A freeze, and things

There is something so gorgeous about that first hard freeze melting away in the early morning sunlight. This was Monday morning. My fennel, which stood tall through lighter frosts and freezes last month was finally felled-- and I wasn't prepared at all for the incredible licorice perfume it would release as all those burst cell walls were thawed and warmed throughout the day. The whole yard smelled like licorice-- and it was delightful. 
Several things have been consuming me the past few weeks. Good things and less-good things, but mostly I squint and focus real hard on the good things, and it's enough.

• Finding new ways to get moving, now that I can't rely on the garden-- and the house painting-- for my daily calorie off-load. Last winter I did-- and deeply enjoyed-- a weekly Zumba class, which I'm looking forward to starting again, now that I have time for it again. Yesterday, Del and I joined the twice-weekly "Dog Hike"-- a pack of dogs and neighbors who hike a 1 1/2 hour loop made of old farm roads just outside town. They meet at 7:30am, which is usually about the hour I open my eyes, but yesterday I capitalized on Daylight Savings Time and we got ourselves down there. It was a blast. 
• After the bottom essentially fell out of my freelancing income a month ago-- thanks mostly to poor planning on my side-- I've managed to work myself back up to where I was before by taking on new clients and crossing my fingers, hard. I have decided I am going to work as hard, and as much, as humanly possible this winter, so that maybe I won't have to work as hard in the springtime and summertime when it is much harder to commit myself to working.
• Maybe.
• This house-selling process has been complete torture. It feels cursed, somehow, like we're cursed to endure this seemingly endless pushing-back and pushing-back of our closing date, hoping and hoping and then hoping some more that we won't be asked to make any more concessions, that it won't fall through, that we won't be left at the altar. It has been two solid months of feeling strung-along and strung-out. It is so totally taxing, but the end is in sight.
• This Friday night, we are hosting just about everyone under 50 in this town (twelve people, ha) at our house for soup and bread. This year has brought some wonderful younger additions to the village, and-- maybe it's hard to understand if you don't live someplace so small-- I am so eager for all of us young families to forge the kind of relationship where we can call for favors, exchange babysitting, drop off a dozen eggs without having to ask, and share our strengths and talents with each other. This town really does have the best people.
• A couple weekends from now, my parents and Patrick's parents and my aunt are coming for pre-Thanksgiving (not actually Thanksgiving, just an excuse for me to bake PIE) and I am very very excited. I love hosting Christmas, but I miss cooking Thanksgiving.
• Christmas is coming, too, along those lines-- and I have decided that everyone on my list is getting a gallon of frozen green beans, or a gallon of frozen broccoli, from the garden. Because that is what I have, stacked up like lumpy green throw pillows, in my chest freezer.
• I might be kidding about that one.

So that's what's been consuming my focus the past several weeks. I am looking forward to starting in on some indoor projects-- touch-ups and a little bit of sewing and crafting and rearranging-- and I am looking forward to that closing, still dangling like a gilded carrot out ahead of us... still a possibility...

Fingers crossed.

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