LIFE PURSUITS and FALLING FOR FALL

This post is in response to two writing prompts

at Mama’s Losin’ It

"If you could only focus on three things in life and pursue them fully, leaving everything else, what would they be and why?"

and

“Your Fall Favorites”

"AUTUMN LIGHT" ©2009, C.J. Peiffer

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LIFE PURSUITS

If I could pursue only three things in life, they would be:

1. Creating art work

2. Writing

3. Reading

Why? Because they are the most fun and personally-rewarding things I do.

Note that all three would also include blogging, because ---in case you haven't noticed ---most of this blog's posts are either my art (including photography) and my writing ---and of course, I read other blogs.

I might never use up all the art supplies I already have and I create a lot of images on the computer. I write on the computer and usually submit writing via email. And I have stopped buying books. I always borrow them from the library. So, as an added bonus, my favorite pursuits are not free, but very close to being so.

FALLING FOR FALL

I don't like cold weather, but neither do I enjoy heat. My favorite weather is what I call "sweatshirt weather."

I love fall clothes in my favorite shades ---a soft brown pullover, golden tan corduroy slacks, a cozy light-brown sweater with a colorful leaf design, heavy socks and taupe suede boots.

As an artist, I love the fall colors of nature, golden dried stalks of corn and yellow and red autumn leaves. I snap lots of photos so I can create drawings or paintings from them. (See image above.) We live just beyond the suburbs surrounded by farm land and wooded areas. The countryside will be beautiful around the third week of October.

I like autumn much better than I used to, now that I am retired from teaching. It wasn't so much the going back to school that I hated, but it was that I would be losing my freedom to spend lazy afternoons reading in my hammock and that all the things I had planned to do over the summer hadn't been completed ---probably due to those lazy afternoons in a hammock.

Now retired, on autumn days I can look forward to curling up with a good book and a cup of tea on the porch, if weather permits, or in a comfy spot in the house with a cat on my lap.

But there are also things that I don't like about fall. I would be happy if I never saw nor heard anything about football ever again. I miss the birds that gathered at our feeders all summer. Some still come, but most will be gone. I miss the bright flowers in our yard and the long daylight hours. I miss sleeping with the windows open. I know that cold weather is just around the corner, which will mean high heating bills, shoveling snow, driving on icy roads, and bone-chilling winds.

As soon as the crisp, colorful fall days disappear and turn into gray winter ones, I look forward to my other favorite season, spring, when everything will be green and bright and new again.

(©2009. C.J. Peiffer)