It’s here, the milestone is here. I’m 40! I don’t remember the specifics of when I turned 30, but apparently I was in a cruddy mood all day (thank you, 11 years of blogging). I wasn’t taking photos of myself regularly then, and I thought I should start. When I’m 50, I want to know what I looked like today.

I’m feeling better after battling the flu and then a superinfection on top of it. I was down from December 28th until this past Friday, the 5th, when I went back to work but still felt pretty grim. I didn’t really start functioning until yesterday, and I’d say I’m still about 80%. Just need to catch up on sleep and recharge my batteries.

I finished a bunch of big deadlines at work last month, and I managed to get H’s Halloween costume made. Somehow. I’m still not sure how I did that.
I didn’t take many photos, but it was an overdrive kind of month. This towels guide I updated was published, I’d been working on it since I started in July. And I wrote this new guide to cutting machines, which I’d also been working on for months. It was great to see those two published. I’ve turned in a few more things, and I did quick updates to a couple of others. Work is great.

It’s always time for a haircut when I go into “bun phase” or “Detective Odafin Tutuola phase.” I didn’t make it to Fin Phase, but I was sporting a lot of buns. I hadn’t had a cut since last July. I got it cut almost two weeks ago, but I am behind on life after Miss H’s 5th birthday.

I do. I want to post about good things, about stuff we’re making here, things we’re doing, how cute my dog is. How cute my kid is, even. But to talk about this stuff and pretend that the country isn’t in a dark place right now is disingenuous, it’s pretending that everything is fine, everything is normal.
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And H and I marched, in Asbury Park. With one of my lovely quilt friends, Natalie, and her family. Originally Adam was considering coming, too, but then H decided she wanted to stay home. I was going to be on my own. But then as I was getting ready to leave, she changed her mind and wanted to come protest. Adam was still in his PJs, with a healthy to do list for an afternoon planned watching the small human, so the girls went solo.

I’ve had a tough time getting my head back in the game after the election last week. But I’m definitely getting there, and I’m tired of obsessing, tired of reading endless articles about how it all went wrong. I’m taking some concrete steps in my community, with my own economic power, with my time to do what I can at a local level to make life better. The results are the results, I’m not ready to overthrow the government. But I am ready to volunteer, to listen to people, to donate, to see how I can help with future political campaigns, to write, etc. But for now, here are some beautiful fall pictures while I get my head organized. The world itself is still damn gorgeous.