Thursday Thirteen #725

1. I'm a great aunt again! I don't have pictures to share because I don't do that unless I have permission, but my nephew's wife had a new baby boy, 7 lbs, 8 ozs. I don't know how long he was. He had a full head of dark brown hair.

2. My husband gets along well with children. My great-niece loves our cows and him by extension. She sees him more than I do because they live near the barn, and he's down at the barn a lot. I seldom go to the barn because I'm allergic to hay.

3. When the neighbor calls to talk to my husband about hunting or whatever, his daughter, who is about 7, gets on the phone and chats with my hubby, too. They talk about what she learned at school. It is cute to hear them.

4. My great niece wasn't overly thrilled with her new baby brother. She told her mom to put the baby back in her tummy. It is a big adjustment for a little toddler to suddenly have a new baby in the house.

5. We had a busy Tuesday. My husband had his physical for his CDL license, we both had our flu shots, we went by the bank to take care of paperwork where the bank is being sold out to somebody, we went to the grocery store, we went to vote, and we went by the post office. Nothing like piling all of the little must-dos into a single day.

6. I am listening to a book called How to Change, by Katy Milkman. I have procrastination issues and I am hoping to find a tip that might move me along. So far I have learned that I am already doing many of the things she suggests - multi-tasking, for example, and trying to use the start of the week or a birthday or January 1 as the clean slate for a new beginning. Maybe there will be more suggestions near the end. I do recommend the book.

7. Mostly, change requires making better choices. Do I eat this potato chip or not? Do I exercise or watch TV? Do I watch TV AND exercise? Do I write this blog post or go do the dishes? 

8. The two things I consistently put off are doing the bookkeeping for our various enterprises, and working on personal writing for myself, aside from this blog. I have started several poems and not finished them. I did finish that song last week and that took a while. But these two items in particular I have much trouble with. I guess I am lazy. I never considered myself a lazy person but maybe I am with regards to these two areas.

9. I do better when I have deadlines or someone else pushing me. Nobody really cares if I write a poem, after all. If I stopped writing on my blog, some folks would miss me, they'd visit two or three times, then write me off as somebody else who has stopped blogging. Maybe they'd think of me in passing occasionally. Whatever happened to that woman who wrote about living on a farm and took deer pictures?

10.  This morning my arm is sore from the flu shot I received on Tuesday, and there's swelling in the area about the size of a silver dollar. I've never had such a delayed reaction to a flu shot before. I don't feel bad or anything. My arm is simply aches.

11.  The baby deer have lost their spots, and now the only way I know they're the little ones is by their size. They're not full grown. The older deer are changing color; their coats are browning and greying as they prepare for the winter ahead. I hear it's going to be a cold one. Mother Nature isn't done with us yet, I guess.

12. We've been having thunderstorms, which is a little abnormal for our area for October. I remember when it snowed one year on October 10. I was in high school still. Thunder clapped and then the snow began pouring. The weather folks called it thunder snow. That is the earliest I remember it ever snowing here. It was rather amazing to see.

13. The leaves are turning, and autumn is here. Soon the trees will be bedecked in their colored finery, and then they will be skeletons against the skyline until Spring. Some won't make it through the winter. It seems every year we lose more and more trees. The beetles killed all the ash trees. Something else killed red oaks. How much more can the deciduous trees take, I wonder, before they are all simply rotten wood?

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 725th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.