It's been an amazing Autumn for the Chicago area this year. Our temps have been runnning in the upper 60's (or better) for the last 6 weeks with beautiful blue skies and gorgeous red, orange and golden foliage everywhere you look. I mean, flowers are still blooming!

But yesterday, Mother Nature woke up and realized something was not quite right and it turned cold and gray and rainy. Just like that. She's a trickster, that Mother Nature. I spent the entire day indoors, doing a craft show with Big Girl. When I went into the Craft Show at 7:30am, it was brisk, but still nice enough to not need a jacket. When we exited nine hours later, it was C.O.L.D. It was windy and you could tell it wanted to snow. If you live around here, you know that feeling...

And today...holy cow. It was super cold and really windy. The Hubs and I fished this afternoon over at Crappie Lake. I had on 3 layers under my winter parka and my winter boots, so my body was warm enough, but hoo-boy, my hands were numb! (And every cast came back all weedy, so I had to get the gook off every single stupid time. News flash: really windy and cold plus wet equals blue, achy, fumbly fingers.) Nevertheless, I am still the reigning Crappie Queen, catching 16 or so, some very nicely sized.

But what is my point, you ask? What makes this blog-worthy? This is my aha! moment: walking into the Jewel tonight for tonight's dinner, I was resigning myself that this is it: Winter is right around the corner and I better just give in and accept it. And then I had this amazing sense of "right-ness". It is the middle of November and it ought to be darned cold and frankly, we should have had some snow by now. We Chicagoans accept and kind of embrace our wretched weather. Makes us tough, doncha know? It was such a cool, peaceful feeling to recognize the continuity, aka stability, of the seasons.

Accepting Winter makes me realize so much: that Christmas is coming: yay! Soon, there'll be that first glorious snowy morning where everything is hushed and magical.
There'll be snowmen and frosty windows and Wrigley bounding through the drifts in a delirious frenzy. And Gracie will be turning Four!

We'll get another New Year and another chance to do things better and kinder and more intentional. And we'll be that much closer to the arrival of New Muffin on the Block, due in early April.

She is obviously a very bendy child. Just look at that leg-kick!

And a new Gingrich, due only a month later. Is there another child who can compete with our sweetheart grand-niece, Miss Greeley?

Every minute marks the passage of time, which we can never get back. But our traditions and memories are what make it all worth while. We better make the most of it while we can!

Stay warm, y'all!