November

 Hi everyone! It's November!Ah....November.

I LOVE November (despite the oh so annoying time change. Do we really want sunset at 3.30? Really?).
Am I the only one who loves this time of year?

(That said my marsh photos today are less than stellar. It was very windy so everything is out of focus. May be Santa will bring me a better camera this year?)

Anyway, back to the beauty of mid-autumn, blustery beautiful November. November is just about perfect here! Yes we have a few frigid nor'easters and the wind blows strong and chill. Kind of exciting? A definite change from hot sunny summer days.

Time to stay home and cook or sew. Stormy days are treasured here.

 But most days are warm-ish, with brilliant blue skies and amber sunsets; the nights are cold and perfect for sleeping deep and well. And the month includes that special-est of holidays, Thanksgiving---a day of family and friends together, with almost no commercial hype attached.

One of my best childhood memories is about November:
I was maybe seven. Every Saturday my mother would shop at a local market that had fresh produce and a traditional German butcher shop. I'd tag along---my parents weren't ones for spending the weekends shuffling us to soccer or horseback lessons, like some of my friends got to do. My brother and dad ''worked on cars'' and my mom and I did the weekly chores.

 In the butcher shop there was a rack of cheap toys: "impulse buys"--- and all fall I'd yearned for a tiny doll I found there. She was just a soft plastic or rubber doll, her face was painted on. But she had big blue eyes and  gorgeous long red chestnut ''saran'' hair, in a pony tail and she came with a tiny pearly blue brush and comb and miniature rubber bands. She was dressed in a yellow dotted swiss ''organdy'' dress and wore little white knickers; she had painted on black mary jane shoes. She hung there on that crummy rack with stupid finger puzzles and candy cigarettes, in a little plastic bag with a paper top. I even remember the paper being red and cream, once white I suppose.

Oh I loved her! I wanted her so bad. I just knew she was the perfect size---6"---for sewing tiny clothes.

Not only didn't my mom do soccer she was not one to give in to begging for special treats, even if they cost only pennies. [I bet back then that doll cost like 99 cents or less?]. We got lavish treats for Easter and Christmas and our birthdays. Period.
But that day---I don't know why---(had we gone to the dentist?) ---my mom gave in and bought me that doll. I LOVED her, and sewed for her for many years. She had a golden bangle bracelet, some sort of large washer I'd found. Yes I was a scavenger even back then !

I named her November. Because she came home with me on that brilliantly blue windy cold day, when the high clouds scudded over the prairie, followed by magical cloud shadows and masses of swirling red leaves.

I hope my mother felt vindicated, giving in just that once? Or maybe she neither knew nor cared. Maybe she was sad because I loved this penny doll even more than I loved my beautiful Madame Alexander "Cissie" and "Ginny" (though I loved them too). When you're seven you don't notice these things.



marsh mallow pods

A small thing. But special to me.

Did you have a favorite doll? Besides Barbie? Did you sew for her? Or maybe someone sewed the tiny clothes for you?

unpopped bittersweet

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

 

Mo is cold, poor California puppy.
I had to turn the heat on for him!
Two months early, sigh.