Sunset, Snow, and Cinnamon Rolls

It's been a damp and drippy grey week (for the most part). Crochet deadlines are hanging over my head like the clouds in the sky, and spare minutes are taken up with yarn in my hands and bits of pattern running through my head.

What with weather and craft obligations, it's not been a good week for outdoor exercise. But on Tuesday, which was beautifully bright and clear, I snatched a walk just in time to catch the afterglow of sunset on the lake.

The sky was an indescribable twilight blue, somewhere between peacock and steel, fading to the faintest flush of apricot on the horizon:

Dried flowers and leaves showed beautiful in silhouette against the evening sky:

The trees and houses along the shore cast magical reflections:

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Today (Friday) we wake to a thick powdering of snow on the ground. (How delightful to open the bedroom curtains and see a world turned suddenly white.)

While cinnamon rolls bake in the oven, I step outside with my camera to see what we can see. The air smells scrubbed and fresh as it so often does after a snowfall, and everything looks clean and bright under the clearing sky.

Even the burdocks behind the house are beautified by their burden of fluffy white:

A squadron of geese flies high overhead, squawking for a lost October:

Back on our doorstep, one last-lingering pansy bows its head to the inevitable:

Indoors, the air is warm and spicy. The cinnamon rolls emerge from the oven, bubbling over with buttery-brown sugary goodness:

A faint popping sound from the hallway signals the last-minute roasting of coffee beans as I finish cooking breakfast.

We sit down to plates full of goodness.

Local eggs, scrambled and topped with Swiss cheese and the last of our fresh chives. Broiled tomatoes from our own little planter - the vines are long frozen, but the fruit lives on, ripening on the kitchen counter (hooray!). Topping the tomatoes is crumbled frozen basil from this year's basil patch, smelling like a green whiff of summer as it thaws on the hot tomatoes. And, of course, the cinnamon rolls, beautified with a layer of buttery icing.

Snow outside and fragrant food inside. The sun streams through the south-facing windows and lands like a warm caress on the back of my neck. On the table between us, the seasons overlap: summer on our plates, autumn in the background, and Christmas getting closer all the time.

Not a bad start to the weekend. :)

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P.S. I'm sorry I haven't been answering your comments lately - a change in my work schedule has thrown off the balance of the entire week, and the extra crochet deadlines have made it hard for me to blog (and read your blogs) as regularly as I'd like. I can't seem to squeeze it all in right now. But I thank you for your comments and hope you'll keep leaving them. They truly make my day!

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