Love Letter

Dear November,

Just when I think I am ready to end the on\off love affair we have, you give me a morning like today.

I was done with you yesterday. Not the I'm mad at you and gonna sulk until you pay attention to me done. Not the I just need to be mad for a while and then I will get over it done. Completely done!

Done with the adjustment to day light savings time. Done with your one day warm, and the next freezing. The crazy busy schedule that comes with every day another birthday or holiday. But most of all done with the fall cleaning. The cleaning that my husband feels is necessary every November because we host a birthday party and Thanksgiving just weeks apart.

Cleaning that means every inch of the house has to be taken apart and scrubbed. Not just the obvious places and things. I mean taking everything out of the cabinets, scrubbing the cabinets, washing every dish even though it was just washed the prior day before it is allowed back into the now pristine cabinet. Washing all the windows and walls!

The satisfaction that comes when we are done pales to the amount of time and energy expounded becuase within a day the toys have crept back into the family room, and the dresser drawers are a mess again from the kids pawing through them looking for clothes. I know the carpets will have to be steam cleaned again the morning of the birthday party or Thanksgiving. Not because they are dirty, but so they look just right when people arrive.

I allowed my aggrivation with cleaning, crazy schedules and stupid traffic blind me to your beauty November.

The beauty that comes when even though the trees are mostly bare, the ground is carpeted in leaves. The way the sun just coming up takes up the entire horizion as a red ball without being blinding. When fog shrouds the fields and appears to soften everything it touches.

November, I love the smell of apple pie baked with apples picked fresh from the orchard. The love and the laughter that comes when the entire family is gathered for the holidays. You may not blanket the ground in snow and make everything look pristine like December does. However, you do give us days when we wake up to frost covering our windows and the ground, but at lunchtime we can go out without a coat.

So November, my sweet November, I am not done with you. Even though I get moody and may not like you every day, I will miss you when you are gone.