I don’t mind the pumpkin spice thing. I enjoy the spices involved. That’s the thing though, they ARE spices, not pumpkin. The spices you use to make pumpkin pie! Which evidently if it comes from a can isn’t actually pumpkin, but is squash…and as if there’s a big problem with that? I’m just beyond caring about these things. I like pumpkin pie. Maybe I’ll make one soon. I even have a little can of something called “Pumpkin pie spice”. I won’t be angry to learn it isn’t full of pumpkin pie.

It’s easy to get worked up about things these days, isn’t it? And there’s plenty of important and terrible things to get worked up about. I feel like instead though often people get worked up about little things, like pumpkin spice lattes or straws, that aren’t as important in the big picture. I went out to dinner last night at a place that didn’t provide straws for their drinks except by request. Great! Sometimes I don’t actually need three straws per meal. They did provide unlimited paper napkins though, and also my drink was so full of ice that with every sip the ice uncomfortably hurt my nose. Not a huge problem, no, and I definitely could have asked for a straw but I didn’t. I don’t eat meat for environmental reasons (though I do eat seafood, which is probably not great) and I don’t have children…my personal impact on the world is less than many. It’s hard to know what to do, isn’t it? I know what NOT to do: vote for people who don’t care about the climate or who think man-made climate change isn’t real. But I don’t know what actually to do. Was it worth my annoying drink? Should restaurants use less ice in their drinks?? And I’m not going to carry around a straw…I know I probably should, and I should carry a small container for leftovers when eating out. It’s hard to do all the right things…and many of the wrong things…and then still feel like nothing matters.

That’s not why I sat down to write, but I think a lot of us feel the same: we aren’t sure what to do. We recycle, then evidently we are recycling wrong. We want to buy local, but we can’t find what we need and we don’t have the time. So we use Amazon, oh, and look, you can have everything shipped all at once on one day, great! and then oops, they decide to ship it all separately anyway, so each item is individually packaged. That’s okay, you’ll recycle the boxes, besides the cat loves them…and we just constantly feel like we are failing. I know we are just failing in our impact on the world, and I feel helpless to stop it. Maybe I need a support group!

So, lately I’ve been pretty darn busy with work. I’m playing a broadway which started last week and goes through this week, so that means I’m burning the candle at both ends. I had a variety of early morning activities last week as well, and a few later this week. My teaching load isn’t too bad generally, but I have three mornings I have to get up early to teach. It isn’t bad, and I know many people get up early for various jobs and then work out before as well, but how many of them then work until 10:15 pm? Would you believe some people think musicians and artists are lazy? (Well, to be fair, some are, but not the working ones). Monday was great because one of my colleges was on fall break so I got to sleep in a bit, go  for a long run, and then catch up on all the home and work related things I hadn’t been able to do for about 5 days. I also had time to read and do a bit of crafting and talk with my sister Leslie and niece over facetime.

I’ve been working on a few projects with cross stitch and needle felting lately. I got a needle felting project last Christmas as a gift from Leslie and had been avoiding it because I didn’t know how. I finally dived in a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I am planning a few more things after I finish making all the hedgehogs. I am trying to spend my random bits of free time during the day more productively than simply scrolling on my phone. I find I’ll have 15 minutes here or 30 minutes there and I would like to have more hobbies than simply “read” (which I adore and is my favorite thing). I have spent time in the past by practicing, but sometimes I don’t want to do that either or my body needs a break. We’ll see how this hobby lasts…I am often picking up and dropping new hobbies but in the meantime, I’m enjoying myself, and stabbing a small hedgehog all over with needles is rather satisfying.

Since I’m used to working on things on a slow scale, that didn’t take very long at all: two weeks maybe? But I thought it was funny enough to start with. I’m doing a Halloween stitch right now, and have two more on order, one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas. I’ve been getting kits from Etsy for now.

I do feel like I mostly come here on the blog to sort of clear my head and complain about random things. The truth is that right now I’m feeling pretty good about my life and how things are going. I don’t have too many things I want to change overall, and I feel good about the direction my career and finances are going: I am teaching fun students, many of whom have been with me for years. I’m playing interesting jobs with many colleagues who I genuinely like, and though I’d love to have more time off, my schedule right now works with Louie’s schedule as he is also very busy during the school year. So down the road I will look to downsize and to cut back, but right now I’m working hard, saving money, and staying organized.

And can you believe it’s October already? The Arch Cup is almost here for my students…I was a little hard on one of them yesterday and feel a bit bad about that. Louie’s birthday is at the end of the month and we have some fun stuff planned, and then it’s Halloween and all. I love fall and (honestly) pumpkin stuff and so I’m happy.