Birthdays and Breads

October is a busy month around here. My sister-in-law's birthday, my sister's birthday, my husband's birthday, my grandfather's birthday, and our wedding anniversary all occur in the first half of the month! Yikes!

Along with all of that, it's also a busy time for me, personally. I don't know what it is about October, maybe it's just the fact that the seasons finally start to change a little. The sticky heat of summer starts to subside, and I come alive.

I've always been a fall sort of person. I love autumn and all of it's colors, smells, and crispness. I love it the way most people love spring and it's green budding.

The pagan in me realizes that this is the time of the harvest, when things come to a close, it's the end of things, and the beginning of the dark times. But I love the beauty of the harvest time so much that it's hard for me to look at it as a time of darkness and cold.

And Halloween... god I love Halloween. Sure, I guess being a pagan and all, I should be referring to it as Samhain, but that word seems to carry around a stereotype of it's own... deathmetaldarkoccult type of image. And that's not what it's about.

There are so many misconceptions about pagan religions. I'm not going to sit here and try to dispell them all. It's simply not worth it. If you don't get it, and you don't want to try and get it, then there's no use in trying to explain it. Just know this: pagans aren't satanic, they're not evil or malevolent. We're not out to drink blood or cause any sort of evil. We're just in-tune with the earth's cycles and choose to celebrate them.

So now is the time of harvest. The God (represented by the fading sun and shortening days) is dying. On Samhain (pronounced "Sow-in", ok?) the Great Father passes on into the underworld. The world becomes cold, the days shorter. This is a time of rest and reflection and giving thanks for all of the bounties of the previous year. Many pagans consider Samhain their new year's eve. And why not? Since the god dies on this night, and is reborn at Yule, shouldn't this mark the end of the year? Think back to simpler times when the world was mostly agricultural. Once the crops were in and the land barren, the year would logically be over, right?

Anyway, as I said, this wasn't meant to be a lesson in paganism, just sort of a description of the time of year that I find most appealing.

Jonas played out in the yard yesterday for the first time. Mostly he just sat and ran his fingers through the grass. He was intrigued by it's texture. It made me wish we lived farther north so that he could witness leaves falling and the quiet of a cool day in the woods.

Oh well, instead we came inside and baked bread. Any time I bake, I give him a little piece of the dough to play with. Usually it just gets eaten, or thrown on the floor, but I think the early exposure to cooking is good for him.

Here's the bread we made, fresh from the oven and still piping hot. Yum!




We had it with spaghetti, and it was delicious. Crispy crust, dense but soft in the middle. Sometimes I think we could live on bread alone. The spaghetti was just so-so. As a matter of fact, the sauce was a bit too salty.

Anyway, today my sister, Wendy, is another year older. We're going out to dinner at Makoto's. It's one of those hibachi places where they cook the food in front of you and put on a little culinary show. We chose it because we knew that the kids would really enjoy it. And hey, the food ain't bad, either. :)

This is going to be the collective birthday/anniversary dinner, since it's so damn hard to get the entire family together for anything.

I bought Wendy a card, of course, and a Carl Hiassen novel. I personally can't stand the guy's style, but she loves it. To each their own, eh? He's a local schmo and he does paint a picture of Florida life well, right down to the trailerpark trash and the eccentric whackos. But I just don't need to read a book to know that I live in the nuttiest state in the union.

Anyway, J's asleep, and I've got some work to catch up on. Y'all have a beautiful day.