Gnats! Noooooo! My paws. Foot traffic.

No particular reason for this pic, other than it is lovely, and I like it

Back when I lived in Kansas, it seemed that fall was "Attack of the Grasshopper" season. I remember one particular fall when I was attending Southwestern College, that I was trying to go to class, and grasshoppers were leaping and crisscrossing in front of me, behind me... well just all around me and everyone else. Kind of felt almost plague like. Here in Washington- and it might be a little early still- we don't seem to have as many grasshoppers, but we do have big gnats and lots of them. Yesterday afternoon the vicious landscapers were at it again, mowing, trimming, and weed waking. Not only did they stir up all sorts of allergens, they awakened the big gnats. I bet I looked really stupid on my short trek to my friend Tsuki's yesterday, waving my arms to keep them off me and out of my face. They seem to be out in force again today and all I can say is that I am not looking forward to them when I take a walk tonight. 

I've been cleaning in the kitchen today. I let it go during and after Amanda's birthday and just couldn't seem to motivate myself enough to get back to it. Period issues didn't help with that either as I spent two days basically sleeping. In fact, I dozed off a couple of times at Tsuki's yesterday. Anyway, because I have been scrubbing, washing dishes, and wiping down cabinets and counters, my paws have the prune look and kind of ache. I've been having some trouble with my hands lately in that they hurt when I do certain things, I can't seem to keep a hold of things sometimes, or they want to lock up. I think it is time to see about looking up some exercises. 

Tomorrow, Amanda and I are going to Finch's Arboretum to collects fallen leaves, but also to do some engagement photos. Our friend Chris offered to take them and thankfully she won't try to rush us. To my utter dismay, when I put the photo card into the computer this morning, I found that it won't work. Which really pisses me off because I was finally going to get the pumpkin pictures a friend asked me for off of the card and ugh! I am not happy. 

Lastly, Amanda and I had a long conversation before we went to bed last night. We decided that we need to be better about not only setting aside and guarding time together, but also some writing time. It's of course going to be a work in progress, but we need to establish some healthy and consistent writing habits. We love our friends, we love having some random hang out time and I'm sure some of that will still happen, but we may have to go to near compete scheduling. I hate the idea of having to do that, I really do and swore to myself that I would never be one of those people when I was younger, but here I am, never say never. 

That said, I was supposed to do craft time with Tsuki today, only I had to cancel because Amanda took a surprise day off from work. So we are spending the day together, doing a little bit of house cleaning, planning out a quilt, and later some story planning/ work shopping in a sense.