Well, I apologize, y’all.  My trying to post more frequently on here just didn’t work this week.  Sometimes weeks are like that, I guess.

I hope that all of y’all are doing well.  We’ve had a glorious fall here in St. Louis.  It’s been unseasonably warm which, you know, is fine with me.  I’ve particularly loved all of the trees’ foliage this year.  Maybe it is because I’m driving (a lot) more, but I have been steadily monitoring all the trees along my routes, watching them all through their progressions of color.  This time of the year, it is hard to pick a favorite tree.  Though I would have to admit partiality to sycamores — love the bark — and to the gingkoes with their brilliant gold leaves and tendency to drop all of their leaves at once.  I have a favorite specific gingko tree, in fact.  It is in the yard of a beautiful house on the way to my 3rd son’s school.

It is easy to want things, driving around this town.  Lots of folks have possessions in abundance.  What I find myself wanting though, more than another bathroom, or a fireplace, or a screened-in porch, or a pool, or, of course, the income to afford it all, is a gingko tree in my yard. My favorite gingko tree is old.  I could not reach my arms around it if I tried.

So, you’ll imagine my displeasure (anger, yes) when road construction began and made a detour of my usual path beside my lovely tree.  I felt robbed.

I guess that as humans we’re just like that.  We have wells for beauty that never get filled up to the top.

I had a funny professor in college.  He was Southern and jolly and we sometimes conversed on things other than the subject at hand.  When he found out I was from north Alabama, he mentioned how much he liked the hills there and we found out that we both had a preference for “having hills to rest our eyes against”.  He added that he’d love to live in the mountains, that seeing those mountains would fill him emotionally and that he’d  feel like living a hundred years.

Maybe.  I don’t think a hundred would be enough, though.  Your well for beauty wouldn’t be full, still.

Alright, I’ve got to get on with things.  My youngest 2 boys had a free day today.  Why, oh why do they take the Friday before Thanksgiving off and then give the kids only Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday after Thanksgiving off?!  I think the schedule makers need help.  Anyway, I’m about to peel them off of the T.V. and bring them with me on errands.

Have a good weekend, y’all, and check back on Monday for a recipe that you can make to use leftover turkey.  It goes great with football, and get-togethers, and friends, and takes very little effort for tired cooks — so come on back for that.

Happy Friday!!