Love you. Mean it.

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning in Maryland and after my morning walk, I plan on just letting the day take me wherever it may lead. I love days like that.

Daylight Savings Time ends tomorrow which will make it much easier to get up in the morning. And I won’t be driving to school in the dark anymore.

I don’t often post about my work due to privacy reasons, but sometimes some things are just too beautiful not to share.

I loved how the driveway to school looked one morning this week. We’d had our first frost and it can still be seen along the grass in the middle of the photo above.

I took another photo of the school driveway this past winter and posted it on Flickr {here}.

On Tuesday, I put away the school Halloween Tree and snagged a quick photo of it before it went in its storage box.

About ten years ago, I received a large package in the mail from my mother. In our family, getting something in the mail from our mother usually always meant that there was going to be something strange inside, which was very often from the Lillian Vernon catalog. It got to be sort of a family joke.

When I opened the package, I was surprised to find a Lenox Halloween tree. It was a bare ceramic tree and included lots of little ornaments. I groaned at the thought of my mother spending money on me like that and wondered why she would send me something like this. When I called to thank her, she told me that she remembered how much I loved Halloween.

I did?

During the phone call, I never let on that it wasn’t me who was so fond of Halloween. I was sure she’d gotten me confused with one of my sisters. I asked my husband what in heaven’s name I was supposed to do with a fancy tree from Lenox and he said, “You’ll take it school, of course.”

It made perfect sense. The box stays at school year-round and every October, I take it out and set up the little tree. The children love it. And each year, as I set it up, I remember my mother and the day I received the gift. And hey, maybe it really WAS me who loved Halloween so much.

This post is for my sister, Ginny. Love you. Mean it.

Hope your weekend is a beautiful one, my friends . . .