Fall goodness

After work I raced home and changed into jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a jacket.  And for kicks, I wound my new, way-too-long-softest-material-ever scarf around my neck.  Then I walked up to church/school to watch my kid play soccer and my husband coach.

Perfect fall night.  I sat with the other parents on cold aluminum bleachers, exchanging stories about school and kids and work and pets and all that stuff parents of kindergartners have in common. Soccer moms and soccer dads and soccer girls.

And then the three of us, our little family, piled into M's car for the short ride home to potato soup with crackers and warm baths to take the chill off.  Zoe and I tried to get dinner out, even trying the whole "democratic vote" trick.  I could tell M was beat, though, and just wanted a quiet night at home with his girls.  And so home we went, and it was really, really good.  As usual, he was right.

I'm excited about fall.  There are lots of good things in the fall.  My nephew's football games.  Zoe's soccer games.  Getting to know the other kindergarten parents and becoming part of a new community.  Trips to New York and France in the offing, and a personal trip to northern California where I'll be immersed in all things photography with incredible women who share my passion.  Caramel apples.  Pumpkin patches.  M is working on this year's Christmas display - and the boy is outdoing himself to such a degree that I'm really not sure he'll ever be able to top it.  I mean, the shit he's working on is so freaking fantastic that even I can't wait for the holidays.  Which is good because Zoe spontaneously broke out into the Jingle Bells chorus this morning.

I signed up for the Worldwide Photo Walk again this year.  Did it a few years back, but since then my photo buddy moved to Chicago (and now Kansas City) and I got busy with work, and frankly, I just forgot about it.  But this year someone is leading a group in the small community adjacent to mine (the last time I participated we walked in downtown STL) and I thought, "Hell, I have a new photo buddy now."  I'm taking Zozer!  However, the girl has some serious equipment deficiencies with her Fischer Price camera.

I dug out our little Nikon point & shoot that we purchased right before we had her.  The thought was that it would be our "diaper bag camera," we'd always have with us to document our new life.  It worked fairly well for that purpose, but more often than not I chose to go ahead and lug the D100 (then replaced by the D300) for the flexibility it gave me.  I still get insanely frustrated by the shutter lag on point & shoots.  Then I scored the iPhone and the P&S became virtually unneeded.  I'd clean off the card and charge it up for some of M's international travels, but even he eventually moved to shooting primarily with his cell phone.  The Nikonette sat dormant for many, many months.

I debated giving it to Zoe.  It's not very complicated, but it's a nice piece of equipment.  Then I realized that the girl has practically grown up with an iPhone and an iPad, and many other fairly complex and expensive items, and we've never had an issue.  So I dug it out, cleaned off the card and charged it up.  I showed her once how to use it, and she's been off to the races.  The flash is much more powerful than the one on her kiddy camera, so I've found myself walking around with bright spots in my vision a lot lately, and the poor cats are probably nearly blind.  But she loves it, and her photographs are of higher quality, and she's taking very good care of it.  So we're set for our upcoming Photo Walk!

Oh, and another thing I'm loving about fall?  Well, this fall, in particular...

We've officially retained an architect.  Squeeeeeeee!