Moments that make a day

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.
Omar Khayyam

It’s September! I know that autumn does not officially begin for 3 weeks but as soon as the calendar turns to September I feel like it’s here! And it was a beautiful morning when the pugs and I were up bright and early. It’s getting hot now, nearly 90, but soon the days will be cooler, a welcome relief. Autumn has been my favorite time of year since I was very young. I remember the autumns of my youth growing up in Southern Illinois, great piles of leaves burning sending billowing smoke up into the sky and oh, that smell, and woodsmoke curling out of chimneys, fresh apples and fresh cider from the orchard — is there anything more fragrant than apples this time of year? — and my favorite weather of all, “sweater weather” when it is not cold but cool enough that you need a sweater, though that weather comes much later for us on the coast.

This morning when the pugs and I came inside and up into the kitchen there were the beautiful flowers I bought at the store last night. My dear friend Noni will be here for dinner and to spend the night and I always like to have flowers on the table when she is here. These pink alstromeria look so lovely with the sunflowers, don’t they? It brightened the day right off the bat! Then I fed the dogs and made my coffee.

When I went on the ketogenic diet last October the only problem I had was my coffee. I didn’t mind giving up the whole laundry list of foods that many people have trouble giving up, and I really didn’t mind giving up sugar except for the bit of sugar I put in my one big mug of coffee each day. I did give it up, but it was hard, and it took me 3 months to finally find a way to make coffee that I really liked. It was a combination of Bulletproof coffee (Coconut oil + butter) with a bit of heavy cream (keto) and after trying every kind of natural sugar substitute I could find I found Lakanto’s Monkfruit sweetener and that finally did it. However it is not quite as sweet as I like it with just the monkfruit sweetener so I add a few drops of caramel flavored stevia. I didn’t like stevia alone in coffee but a few drops with the monkfruit sweetener did the trick.

I brought my coffee in here to the studio and smiled when I saw my orchid. I have been too afraid to have orchids because years ago when I tried they always died but in April, after my pug Tanner died, dear Noni brought me a beautiful pink orchid and it bloomed for a long time. Someone had told me, Noni may have mentioned it too? not to water it but to put ice cubes on it once a week. It worked! That orchid kept blooming for a very long time. Last night when I was at the grocery store picking out my flowers for the table I saw a display of orchids on a really good sale. I almost passed them by, they were all solid colors, but then I saw this spotted orchid and my heart leaped! SOLD! Now it is here in the studio and it makes me so happy!

After I had my coffee I went out front to water all the big pots of hibiscus on the front porch. I think hibiscus are my favorite flowers, not the gorgeous tropical hibiscus which I love too but the perennial hibiscus that will come back every year here in the south. There are 4 on the front porch, these two were blooming today, and they are filled with buds. When they open the flowers are just huge and stunning!

Any minute now dear Maurice will be here to cut the grass and prune some bushes and get me ship shape, and tonight Noni will be here and we are going to make keto bread for BLT’s. I have never had keto bread since I went on the diet last fall, you can’t eat regular bread, so this will be a treat! And we will watch the last two episodes of the show we’ve been watching for some time, the end of season two of The Crown on Netflix which is absolutely fabulous. I highly recommend it. And then it will be Sunday, and Noni and I will have morning coffee together which is such a treat, and off she will go to work at noon and I will prepare to teach my Sunday Night Writing Group. It’s going to be a wonderful weekend.

What are you up to dearhearts? I’d really love to know. Write to me in the comments below and let me know how September is beginning for you. It’s such a beautiful time of the year. I’d love to hear from you.