Harvest

I love this time of year. When straw-stuffed scarecrows are propped in gardens, when bushels of apples are pressed into cider, and pumpkins line porches. We harvested our potatoes, beets, and tomatoes. Surprisingly, we are still getting the odd strawberry. Each morning our hen Daisy leaves us a perfect, cafe-au-lait egg. The other two hens, now plumped up, should be ready to lay soon. The air is more crisp, and it feels good to pull a wool blanket up to my cheeks each night. Last weekend, we were in Walla Walla which is a perfect place to celebrate harvest. We drove out to Klickers to look at the antiques and peaches. Our friend Clare loaded us up with zucchini bread and tomatos. Yum! And the Henckels plied us with blueberry pancakes and turkey sausages, then the Hoffs with turkey burgers and homemade fries. Seriously, I have some great friends!

It all made up for the week of drama following an infestation of lice. Poor Mareshet was sobbing as I combed through all those curls again and again. She always had her hair close cropped at the orphanage, in the event of lice, though she said she never had them in Ethioipa. She has desperately wanted to grow it long ever since we came home, and a year later it falls in ringlets to her shoulders. I couldn't cut that hair, not for a thousand dollars. So it was up nights until two am, combing. I kept scratching the imaginary bus on my body for another 10 days. I'm finally free from the PTSD, and hope to never go there again.

Today I've realized that the past year has not ben very conducive to physical fitness. The hardest part about single parenting is that I can't just go for a run or spend time swimming laps like I used to. I never have anyone to watch the kids and I don't have extra hours of child care to allow me to squeeze in a workout after work. So today we went to the gorgeous new Y and signed up. I love the Y for their Family Camp, which we attended this summer. I love the gleaming new pool. Best of all, I love the single parent family rate. While it's not like I have extra nickels, I feel okay about signing up because women in my family live to be nearly 100. I figure, I'm not yet 35. I have a WAYS to go yet, God WIlling. I don't mind a little plush, but I think that I need to keep my ticker in top shape. The Y has a child care facility, it has swim lessons. I am going to try to get myself moving, and my kids can have fun too. They are old enough to be in the same space together, and perhaps this will help with separations. Wish me luck- I have about fifteen pounds of post-adoption, post-divorce, post-pregnancy (five years ago) weight to shake off.