Tuesday night Little Miss and I were huddled under two blankets, reading Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, with the small lamp on her bedside table casting a cozy orange glow.

We finished a chapter in the book and Pixel, my all-black, sometimes annoying black cat, climbed up on my chest, laid down and let us pet her for ten minutes. Pixel is a fickle cat. One minute she likes to be petted and the next minute she is biting the person petting her. She likes to walk onto my chest, knead for a few minutes, lay down for a few more minutes, and then walk off again. She doesn’t like the slightest bit of movement when she’s trying to get comfortable and I move too much for her.

Tuesday night, though, she didn’t mind when I shifted or straightened. She simply dug her claws into my skin and held on and resettled with him, then let me pet her nose and started to fall asleep.

I wanted to fall asleep with her like that on my chest since Little Miss was almost in La-la Land at that point, but I couldn’t relax because Scout, our second kitty, had decided earlier in the night to ignore my pleas to come inside and was outside gallivanting around our backyard, killing a mouse or a cricket or something that she enjoyed hopping on and chasing in the backyard.

As much as I kept saying, “Fine. That’s fine. If she wants to stay out all night she can. I’m not going to wait up for her. I’m going to bed.” I knew I couldn’t really relax until all of our creatures were in the house for the night. My cats are outside almost all day. They are savvy cats who know how to fight off the neighborhood strays or other animals but the idea of them being trapped outside all night, locked out of a cozy place to lay their furry heads just makes me anxious (I mean what doesn’t make me anxious these days, but still . . .)

I did fall asleep with her still outside because when I went back to get her right before bed, she had disappeared from where she’d been chasing down whatever creature she’d found to torture and was nowhere to be seen. At 2 a.m., though, I was up to use the bathroom and begrudgingly dragged myself down the cold stairs, through out kitchen, to the backdoor, where Scout was waiting. She darted inside so fast I almost didn’t see her.

She has a habit of darting past me, either into the house or out of it without me ever seeing her. More than one night I have called for her, she hasn’t come, I have been worried about her, shut the door and turned around only to see her sitting in the kitchen floor cleaning herself and wondering why I wasn’t petting her to welcome her back inside.

As I write this, she is yawning at me from our daughter’s warm bed, curled up in a fluffy pile of the comforter, behind Little Miss’s knees, one of her favorite spots to lay.

Curling up with Little Miss and I is a common occurrence for her, especially at night. I often find her curled up on Little Miss’s pillow in the morning. Some mornings she darts out of the room as soon as The Husband is up and getting ready for work so she can dart out the back door and go explore the neighborhood, but on mornings like this she lounges in bed, stretching out her large paws with the extra toes, yawning, and then getting more comfortable so she can sleep another hour or so. Once Little Miss is awake, though, Scout is up as well and more often than not she heads for the back door, ready to be let out into the world.

I would guess that both cats won’t want to go out as quickly in the mornings soon since the temperatures are getting cooler as bright colors spread across our hillsides with the changing leaves on the trees.

Before we know it, snow will be falling and I’ll be grumbling about having to start a fire in the woodstove but then enjoying it once it is lit.

I’ll have to remind myself how to light the fire, how to keep it burning longer, and to bring the wood in at night so I have it in the morning to keep the house warm throughout the day. Still, it will save us money on our heating oil and that will make me, and the rest of the family, happy.

Monday is Little Miss’s birthday and the only thing she asked for her birthday is that we could all go as a family to a restaurant. So yesterday we all headed down to a favorite restaurant of ours about 45 minutes away and we also visited the local library’s annual book sale and met a couple friends of Little Miss’s at a local park. It was the one friend’s 8^th birthday so we shared some cupcakes and let the kids play on the playground.

Before her friends came, we visited the creek and were bit up by a bunch of bugs and I was almost hit a couple of times by falling black walnuts.’

The leaves had changed some there but not a ton. I have a feeling the peek will be later than some are saying it will be there year, even though we already have gorgeous red trees spreading across our hills.

Our neighbors’ one maple tree is bright red right now and we were admiring it Thursday as we were jumping on the neighbors’ trampoline.

Back to the library sale from yesterday – I wish I had slowed down and spent a little more time looking at things but we chose to go before we ate and Little Miss was hungry so she didn’t want to spend too much time. In a way, not having a lot of time to look over the books was a good thing because then I would have picked out books I didn’t need. We have so many books right now and I have so many to read. Plus I have books I picked up that I now know I will never read and need to find a way to get rid of them since the local libraries keep saying they have enough and don’t want any more books donated. We were, once again, near a little library yesterday and I, once again, forgot to take those books with me to put in there.

The little library at the park we went to was so sad too. There were hardly any books in there and the books I did move aside to make a video about how every little library I go to has a James Patterson book were sticky. Ew.

The park itself was a bit sad.

First there were the insane amount of bugs, then there were the porta-potties that had not been empty in I don’t know how long. It was sick how full they were. In addition to all of that is their website. The site is connected to the township page but instead of having any information about the park (such as if you can bring pets or not, which is what I was looking for) it has a list of suggested information of what information should be placed there. Like it’s the default starter page for their site.  

Despite the sad state of the park, the kids had a lot of fun and that’s what mattered.

Today I plan to go visit my mom and watch a movie with her and just enjoy the gorgeous fall colors on the drive there. Tomorrow we will have a family celebration for Little Miss at my parents.

What are your plans for this weekend? Anything exciting or just some nice relaxing?