This writing is helpful because it certainly does keep one on track.

This morning the energy level is abit low as I was awake to 2 AM re-designing my weblog.

Really have to be aware of energy level today and make sure I nap before heading off to the Welcome Wagon Show.

So in the next 5 hours I will:
• Buy milk, and cheese
• Take dogs for long walk in ravine
• Bring a coffee
• Mail letters
• Deposit cheques
• At bank pay phone bill, transfer funds
• Pick up box and display from church
• Print gift certificate
• Look at MP list and if not calling, at least do forms
• Dog food/swim certs
• Book massage for next week
• Have things ready by 3:30 PM and NAP
• Others???

Insights…the usual but more…space needed for unplanned events ( e.g.
friend's illness & hospitalization, M’s visits, dogs digging up
yard & need to replant tulips,  toting & shredding mail from
front gate....do they know it was the newsletter from the humane
society?  ) and awareness of my own energy level. I probably have accomplished
things this last week because some other events e.g. client appts. 
a dental appt. got cancelled allowing me that extra time or margin.

tomorrow I will no doubt pay for my late hours devoted to putting it together. Spent some time exploring many different themes and liked this one because it very much reflects the  warmth and hunkering down of the changing  fall season. Hopefully I will now be able to edit and change headers as the winter approaches or I head north.

Just a few shots of the outdoors these days...Front yard lombardi polars just turning...  Self portrait with coffee cup...can you spot it?    and a fallen spruce dpwn the block after the recent wind storm with gusts of 50 - 70 kms/hr.

the blue sweetsimplicity skin that is....had been experimenting with different skins through look and feel etc. and it was all in a simple check mark...do you want to make this one active! Un-check it!

I was experimenting with editting the look of my blog and I regretfully lost the sweetsimplicity theme on my public preview.... so it may take some time which I DO NOT have tonight to restore or create a new look....please be patient!

Just plain fun....The dogs were abit confused at these flying poppable things that kept disappearing despite attempts to catch in my kitchen last night. Doing abit of sorting after being at the church rummage sale with Makayla and a small bottle of bubbles produced a sticky floor but much amusement.       

This week I started my “ to do “ written list again and with interest, noted last time I did it was late April, and again May 2008.

So my life does have cycles and predictable but I will move through them.

OKAY what is the push and what is the resistance. The push is the inner voices or at times, external  “ shoulds and ought tos” The resistance is the wanting to “ hold on to”s... the current situation or season. The fears or perhaps uncertainty, is that in 8 weeks it will be a week  before Christmas,  and will I be north or here?

Of course, I feel like nothing yet has come together, have a tentative contract,  but no house sitter here and/or dog sitting/housing arrangement there. And the many events and arrangements between now and then.

When I discovered the frozen plants on the back porch, after the weekend in Rocky, I finally did realize that indeed again doing too much holding on to my summer as often I do. The humour in this, is when I saw my Italian neighbour friend Rosanna, legs sticking out of a garden umbrella to protect some last of vegetables from frost….her husband said it is just stubbornness but I think something else….what does the earth, yards, flowers provide?

But these I can let go though not always willingly…which leads me to some other notes...

Planning Principles:

• Time and energy are finite and need to be focused in the right direction.
• Keep planning private until schedules confirmed. Allows my own control and centeredness in the midst of uncertain events.
• Make decisions as best I can, based on the information I have and let the rest go and somehow still build margin in, LIKE THE GARDEN AND CHANGING SEASONS
• Do not let others sense of urgency or priority become my own
• Do what I need to do to have surface sense of organization without panic
• Do the higher priority items first so that will get some clarity in
        bigger picture
• Keep open list of client to dos
• Keep open list of personal to dos
• Add events to daytimer
• Respond to e-mails and phone messages but establish priority
• Do NOT get distracted
• Meditate, nap, play piano, get outside to do yard, walk dog, exercise, run, bike, write in journal or blog
• Attend to “to do “ list, but recognize will only probably get 70% done of the list
• Set aside some time to think about goals, planning, dreams and write them down

Alberta weather is pretty consistently frosting every night. When I got back from my weekend drive to Rocky I was somewhat dismayed to discover that several potted plants that I had covered on the back deck were quite dessimated by the frost. These are some of shots of them from late September. Yesterday as it hit about 13oC for a few hours and had a chance to do some more raking, clipping and digging of those  hollyhock stems and final small baby potatos, I thought of how gardens are great lessons in holding on and letting go.

This is part of a piece I wrote last year about this time.

