I recently rejoined the workforce after our big move to Halifax, Covid-19, and a receding job market made job-hunting tough. I am now being paid to write, imagine that, and the job is great so far. It’s a contract job that goes until July, after which point I plan to go visit Finn in Chicago for a week or so. We plan to drive down. Anyway, I love my team. I cannot emphasize that enough. They are all so cool, and the team is based in Halifax. Once the pandemic hit, I guess they voted to work from home, so that’s a plus for me, especially with a short-range electric car. I wake up in the morning, start a fire in the stove, and log in for a very fast day of meetings and training and a few tasks. Working from home is a thing I really enjoy, and I have no distractions.
The past few months have been busy with, first, company in late August and into September, and then, simply, the changing of seasons. I would say that we’ve been super busy winterizing the garden, but I haven’t even done that yet. I did harvest everything. The final harvests were the corn and the last of the turnips and beets. I just have to go dig up the plants and compost the garden with leaves. I did that last year on November 23, and I’m waiting a bit longer because, although it’s definitely autumn and cold enough for hard frosts, our leaves haven’t fallen much quite yet, not enough for big piles of them as we had last year. Today after work, I put our pumpkins in the compost. We had carved two, and they were already getting moldy.
So here I sit with a glass of Nova Scotian wine called Ceilidh. It’s just a red wine, no particular grape, but it’s pretty good and I try to buy local as much as possible. I bought this one because of the name of it and remembering those wonderful Ceilidhs we went to a couple months ago in Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island. My office space, which is part of the study or den, is cozy and warm. I woke up to a misty yard this morning. Before I took the photo below, I thought it was a thin layer of snow but couldn’t tell because it was too dark still.
I’ve really been into the seasons, surprise surprise! I already bought Christmas presents for my children. I ordered off Etsy. It’s a wonderful way to buy unique and tailored gifts from indie creators. I am not buying really for anyone else, except Morgan, but am making soaps, candles, and foods this year to mail out to family in Canada. It’s always going to be coffee for my family in the states, haha.
I also invested in a rowing machine for me, which I hope will be delivered before the end of the year. It’s a wooden Water Rower, and I’ve been wanting one since Vancouver days when I used to work out at the gym on one when it was too icy to run outside. I still dream of running again someday. But my left foot isn’t really healed, and anytime I’ve tried to restart the 5K program this year, I’ve hadpain for days. The rowing machine is a whole body workout, and I’ve always like paddling, so who knows. I’d love to get my core strength back up. Then it would make things like running and possibly actual paddling easier.
It seems so weird that it’s already November. This Saturday we’re hanging out with some friends, and on the Saturday after American Thanksgiving I’m making another big turkey dinner and having our friends and their kids over. Then, it’s like the holiday season. It’s also NaNoWriMo this month, and though I’m not doing a whole 50K book, I am going to finish The Stolen Child and have it ready for a rough draft preview for someone in December.
Well that’s enough writing for one evening. Sorry to be so slow on the blog these days, but I’m keeping so busy otherwise. Enjoy another pic of the beauty around here during this time of year.
