Bits of Ordinary

Apologies for the quiet, dear readers.  It's been a quiet sort of start to November.  Sandwiched in between our extra-long Halloween and the early, brilliant-white start to winter this weekend, our family enjoyed two weeks of ordinary life.  While I'm not doing particularly well with daily gratitude journaling this November, I do want you all to know that I have been grateful for each of these days of calm, the blessings of an ordinary life.  I've not necessarily been grateful for all of the dishes done by hand (thank you broken dishwasher!) or for the early dark and tired evenings (thank you daylight savings time!)... but rather for the health and happiness of my family, for our community, for our friends, for my growing children, for glowing leaves in fading fall light.  

Here are some bits of the ordinary for you:

Cleveland Heights Chili Cook-off.

Here's Ivy helping to pull raffle tickets.  Attending this fundraiser at our local community center has become a tradition for our family.  Its a small event, cozy and fun, an easy way to see a few neighbors, meet local restaurant owners, and show our support for this community.  It's also become a tradition to win something at the raffle.  In fact, in this picture Ivy is about to draw her own name for a Spring sports registration.  She exclaimed, "Oh good!  Now I can play soccer!!"  

 An aforementiond trip to IKEA.

The silver lining of daylight savings time:  extra time to drive to Pennsylvania.  Lovely day for a drive.  New bed pictured here?  Still in boxes.  At least we've gotten the carpet up out of the room...

Morning walks in the metroparks..

The other silver lining of daylight savings time:  more light in the morning, allowing me to sneak in extra sleep by skipping the gym in favor of a walk in the woods.  Metroparks conveniently located on the way to work helped to justify this, as did the fact that I'll have all winter to work out indoors.  A brisk walk may not burn the calories of a run on the treadmill, but it is certainly better for the soul.  Especially when the morning sun sets the trees afire.  

 Piano Lessons:  If you do it for one, you'd better be ready to do it for both... Jack was inspired by watching Ivy's second lesson and so we signed him up too.  Now we start our week with an hour at Miss Kathy's house on Monday evenings, as the kids alternately work at the piano, or do quiet work in the other room with me.  The lesson hour is a relaxing respite.  The "trying to get them to practice all week" part?  Not so much.  Jack's perfectionism makes every practice session a struggle, but he is motivated by mastery of each piece and, so far, has kept coming back to work on his goals each time he breaks down.  We'll see as things get harder.  I hope he can learn something of perserverance and the value of mistakes-as-learning through this experience... but I know better than to expect that as piano lessons never seemed to do that for me...

Ivy, on the other hand?  unfazed by mistakes or her very incremental progress (Kathy says to never fear, she's so young...). She's equally excited to work at the piano and to sit with me and create things like this spectacular cat...

Birthdays!  Ivy woke up on November 8th and declared, "My friends are 5 today!!"  (didn't hurt that we'd seen them just the night before and she'd been reminded, many times, of the upcoming celebrations...)
We had a grand time at their "ice cream party" to celebrate...

It's hard to believe these two are those same tiny tiny babies we met 5 years ago.  They are still amazing in every way.

Book sales!  Because what we need, is more books.

I think we have a problem.

I just love this picture. Tiny girl with a tiny book.

 Evenings out with friends...

We enjoyed a stunning fall evening downtown, with time for a walk around the new Mall and Convention Center(quickly becoming one of my favorite Cleveland spots) and then a meetup with Jamo and Casey, in town on their way back to DC, at Greenhouse Tavern.  We shared a pig's head (and wings of course) and a few rounds of fancy cocktails, and the worst dessert I've ever had (aptly named the "leaf pile") before hosting our friends for the night.

Jamo and Casey are really wonderful people.  Wishing we could see them more often, but grateful for the time we had...

Stay tuned for an onslaught of pictures and videos celebrating the first snow of the season.

(I am trying hard to celebrate it, instead of just dreading what may be a very long season of dreadful commutes... wish me luck!)