Today is a stay at home day. Today is a stay in my cozies day. Reluctantly, I have also designated today the first cleaning day as I’ve decided to clean a room a day. The lucky room for today is the living room.

Today is a typical late fall day. It is 45°and cloudy. Through the window, the day looks uninviting. I’m happy to stay home.

When I was a kid, the time between Halloween and Thanksgiving was quiet. It was routine. The days were the same over and over. Weekdays were spent in school. Even the classes were in the same order every day except for art which was only once a week. We sat at our desks except for lunch and bathroom breaks. I remember those after lunch bathroom breaks. We were in single lines, boys on one side and girls on the other. We went in when someone came out. We couldn’t even talk in line. The nuns had perfected the LOOK. Once you got it, you stopped whatever you were doing. Afternoons after school were sometimes spent outside but this time of year were mostly spent inside watching TV. It was too cold to be outside. It was time to hibernate.

My neighborhood was filled with kids. Most houses had multiple kids. The backyard of every house was one big grassy hill shared between the houses up the hill and the houses at the bottom of the hill. One mother was a lawn tyrant. She claimed the lawn beyond the clothes line area was hers. She even put wooden stakes with string attached around the lawn. She’d scream out her kitchen window at any kid who dared to cross her lawn. It was greener than any other part of the yard because she watered it. The rest of the yard, the hill, only got water when it rained. In the winter younger kids sledded down the hill. No one started down the hill at her patch of yard. They started at the top behind the other houses. We older kids sledded down the street, a huge hill. We were a bit more reckless.

I have one more uke event this week. We are playing at the turnip festival on Saturday. That is always a fun time.

This entry was posted on November 20, 2025 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.