Gearing up
It's October now, September is gone. I have all of my wood stacked for winter, and embarrassingly, I did none of it myself. Since that's my usual autumn physical activity, I'm more of a slug than ever. I paid Bill's Boys to stack the 4 cords I recently bought. They came at 10 Sat. morning and 2 of them stacked the whole pile in an hour and a half. It would have taken me probably 6 hours, cut up into half hour increments, to do that. So for $40 it's done. The epitome of laziness.

While they stacked I gardened. Dug holes in impossible places for my astilbe, baptisia, lilies, hostas and bugbane (also called snakeroot, the kind with dark purple foliage). The grass is so tall and thick that I couldn't tell where the stones marking the edges of the gardens were. Reminder to self: don't let the gardens get so out of control next year. As if. If I want to see the astilbe I'll have to make an effort to control the weeds. Anyway, now that's all done and I can stop feeling guilty about the little planties.

The day was beautiful, sunny and 60's so I got to spend some time reading on the deck. I have two books I have to review for Library Journal and am reading Peter Mayle's first. It's about Provence, about which I know nothing, and to my surprise I'm enjoying it. I've read enough to write the review but keep going--I don't know why, it's pretty much the same sort of stuff as you progress through the alphabet. The other is a biography of Robert Butler and I have no idea who he is so at least I'll learn that by reading it. I also have to read our book group book, and would like to read Nick Hornby's A long way down, which sounds strange but good. Plus Nancy Thayer's newest one and a couple of others I've snagged from the new book truck. Read on! Turn the television off. I also want to knit red scarves for the project Jenica brought to my attention in her blog. Must buy yarn tonight.

On Sunday we had a nice dinner at Ken's--Fred was there and we all enjoyed each other's company a lot. This week is Bill's birthday so Fred is hosting Weds. dinner. Bill's present hasn't come yet (I didn't get around to ordering it until way too late) but he knows what it is anyway. I'll get something small so he'll have presents to unwrap.

After dinner Ken and I went to a camp below my house because when the owners drained the water they forgot to open a valve under the camp. Ken asked me to crawl under and do it for him. That was no problem, but I'm so fat that I disgusted myself. So now I'm committed to losing weight and getting more exercise.

I'm proud to announce that I started my exercise plan last night. I worked until 5 so headed right to Lake Placid to walk with my friends. Oops--there was a message on my machine at home that they weren't going to meet me there. I didn't go home, though, so I got there and no one else was around. I decided to walk anyway, much to my surprise. It was a really nice evening, perfect temperature and very peaceful. There's a path that circles the lake and I started out thinking I would walk for 15 minutes then turn around. Once I got started, though, I decided to finish out the route. That's 2.7 miles, and I did it in 50 minutes, very proudly. I'd like to keep doing this so next week hopefully we'll all be together. LP is a long way to drive to walk 2.7 miles, so I'm going to try to walk at least a mile every evening at home. The boardwalk into the bog is a mile round trip so I should be able to do that. The dogs will love it. Tess can play tour guide, since she does that walk with strangers every weekend. She was gone for a few hours on Saturday and that's where she was. I got gas later in the day and at the gas station the man at the pump next to mine asked if that was Tess in the car, because he had just come from the bog. Dubious distinction, having the dog that walks with strangers all the time.

I'm getting ready for Columbus Day weekend. Talked to Rush for a long time, turns out he will be here after all. He's pretty sure to be re-elected so isn't campaigning as much as usual this time. Big party at Linda's Sunday night, our annual Thanksgiving dinner. 17 people expected. I usually have a cocktail party on the boat house porch before the dinner so will prepare for that, depending on the weather. Linda wondered if 17 people would fit on our porch, but I think we'll just cuddle up with each other. People love to be on that porch and we've had a nice time in the past so I'll plan to do it.

And now I have lots of cataloging to do. More stuff for the Robert Louis Stevenson collection, which is very intense. I like to put on my earphones and turn up the music so I'm in my own world and can concentrate. For some reason I always seem to be interrupted during the really good songs. Or does it just feel that way--