Eastern Connecticut is a black hole for a lot of things – chain restaurants, free public beaches, Anthropologies – but this time of year I am totally in love with everything about it. TOTALLY. I drive around on my regular every day errands literally GASPING at how gorgeous the trees are. Out loud. GASP. And just when I think I’ve found the most spectacular, fall postcard worthy stretch of road I round a corner and IT’S EVEN MORE GORGEOUS HOLY CRAP I CAN’T EVEN. Throw in trips to do photo-shooty fall-type things with my children in plaid shirts and tiny overalls and it’s a miracle I don’t pee my pants with excitement. Or maybe that’s why I’m wearing black pants.

Of course, my blissful land of red and oranges and yellows and pumpkins and caramel apples and chicken pot pie lasts for approximately two weeks (IF WE’RE LUCKY and it doesn’t rain for all of October). The rest of fall is cold and dreary and brown, and I reserve my right to complain about it on the daily right up until we get our first real snow of the winter and/or/usually at the same time Christmas. Then everything is AMAZING and GORGEOUS and A FAIRYLAND OF MAGICALNESS for exactly the amount of time it takes for the snow plow to come and spew dirty slush all over the place. After that it’s just one long stretch of misery until spring shows up in April (or May, more likely) when all the flowers bloom and I once again remember why I love New England.

I never said it was a HEALTHY relationship, but it’s one I don’t plan to get out of any time soon.

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I got new glasses this week, for the first time in years. My old ones were thin and gold and half-rimless and totally considered fashionable when I bought them, if that gives you an idea of how long it has been. I bought two pairs from the place that did my exam and then asked them for my prescription. Because I am SMART, I also looked up what exactly one needs to order glasses from the interwebs BEFORE I asked for it, to make sure I got all the parts I needed.

Turns out – SURPRISE! – they don’t actually give you all the information you need! Because they are jerks and want you to be forced to buy their $350 Tory Burch frames! The woman who was helping me wrote down the extra number I needed in teeny tiny letters at the bottom of the page and whispered “You can take this anywhere. THEY will know what it means” as if she was giving me the secret recipe for Coca-Cola instead of just the distance between my eyeballs. When I said I was planning to get a zillion pairs of $6 frames from the internet (thanks to a fantastic tip from Swistle) she got all scoldy and mean and told me I was wasting my money because those cheap glasses would probably break after two weeks anyway. To which I say YES, EXACTLY, which is why they are SIX DOLLARS. But with two grabby little kids I am just as likely to break my $350 Tory Burch glasses (yeah, they got me) and I don’t see you offering to replace them out of the kindness of your heart.

Besides, I am finally getting used to seeing things again. It’s kind of nice and I don’t want a pair of broken glasses to ruin that.

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I want to write about how I am surviving some temporary single parenting LIKE A CHAMP – not only am I keeping the kids alive, I’m cooking dinner from scratch! Knitting things! The house isn’t a disaster! I have put away folded laundry! TWICE! – but that would be tempting fate just a little too much and I have TOO MANY DAYS left before I get my husband back, so that is all I will say about that.

Post-script: I HADN’T EVEN SCHEDULED this post yet and shit started to fall apart. I will NEVER LEARN.