The Chronicles of Janie

Today I helped with the Fall Festival at church. I was working at the bean bag toss all day long. Coaching lots of sugar-filled kids in hurling bean bags through holes is not exactly my forte, but I survived. Fortunately, I had Helen Capps to help me, and she is lots of fun. It is probably good for me to do things that I'm not gifted at every once in awhile. It keeps me humble, if nothing else! :) Aster in costume... Sorry about the glare. :( However, it does look better when enlarged.

Today Natasha, Aster and I went on a walk down Bucklick School road (one of the innumerable unpaved county roads around my house). We got as far as Bucklick Creek, where we stopped to take pictures and examine the hole of some mysterious animal (there were no tracks, so alas, it will probably remain unidentified). We passed trees flaming with gorgeous fall colors, pastures of very friendly and inquisitive horses, and around 80 wooly bear caterpillars which were either squished in the road or crawling frantically to safety. We wondered if seeing so many wooly bears was significant in some way. Perhaps we are in for a hard winter? Natasha said that she would Google it. When we got back to the house, Natasha's mostly accurate pedometer said that we had walked approximately 5 miles and taken over 2,000 steps. My apologies for the pictures being somewhat distorted. Natasha emailed them to me, since they were taken with her camera, and her computer sometimes does odd things to pictu...

I started a new blog for my poetry and stories. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get some constructive criticism on my writing (hint, hint). The address is: www.theaspiringbard.blogspot.com .

Another Dream Shattered.... Finally, someone has managed to photograph the pot at the end of the rainbow!

I had Kristin and Zhenya over this weekend. We stayed up 'til unearthly hours, played a rather boring game of paper telephone, laughed, talked, and in general had a great time. We talked a lot about the 'good ol' days' at camp, and Zhenya remarked that we sounded like a bunch of elderly people reminiscing about the golden days of our childhood. Somehow, we only seemed to remember the good and funny times. No one talked about dragging yourself out of bed in the morning to go catch a bunch of stubborn horses, or slogging around in ankle-deep mud while trying to keep the billowing skirt of your costume clean, or the many times when the showers arbitrarily decided not to yield any hot water. Funny how you only remember the things that you want to remember.

As is usual, Aster came over to socialize with us this evening, and I managed to talk her into posing for some pictures. Two Asters! A black n' white version of the first picture (obviously)! :)