, and yellow leaves beside a calm pond under a clear blue sky.
A view of a blue sky filled with white, fluffy clouds, framed by silhouettes of tall, leafless trees and a few trees with autumn foliage.
Scenic view of a tranquil lake surrounded by autumn foliage, featuring trees with vibrant red and orange leaves under a partly cloudy sky.

What’s got you feeling overwhelmed today?

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Dinners This Week

It is really and truly starting to feel like fall around here. We’ve got the trees going all out for the remainder of the season, cool evenings, rainy and blustery days, and scary movies popping up on all the streaming services. I am LOVING IT. 

Of course, we’ve got rain and plummeting temperatures in the forecast for the whole week, so I’m anticipating that our glorious autumn scenery will be replaced in short order with skeletal tree limbs and roads paved in damp leaves. 

My husband and I are leaning into the cozy fall weather with our meal plan for the week. He helped me come up with five dinner ideas, and – as you know – if someone else is willing to do one third of the heavy lifting required to get a meal on the table, I am going to LET HIM.  

Dinners for the Week of October 20-26

  • Slow Cooker Chili: We did not eat this chili the first week of October as originally planned. But it is IN THE SLOW COOKER right this very moment. I am… hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. This recipe calls for a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar, and it smells strongly of vinegar. Ew. Also, it makes approximately ten gallons of chili, so if it turns out I don’t like it, my husband is going to be eating a lot of chili.
  • Lentil Stuffed Sweet Potatoes: My husband and I were looking for a separate recipe and found this one, and it sounded good to my husband???? My husband who likes to have meat with every meal???? Heck yeah. These sound different and interesting and autumnal as hell.
  • Shrimp and Orzo Risotto with Saffron and Lemon: This is the recipe we were originally looking for. It’s in the most recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated and I will try to come back and post a photo of the recipe. In the meantime, I think it’s similar to the America’s Test Kitchen recipe linked in the recipe title, but there’s a paywall. I got some impromptu frozen shrimp at Trader Joe’s the other day even though we don’t really eat a lot of shrimp these days – I had just arrived at the car line when Carla texted me that she had practice after school, which she hadn’t known about, and so I had time to kill and also I was hungry and also it’s Trader Joe’s – and now I have a Real Reason to make it!
  • Pumpkin Ravioli with Browned Butter Sage Sauce: You know what else I got at Trader Joe’s? If you said, “a lot of things you don’t need” you would be right. If you said, “pumpkin ravioli,” you would also be right. Do I like pumpkin things? No. Do I typically make ravioli? No. But my husband was considering ordering pumpkin ravioli recently and so I had it in my head that he wanted to eat some pumpkin ravioli, and then I had time to kill at Trader Joe’s and I bought some, even though I had no idea how to prepare or serve it. (I also bought some goat cheese and caramelized onion ravioli – WHAT DO I DO WITH THOSE????) My husband to the rescue: he said he thought pumpkin ravioli would be good with some browned butter and sage, and lo and behold, there are recipes for that very thing all over the internet. I also got some French green beans at TJ’s, so we will have those on the side. (If you are counting, this is the second vegetarian meal of the week.)

This meal plan pleases me for multiple reasons: 1. I did not come up with any of the ideas except the pumpkin ravioli, just had to second them. 2. There’s a nice variety of proteins, and we don’t repeat ANY of them. 3. New recipes are so much easier for me to make, sometimes, because of the novelty factor. 4. Except for the shrimp and orzo, these all scream FALL to me, which is fun. 5. I wish I had a fifth bullet because I dislike even amounts of bullets. 

Of course, the downside is that I have to both buy ingredients I rarely / never use (sage??? saffron???? Aleppo pepper?????) and prepare five entire meals. I’m hoping the novelty factor does a LOT of work this week. 

Anything on your meal plan you’re particularly looking forward to eating this week?

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Grump Update, Cat Trauma, Holidays, Dinners This Week

Let’s see. I have quite possibly gotten over my end-of-summer crankiness (although I reserve the right to revert at any time). Maybe I am even, a teeny tiny bit, getting into the idea of fall???? My kid is feeling better. My husband is now sick. I have a scratchy throat and am wondering why I thought having covid would be protective against whatever non-covid illness Carla had. 

What else? The cat had a traumatic experience: my husband accidentally set off the burglar alarm when he left the house the other day, and no one was home. This reminds me of the time when my housekeeper accidentally set off the burglar alarm while I was dropping Carla off at school. I had no idea until the alarm company called to ask me what was up. When I got home, ten-ish minutes later, our poor sweet housekeeper was still shaking. And she was a HUMAN who presumably understood what was going on. The cat is a CAT and, based on the blank but searching stare he gives me whenever I try to talk to him, he does not understand a lick of English. Carla and I came home to the cat hiding under my bed, which seems to have become his Place of Refuge. (My husband accidentally knocked over a chair the cat was sitting on while Carla and I were out of town, and the cat sought Refuge under our bed and my husband endured several worried hours where the cat remained entrenched under the bed; he had to resort to poking him with a broom.) No one can reach him under the bed unless a broom is called to service; very safe. Carla sat in my room with him, tempting him with treats, for three hours until he decided to grace her with his presence. He seems fine now. 

I would like to make a change to how we celebrate holidays here in the United States (and possibly elsewhere; I know nothing). Instead of celebrating holidays on a specific date, I want to switch to celebrating holidays on the nearest Monday or Friday to that particular holiday. You know – the way we do Election Day on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November or Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November. These are imperfect examples, though, because they are Tuesdays and Thursdays and I want ALL HOLIDAYS to take place on Monday or Friday. That way, we can avoid having a random Tuesday off (I’m looking at you this year, Rosh Hashanah), which messes up my entire week. Listen, I really hope I am not being wildly insensitive to religious tradition by making this suggestion. I am banking on it being the tradition that counts, and not necessarily the specific date. I mean, Easter always falls on a Sunday, right? Couldn’t the work-restricted portions of Yom Kippur and Christmas and Ramadan and Passover and Eid all fall on a Friday or a Monday? Please? More long weekends and fewer random mid-week days off. If you are or know someone who can arrange this, I assume you will get right on it. 

Speaking of Rosh Hashanah, which I was, briefly, this Apple Honey Cake is calling my name. Alas, a person can not live by apple honey cake alone. What else can I make this week?

Dinners for the Week of September 22-29

  • Chicken Noodle Soup: I am making a big pot of this for a loved one who is having surgery. The recipe makes a TON of soup, so I am going to withhold enough for me and my husband to eat for dinner one night. I don’t really like chicken noodle soup (and somehow I always misspell “noodle” as “noddle” which is irritating), but my mom swears by its healing powers, so why not enjoy some of whatever benefits it confers?

Oh! We are having out-of-town friends visit this coming weekend! That is super exciting. No idea what I will feed them, but I choose to leave that for Future Suzanne to deal with.