It's quite a spectacular morning out here on the lake, the day after our first proper snow storm in Southeastern Michigan. (When it started the night before last, I was completely convinced the rustling sound was my mischievous possum friend in the leaves outside my office again, and it took my slipping on my shoes and taking my massive flashlight out to look at the icy pieces collecting on the empty ground before I was satisfied in the knowledge that I was alone with the snow.) I'm sitting here with a leftover slice of pumpkin pie and a milky coffee, enjoying the contrast of the clear blue sky with the bright bright white of the snow lit all up with sunlight, watching the occasional flashes of bluejays and cardinals darting through the trees in the garden plot across the way. I get up periodically to dance to a particularly inspiring bit of Regina Spektor or Aimee Mann and then rub orange-scented oil into my rather neglected vintage wood furniture.

My God, vacation is a delight. I've been making my way through the house with cleansers and cloths that had been hiding in the cupboard nearly since I purchased them. This is the kind of chore I dread when I come home from Southwest Detroit twelve hours after I left the house, when it's already dark outside, or from Ann Arbor after teaching my 75 students, with a stack of all their papers to grade . . . but on a day of quiet solitude with the autumn leaves floating by on the breeze, when I've made my way in my pajamas and slippers to the desk to turn on favorite music, to the stove to prepare a coffee, with a quick sneak outside to take a few adoring photos, it's a sweet joy. Attending the spiritual house.

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day hiding away in the kitchen, baking pumpkin pie and apple cobbler and enjoying the sweet spicy scents of autumn specialities merging with the warmth of vanilla and aromatherapy candles. (More on that in Kitchen Empress!)

I then made the trek down to Ann Arbor to spend a beautiful Thanksgiving evening with Alice and her family: her brother and sister-in-law, their darling child, all the adoring grandparents,and a lovely German neighbor family, with two angelic children whom I teased with little songs I dusted off from my high school German classes. The food was delicious, the company even more of a treat. I would have loved to have seen my own family, but I'm just too tired and broke and behind in my work to travel anywhere right now. Lucky that I have an adopted family through my dear friend :) In the end, we had FOUR DESSERTS to go with the feast, because Alice's sister-in-law AND her mother both also baked pies. Apple cobbler, and pies from pumpkin, rhubarb, and Concord grape. A true autumn bounty.

Here, some of the sneaky photos. . .

My view of the neighbors' lots filled with snow.


The boats and docks stacked for the winter and gathering snow.



And a glance across the lake on the near side, with the shore dusted with white.


And this one's for Mom, finally -- a glimpse of the humble exterior of my little cottage, from the gravel road. Behind, you can spy the lake around on the other side of the tiny house. In the foreground, you can see my little herb garden that I planted shortly after I moved here in June, with rosemary, sage in a pot, savory, and two varieties of lavender that seem to be thriving since the weather has cooled a bit. (We'll see how they do with the freezing temperatures.) And through the window there, if you were looking right now, you'd see me here at my computer on my massive L-shaped IKEA desk, in my PJs, shuffling papers, pulling some fresh clothes out of the dryer, listening to the Decemberists, finishing my coffee, and contemplating starting some writing. If I have my way, depending on how things go in the next few years, this may be the window I look from when I'm writing up my dissertation one day. . .