Me & Will at "Take Apart Day" in Science class last spring. Please note that I'm wearing long johns and he's wearing shorts.

Two days ago it was sunny and 85 degrees; today it was rainy and 49. I have mixed feelings about this. While I'm very happy that fall is here, I would prefer it to come in a bit more gradually, with long stretches of sunny days in the mid-sixties.

I don't know why I have these sorts of expectations; the weather so rarely cooperates. And when it is perfect, you start to take it for granted, like, "Oh, of course this is how it is; isn't this how it's supposed to be? Isn't this what we're owed?"

Anyway. The boys had the day off school. This morning Will worked on his jungle diorama, which he's making just for fun, and Jack slept. This afternoon Will went bowling with his friend Gavin and Jack computed. I prepared for my Monday night Bible study. It's called Disciples II, and it's the same group from last year, when we did Disciples I. The problem being with the same group of people is that we all like each other a lot and spend too much time chatting and laughing.

For Disciples II, we're reading Genesis, Exodus, Luke and Acts over a 36-week period. Right now we're in the Abraham cycle. My favorite part of our reading this week was when Sarah overhears God telling Abraham she's going to have a son and laughs. When God asks her if He just heard her laugh, she's all, Oh, no, not me, I wasn't laughing. And God says, Au contraire, I think you were.

It cracked me up.

***

I spent a lot of time this weekend making art. I'll have to take some pictures and post them. Not this it's great art; I'm just happy to be making it. I made a shadowbox a la Joseph Cornell and a lot of trading card-sized collages. I love collages. I also love making stuff just to make it--not to sell it, not to give it away, not for any purpose whatsoever. My niece and I started trading artist cards this summer, and over the weekend I altered an Altoids tin and pasted pictures in it, then typed up several poems I like in very tiny print, cut them out, rolled them up into little scrolls and put them inside. My niece is writing poetry, and I want to encourage her.

One of the poems I included was actually an excerpt from an e.e. cummings poem I loved when I was young, "my father moved through dooms of love." Because you are poetry-loving people, I shall share the excerpt with you:

An excerpt from [my father moved through dooms of love]

By e.e. cummings

my father moved through dooms of love

through sames of am through haves of give,

singing each morning out of each night

my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where

turned at his glance to shining here;

that if (so timid air is firm)

under his eyes would stir and squirm

…

my father moved through theys of we,

singing each new leaf out of each tree

(and every child was sure that spring

danced when she heard my father sing)

…

I remember reading this as a kid and having no idea what e.e. cummings was talking about but still loving it like crazy.

***

The coffee experiment is going well. I've been drinking it almost every day, and my stomach is fine. I'm still sticking to my plan of starting the morning with tea. Coffee kind of pushes you out the door with a big jolt. Tea is much more civilized. As another one of my favorite poets, Theodore Roethke says, I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow ...

I'm starting to think about all the things I need to do for Christmas. Are you?