"May I remember thankfulness of your presence, as I sip my orange juice and morning coffee or tend the fading garden and prune the cherry and wild rose bushes, now with leaves turned, and branches bare, shorn and discarded. Shorn and discarded, the process of pruning, cutting away diseased limbs, a necessary process, dear Lord, as I struggle to hold onto the last remnants of summer and resist the change of the coming season of darknessRemind me, in gentle moments that I am but the pot and you, the potter, I am the delicate colored sea shell but you control the waves, the tides and the seasons. As I move towards the light of morning in appreciation and thoughtfulness, abba father and wise mother, I will listen. Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know"

Hi,

I am a volunteer with
the Iqaluit Humane Society. We regularly ship dogs to Ottawa for
adoption. We often have the most incredible animals, sled dogs, Nunavut
dogs, and just plain mixed breeds. We need sponsorship as at present,
it is our own money that feeds and houses the animals. If you can help,
or if you want to adopt a dog, please contact me at the following
address

Lorne MacLeod
Box 922
Iqaluit, NU
X0A 0H0
lmacleod@gov.nu.ca

We are the only shelter in Nunavut and need help.

What do I love about the wind.... I love
     - the smell of freshly blown dried sheets and T-shirts fresh off the line,
     - the feel of wind on my face and hair when riding my bike,
     - the wind on a crisp summer day in the arctic when hiking because it means no mosquitos,
     - the tingly afterglow of a sun and wind burn after a good x-c ski,
     - the swaying of the Lombardi poplars in my front yard,
     - the gentle falling of dried leaves across my path when walking in the fall and crunching on the path,
     - closing my eyes to hear the rustling on a spring morning,
     - the line of windmills powering electricity in southern Alberta near Pincher Creek
     - the push it offers when behind in a bike ride, run or ski,
     - when government offices are closed due to a blizzard day,

I hate it when...
     - I have to bundle up more walking to work in the north and one spot escapes like my nose or space on my wrist not fully covered and      frost bite patch develops,
     - vehicles don't start due to cold and high winds, or 
     - trees are broken, oceans rise, and there is tragic loss of life and property damage with hurricanes and tsunamis

One of my favorite passages in the Bible John 3:8 compares God's Spirit
to the wind, in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, " the
wind blows where ever it wishes: you hear the sound it makes but you do
not know where it comes from or where it is going, it is like that with
everyone who is born of the Spirit..."

I thought about this passage as I went about some of my activities this past weekend.

A  A windstorm in Rocky last August caused much damage to several cabins including 30-year-old cabins in senior boys camp, fortunately all of whom were gone on outtrips. Over 50 trees had to be felled in the cleanup including this sample of one of the stumps cut down in aftermath.

Sunday morning shown here about 8 AM....  it was raining but calm on the lake, so I decided to take a two hour paddle around the perimeter.  Wet, cold and silent, I could hear that gentle breeze moving through the reeds near the shore, watch muskrats dart in and out near the shore or curiously peer out from underneath a pier of these cottages across the lake from the camp. Fall  mirror like reflections included spruce and yellow turning larch trees and a fallen weathering worn spruce or pine tree.
Coming back into the dock just before the lunch bell and later yet another of those famous sunsets on Crimson Lake, I thought again about the power of the wind and the value of silence...." Be still and know that I am God."

Pumpkin decorations for Thanksgiving weekend before and...after carving.

Decided at the last minute on Friday, as weather was reasonable to take the dogs and drive down to the camp at Rocky Mt. House.

It was a reunion weekend for a number of the high school aged summer campers. Here with Morgan who was a great walker of my dogs.

 Wondered if  I could help out as had last done in May and indeed there were two flower beds that needed to "be put to bed!" Here are some of my shots.
The rocky flower bed before fall digging included Baby's breath and day lilies all now downed by frost. Roundabout in early morning frost...same bed I dug in May work weekend and separated irises. I cut back tops of plants first because the ground was quite frozen until early afternoon when the sun had been out a few hours. Dysis tied in fall leaves and a watcher but hitched to a wagon wheel decoration, Nanuq was not quite as content

An inquisitive whiskey jack spied my lunch as went for a walk with dogs and sat in this stump turned into a lovely chair and one of the brush clearing projects

While I ate the dogs did a mad run in circles which included in and out of the water and

making mad leaps of surprise attacks on the other one!

Meanwhile, "back at the ranch" upon my return, another crew had arrived with a rototiller, Kate and family while I had gone for the walk with the dogs. They not only did the iris bed but a good start on the other one, amazing what four bodies and a machine can do! However was told that they expected to do 2 days of work and my prep work reduced this to just one! and on Sunday did some more pruning, trimming and edging.