Day 3 of Autumn

 The maple outside our window is starting to blush. It's just a hint, just a whisper, but it's there. The sky is high and clear, and it's slightly windy. Yes, this is Autumn. I love Autumn.

Today I'm going to talk a little bit more about journaling. 

On my Bucket List, there's "sharpen your observational skills by drawing". During the Victorian times, upper-class children were taught to draw and illustrate their journals because photography wasn't as normal as it is today :-D We have "the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady"

You can also practice some other skills with this:

- watercolor painting

- to observe and deduct like Sherlock Holmes

- drawing from memory (It's mostly a practice thing, but I have always wanted to be able to draw from memory, for example people's portraits - to draw accurate portraits of people I just saw once in the bus, or things like that. So that if I witness a crime, I could give the police a drawing that's as good as a photograph... But that would be useful with drawing animals as well. Wild animals don't tend to pose for a portrait :-D)

August 3rd is the International Beer Day and the Watermelon Day. There's plenty of beer related bucketlist goals, to me, brewing beer is the most interesting. On my bucketlist, and Autumn bucketlist is "learn to brew mead, ale, cider, wine". It takes about 4-8 weeks to brew beer from scratch, so if you start now, you can feast with your own homemade beer on October fest. (Also, August 6th is the Mead Day. Two flies with one swat, huh? :-D)

About watermelons. Learn to pick the best watermelon, and learn to conserve watermelon rind. There's plenty to do with that, both sweet and savory conserves. 

Day 2 of Autumn

 The best thing today was seeing a wild rat playing with two magpies. First I thought the magpies were harassing the rat, but then I saw how the rat stopped to wait for the magpies to catch up. :-D

In my October 2019 posts I'm talking about getting better with photographing. Start with October 1st, if you want to go through three different 30 days photography classes :-D Some links might be dead, but - that's internet. I'm sure you'll find something equivalent online.

Then some words about the Autumn Daily

- It is Ali Edward's December Daily, but adjusted for Autumn, so browns, oranges, reds and yellows, with a dash of burgundy, instead of green, red, white, silver and gold. Leaves instead of snowflakes. Forest animals, pine cones, and other Autumn imagery. You get the picture

- It is also for three months and not for one month

- Don't wait for the first day to begin it. Prepare it in good time beforehand. Get inspiration from Autumn themed scrapbooking pages and December Daily pages, collect Autumn themed imagery and scrapbook papers and other things you can think of using in your journal. It is totally fine to make the pages before, and just add the photos and journaling in December. Actually, it's better, because then you can make the pages when you have time and inclination, and it makes it easier, and thus more realistic, to journal the days. 

- Write a preliminary plan for what you want to photograph and journal about. For December Daily, there are several lists about Christmas traditions, like cookie baking and Christmas tree decorating, that can be planned on a certain day of December, and then, of course, you will have your December Daily page about that. 

- You can also leave the photographing for one day of the week... when you look at your journal many years later, no-one will remember or know about you "cheating". I suppose the only thing to change this is the weather. If snowfall is a rarity in where you live, you must go out and take photos of it when it happens. If there are some events on certain days, you have to photograph them when they happen. This is self evident, but most of the days can be photographed on the same day. (If you want to keep your "cheat" a secret, just see that the people in the photos aren't wearing the same things all the time :-D)

- Journaling is best done every day, because you will forget. It doesn't need to be complicated and fancy, just write something short about the things that made you happy that day. If you can't find anything that made you happy, make yourself happy. It could be anything, like the luxury of clean sheets on the bed. (We change the sheets every week, and it's still a luxury :-D). Or getting a special breakfast. Having a movie night. Finding a new, lovely book to read. You could also write quotes in your journal, like song lyrics or Autumn quotes you find online. 

Beginner's Guide to Creating a December Daily Album

It's that time of the year, again :-D

 It's 1st of August, the first day of my Autumn, Eve of Lammas. 

I'll try to tick off posts from my Bucket List - which you know is massive and in all ways rather stupid :-D - as I suffer from "Texas complex". Everything must be bigger and better and HYOUGE!!! 

So I have all kinds of things on my list, totally in spite of how realistic, rational, and reasonable any of them is. 

Now when I'm over 50, I have started to think that perhaps I could adjust my list to my circumstances, being that I'm not a North American 20-something. I'm past my child-bearing years, and I have no interest in visiting all of the United States, for example.

But - following the lead from the last effort of reaching a goal every day of a year, I'll follow the "national days" calendar etc. 

Also, the next three months, I'm trying to do my "Autumn Bucket List".

1) Write an Autumn bucket list

2) write a list of 92 things you love/like about autumn

1. Of course, the colors of Autumn leaves
2. Crispy air
3. Wind
4. Rain
5. Foraging - berries, mushroom, fruit
6. Back to school - school supplies
7. Autumn fashion; the preppy 40s style English country
8. Soup and freshly baked bread
9. Apples
10. Forest - follow a path
11. Hygge
12. The melancholy Autumn songs and music
13. Comfort food
14. Cuddling in a chair with a cat, blanket, a good book, and a cup of something warm
15. Harvest, all the root vegetables, cabbage etc.
16. Autumn flowers
17. Playing in the leaves
18. Calmness, peace, serenity
19. Lughnasadh
20. Mabon
21. Crayfish party
22. Rosh Hashanah
23. Mid-Autumn Festival
24. Oktoberfest
25. Hobbit Day
26. Halloween
27. Baking spiced things, like spice cookies, cinnamon buns, spice cake, carrot cake, pumpkin pie...
28. Mulled wine and apple cider
29. Cinnamon
30. Soft chunky socks
31. Community college / civic college / Worker's Institute courses start (or what ever it's called in English)
32. Homemaking
33. Books, especially cozy mysteries and children's books
34. Stars come out (I live in the Midnight Sun area. We don't see stars during the summer.)
35. Long cozy dinners 
36. Light through the windows
37. Game nights
38. Mist
39. Nesting
40. Cats
41. New beginnings
42. Layering clothes
43. Storms
44. Writing
45. Pumpkin spice
46. Knit stockings
47. Sweaters
48. Tweed
49. Knit tams
50. Salted caramel
51. Caramel apples
52. Candy corn
53. Pumpkins
54. Confort food; stews and casseroles
55. Roasted vegetables, roasted meat
56. Pie
57. Streusel cake
58. Afghans and blankets
59. Boots
60. Tartan
61. Peacoats
62. Apple cider doughnuts
63. Fire; fireplace, campfire
64. Chestnuts
65. Sunsets
66. Sunrise with the glistening frost
67. TV season starts
68. Chili and biscuits
69. Hikes
70. Chai lattes
71. Tights and skirts
72. Corduroy
73. Smoke
74. Lazy brunches
75. Trains
76. Scavenger hunts
77. Geocaching
78. Cooking, especially slow cooking complicated recipes and many course dinners
79. Canning, preserving
80. Gratitude
81. Puzzles
82. Museums
83. Too cold for bugs, warm enough to be outside and enjoy the sun
84. Bike rides
85. Crafting season, knitting, crocheting, sewing...

The best part of today was when my cat went behind the washing machine - it had moved away from the corner enough for her to get behind it - and was purring loudly, and the washing machine was amplifying the purring :-D It sounded as if the washing machine was purring. I love that silly cat.