A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in one of our kitchen chairs, talking to my goddaughter on the phone, when I realized the chair was funky.  I guess that sometimes the funk in our lives goes unnoticed because we live with it day in and out so that it just becomes part of the landscape. 

Today, I took a took a sponged and a dishpan full of soapy water and scrubbed at least the top layer off.  We’ll really have to consider haivng the set sanded down and refinished when the kids get through the worst of their destructive stage.  I’m glad we had the forsight nine years ago to buy a solid wood set so that this is possible.  There was a lot of tempera paint on those chairs…the detritus of creative times past…kind of fun to reminisce about those old painting sessions as I scrubbed their remains away.

Anyway, this seemed somewhat apropos because us Orthodox folk will be headed into the Nativity fast.  We’ll take some time to inspect ourselves and find the funk that has become part of our interior landscape. I look forward to and dread it at the same time.

It’s definitely autumn here.  The air is cool during the day and downright chilly in the early morning.  I’m ready for it!

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

~Emily Bronte