Seasonal Contentment Syndrome

I was going to title this post "Contentment" and then I thought it seemed familiar so I looked back at previous posts and almost exactly a year ago I had a post with that very title. It wouldn't surprise me to find one with that title every October for as long as this blog has been around.

There is something about Octobers that amplifies all of my feelings. I love a little deeper, I smile a little bigger, I get a little quieter, I begin to slow down a little more and more than anything I feel a little more grateful. When you're grateful even chores can give you pleasure.

Things I'm grateful for today:
-A stormy Monday morning to begin a week with no obligations, other than the pleasant kind
-Lying on the sofa watching the rain fall through a crimson canopy of dogwood leaves
-Stairs for playing fetch with Clover when it's too wet to play outside
-Traveling with friends
-Traveling, just the two of us
-Having Emma home for the weekend
-Sitting on the sofa in the semi darkness with candles flickering and windows open
-Getting back to a routine
-Seeing the Village come alive in a riot of autumn color
-Studio time
-Finishing projects and beginning new ones
-Breakfast for dinner
-Solitude
-A husband who builds me a bonfire, tucks me in on a hammock, brings me wine in a jelly jar, delivers me a s'more and tells me I'm beautiful
-Thunder and lightning
-Contentment

So far life in the empty nest has been busier than I expected. I'm still figuring it out but truly enjoying the journey. I still long for more studio time and although Clover has calmed down considerably at the age of 2 (!!!), she still requires quite a bit of work and usually owns my mornings for the first two hours-if she has had the proper amount of physical and mental exercise. I'm so thankful that the hard core puppy days are behind us though. She's beautiful but...she's a pill. ;) The flow of life is different now. We are more spontaneous than before. There is a shift that happens when you don't have any children to consider. There haven't been a lot of weekends that we've been home and it's been just the two of us, but when it happens there is a lot of hobby time and an easy, unplanned flow to our days. While things are not getting marked off of our to do list with any regularity, we are enjoying every moment of it.

Autumn is well and truly here in the midwest. It seemed awfully slow in arriving but seems here to stay. This marks the beginning of my favorite time of year when I embrace all the cozy things. I was Hygge before I knew what Hygge was. What do you like most about this time of year? I'm looking forward to a week of granola and soup making, bread baking, autumn decorating, organizing, mending, yoga, making and a couples dinner. Simple pleasures. I even thought I might whip the studio into shape and do a little video tour that I will post over on youtube if you think you might be interested. I'll keep you posted.