Month of the Pumpkin

October's poplars are flaming torches lighting the way to winter.  ~Nova Bair

    And October is upon us all. Today is a perfect, gloomy day, the first of many for this particular month in which it really does feel like autumn has begun to declare her presence. We're coming into gloomy, grey days with a chill in the air and on the wind that I love. My stories are somehow fueled by the cold, especially days such as these, so my creativity goes on an all-time seasonal high every time we hit one such day. 

    Autumn is a pretty amazing season. Unlike spring, I think it's one that everyone is incredibly aware of in a very good way. Spring everyone notices primarily because of allergies, and also the mixed bag of spring storms and warmer weather. In autumn it's about pulling out your cute cold-weather clothes and getting back into the cold-weather comfort food that you've probably eaten since you were a child. Autumn and Winter are definitely the most nostalgic of seasons, begging for memories to be recalled and for new ones to be made.

    Soon it will be my Autumn break, and although it was a week earlier than I thought it would be, I'm still pretty excited. One of my friends is coming up from south in the state, and I want to go "find autumn" together with her when she's here. We've already decided to go to the apple orchard....mmm, apples are lovely. Crisp, cold and fresh, just like the season. 

And then I might go to a large hot air balloon fest with my family and a friend the next weekend after break. I really hope that can work out. I'm sure the balloons, so large and close and in such glorious shades of color, will be quite a sight to see. I wonder how they'll compare with the autumn leaves?

    The full moon the other night was pretty amazing. I can't wait for the one this month; moons in the autumn are just special, and the cooler air makes the sky seem so much clearer. 

     I was really happy the moon was out and about Friday. On Friday evening I went with a friend, her friend, her sister and another older friend of theirs to a spooky amusement park nearby. I've only gone once before, and that time I discovered I'm not very good with such things! I did go in a few mazes this time, but...I closed my eyes. Still though, overall it was fun, being together and having fun with them all and then sleeping over at her house. Though I don't think I'll ever go to such a place again! Going on the rides at night was fun and all that sort of thing, but I'm not brave at all with such things...maybe I should face my fear, but my legs were wobbly the whole time almost! Maybe I was just too tense. Still, it was worth it, especially since it was her birthday and I hadn't seen her since summer ended. And everyone was really great, and it was a great time really. And my friend has very exquisite taste...her whole birthday was sorta Avengers-themed, and the cake was an orange cake with raspberry everything else...it was REALLY good. Mmmhmm. 

     So yes, it was all really great, though I did suffer from like, a social-excitement withdrawal on Saturday evening after I came home. It was a first, and it was very strange! It's certainly a great time to get some creative work done!

     Let me think, there was that....oh, we went horseback riding for the last time in the month yesterday. It was a little sad, since we aren't riding this month. But it was still good. Fancy and I did well together, and I think I really do like her now, and she trusts me more, even though I had put a saddle on her that was MUCH too big and it was more like bareback riding, since I had to rely more on my knees than the stirrups. Oh, I REALLY want to do bareback riding someday.

     Oh, so much awesome stuff is going to happen this month, really. One thing is that the next season of "Merlin" will be starting! The show isn't, like, super fantastic amazing, but I really like it, and it's great fun and good for listening/watching while doing homework. That was basically how my spring semester went this year...but yeah, it's good fun, and I'm excited.

    And then there's finishing my editing absolutely, and also officially starting that long Zelda fan fiction. It is a bit of a big deal, since it will be a very large part of my life for the next three years come the end of this month. When I finish it, I will be into grad school, or wherever I wind up. Either way, I pray it will go absolutely well, as well as it can. The games are lovely, and the characters and ideas and themes and art are all unforgettable. Perhaps it's unrealistic, but I hope I may capture everything good and great in the games as well as I can (as well as, you know, making it my own as well.) There's a lot of different beauties in those games, as a sort of rule, from the atmosphere/s to the roles of the characters, and it's really amazing, it could just explode from...well, awesomeness! So I want to do just extol it all and write as well as I possibly can. 

     So, I may put some sketches related to that fic on here. I am not sure. But this is a dairy-type of blog, and that fic will be a huge huge part of my life soon. So I can only pray it will bring me aplenty to be grateful for that will be worth writing about on here. That fic will be capturing a lot that I personally am grateful for, such as the seasons and holidays and all the various forms of love. I really hope I can write well enough to make it all shine!

     I can really only be grateful for all that happened in September. I can hardly believe it's gone so fast. But as much as what happened then, all the school and time spent with or calling friends, the highs and lows, the fun of stories and horses, I can only know that those times were great and fun and I pray will only make me a better person, but times just as great are ahead of me, in each moment. I only hope I'm able to appreciate and accept them!

The human soul is slow to discover the real excellence of things given to us by a bountiful Creator, and not until the shadows of death begin to gather around the object that we love, do we see its worth and beauty. Autumn is the dim shadow that clusters about the sweet, precious things that God has created in the realm of nature. While it robs them of life, it tears away the veil and reveals the golden gem of beauty and sweetness. Beauty lurks in all the dim old aisles of nature, and we discover it at last. ~Northern Advocate