ramblings from an arkansas farm girl
Good morning, Sunday Letter friends—
I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving (or at least survived it).
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. I love this time of year as we begin to anticipate the Christmas season and the birth of Jesus. The word Advent is derived from the Latin word “Adventus” which means coming in Latin.
My house is still decorated for Thanksgiving but over the next few days, I will put away the turkey decor and bring on the holly-jolly.
But first…
Dear Sunday Letter friends,
This morning my heart is full of gratefulness, and I want to share it with you.
I just returned from a weekend nature-writing retreat at Rockvale Writers’ Colony in middle Tennessee. What a fabulous three days! I’ll probably write more about my experiences there, but for now I’ll just say I came home with a big dose of Vitamin N (Vitamin Nature). The owner of the colony referred to the experience as soul-keeping, and that’s exactly what it was, taking a little time to tend to myself, to immerse myself in nature, to just be.
You know, we go to the doctor to get our bodies tuned up. We try to eat right and get a little physical exercise, but how often do we do those things that really soothe our minds and souls?
Well, I intend to do a better job of it.
Now, as we approach Thanksgiving, I am ever-so-thankful for the way fall came on slowly this year, so slowly I worried we wouldn’t see fall color at all. And, as the leaves began to turn, they kept turning and turning until the landscape around our house truly became glorious. The color may even hang on until Thanksgiving.
Dear Sunday Letter friends,
Did you remember to fall back this morning? I’m not sure why we still observe Daylight Saving Time, but here we are, falling back. (And later, we’ll be falling asleep…) Gracie and Annabelle aren’t observing it, so for the next few days, we will be more out of sync than normal here in schnauzer world. For several days will we all be wondering, “Now, what time would it have been if we hadn’t set our clocks back?”
The math isn’t difficult but the brain confusion is real, y’all.
Last week brought lots of drizzle, our first frost, and our first freeze (at least at the airport where weather is recorded for posterity). You know what takes quite a bit of time to do? Moving all the outside potted plants indoors and finding a spot for them to live throughout winter.
Some, get to overwinter in the garage. Others, crowd inside the house. I’ve been trying to find sunny windowsills all week because this year, I refuse to completely turn over my kitchen to porch plants.
We shall see.
