Friday

I wonder what happened to October? This morning, I regretted just throwing on a fleece. It felt like November out there.

Again I am heading for a week of few photos and fewer words. Several events conspire to take away bits and pieces of time that I usually eek out of each day for Ocean writing: friends are coming to town and when we have farmhouse guests, I find it tough to focus on posts. Too, my daughter is away on a business trip and I do want to help Snowdrop's dad just a little over the weekend. Both parents have more work on their plate than I do at the moment (well, I actually have no work on my plate) and so any help I can give them with Snowdrop care is appreciated.

(Truthfully, it's hard to think of Snowdrop time as a favor to anyone but myself, but it is true that the girl is too active to allow for writing time on her watch.)

My thoughts, too, are straying to Warsaw, where I do have friends and they do have lives and some have taken a turn for the worse, so tracking that now is really keeping me up at night.

And finally, I'm leaving town next Thursday and there's some minimal predeparture stuff to take care of, so if there were idle minutes before all this, well -- they've disappeared.

Onto the day!

Breakfast! Back on the Ocean menu of important events!






And a fond look at the flowers before they fade into nothing tonight. Nasturtium -- you were gorgeous!











Then, at Snowdrop's home, I get right to it: bath, food, play -- all of it. (She's in post-bath recovery mode here!)






She and I spend a wonderful afternoon exploring each corner of her living space, because the girl seems to thrive on that level of detail. A tiny bit of dry leaf? A shoelace? A coaster? All exciting!

(And the baby favorite: helping fold clean laundry.)






(I'm on her side in the next photo duet. She was playing with the pumpkins. He got into her play space!)











(Here she is -- bursting with energy.)






(And here she is, reminding me that perhaps now's the time to roll out the winter cap. It's windy and cold out there!)







In the evening, I spend too much time on dinner. Cleaning and slicing raw artichokes has to be one of the more tedious vegetable preps on the planet. Still, over pasta, with pecorino cheese...






It's a soul warming dinner. And that's such a good thing.