OK, I'm trying really hard to find some November Love

It is hard though - November is usually one long month of grey.  And grey is DEFINITELY NOT one of my favorite colors.  And then the greyness just lingers for months after November too.  Until April at least.  So when I see it on the first few mornings of November, I know that it means all the loveliness of Fall that I love is over.  And now all the leaves will fall off, it will get dark so early, and it will be cold.  And grey.

Thankfully, I've got fall vegetables to cheer me up! LOL I love roasted vegetables like nobody's business.  And soups.  Love all kinds of fall soups.  Love the taste of the fall vegetables in the soup plus I love how soup just warms you up from head to toe.  My personal fave is probably potato leek soup, but I love squash soup, broccoli and cheese soup, cream of celery soup, cream of chicken.  YUM.  I'm getting hungry, just talking about it.

We did our annual trying on of winter clothes early this year, so I already knew that the girls needed new winter coats.  I'd been really trying to get something decent at a thrift store, but happened on a sale, and managed to get them some very nice NEW coats.  We rarely do new clothes around here, so it was a special treat.  The girls both picked two different styles of black coats, but I know that we will have some trouble with them figuring out which one is theirs.  I had been encouraging them to get a different color than each other, but they didn't like the other ones.  So black it is.  And then, we get home and I'm hanging them up in the coat closet, and I started giggling.  I had bought myself a new winter coat last year at the end of season.  I had picked up, what we call around here, a "sleeping bag" coat for only $10! I forgot about it until I went to go hang up the girls' coats and guess what color it is? BLACK! LOL

Year round swimming continues for Super (8) and Jelly Bean (10).  We just finished a swim meet this past weekend.  They both did great! I joked to Mr. Simple that it is much more fun to sit at a swim meet for 5 hours when the kids are swimming well than when they aren't! And Flower (13) is still enjoying all of her activities - drama club, scholastic bowl, piano lessons, youth choir.  She is having some 7th grade "drama" of her own (not her, but some situations at school.) Junior high is certainly something that you couldn't pay me to go through again, but I'm trying to help her navigate her way through it without being too imposing.  A bit of a tough line to walk. 

My job situation is still complicated.  I'll elaborate on another day.  I'm feeling a bit defeated about it all today.  On the other hand, I am still working on a short-term contract until the end of November, so that is a blessing.

Back to November.  I am trying to remind myself that one thing that I do like about the cold evenings is that we spend more time together - playing games, doing art, reading, handwork.  That almost makes up for the grey.  Almost.