Settling Into November.

Well, it's November with a vengeance, which means whyseriouslywhy new ground blinds and deer killing miscellany showing up on the doorstep every day, and Seth Nieman spending his very little free time staring at this view. 

(That is a decoy that also arrived from amazon, not a real deer. I have no idea how much it cost, but I deeply look forward to subsisting on ramen at this ripe old post-college age while everybody else is going to- inshallah- be stuck with venison for a long, long time.)

At any rate, the holidays are upon us so my days are a frenzy of school events I just heard about (get a load of this wildly disgusting "harvest meal" I drove an hour round trip to share)

and evenings overrun by kids I have to pick up after it's dark who clearly belong outside.

I miss summer already, and it's a bummer because I l-o-v-e the holidays. Daylight Savings Time, however, was clearly not conceived with working parents in mind, and it's the worst.

The weekend flew, but the best part was that the Dirtbag Ales Farmer's Market was still running due to unseasonably warm weather, and it's the best discovery ever. A groovy, low key celebration of everything local (including craft beers and live music), complete with toddler axe throwing,

way too much ice cream,

and pickup soccer games and wrestling matches and playgrounds and dog parks. (Plus, did I mention beer?) I'm already counting the days until warm weather and Sunday afternoons like these return...!

It was a low-key weekend at home that we probably needed to reset. It was also a reminder of all the things I appreciate about Fayetteville, my adopted home. Including random old bikers who let enthusiastic kids sit on their motorcycles on the side of the road

and friends who predate kids and are willing to, instead of painting the town these days, engage in the "worst kid toy ever" contest. This- beloved- pooping dog from Leslye is the current frontrunner. The kids love it. It is beyond terrible.

Still, my favorite photo of our Reasonably Chill Week is of storytime the other night. Ford now insists on wearing his homemade (with Grandma) superhero mask every night until bedtime, and it might be the cutest thing ever.