These are the days of soup and corduroys (the corduroys I spilled soup on)

I made some pumpkin butterscotch cookies last night - and hey, they're pretty good! It seemed like an odd combo at first, but the butterscotch sweetens up and blends with the pumpkin quite nicely. I'm determined to try to do more domestic-type thingies lately, to give myself some small sense of accomplishment. Our house could definitely use some extra attention. It's not so much that I don't like things to be clean and orderly, it's more that I have the bad habit of putting things off over and over again. (My reasoning for being a slob, I suppose.) The piles of laundry, dishes, etc. just get so out of hand so quickly - even with just the two of us - it's embarrassing. If I just break things down into small tasks that I want to accomplish each day, maybe it won't seem so overwhelming. (Not that cookies are really a task on the list that NEEDS to be accomplished... wait, yes. Yes, they were totally necessary.)

Thankfully, it hasn't really snowed here yet. Just a mix of snow with rain. Pretty damn cold though. Ugh. I really do like the fall - it's just that in Michigan we sometimes don't get much of one before we get blasted with winter. Bleh.

I'm dragging my feet about the upcoming holidays, and I know that's a sucky way to be. Things are just different now. It feels like instead of appreciating the time we have together, it's a time to reflect on how disjointed our family has become, and think about what we could've been but are not. I was talking to my mom the other night and she said "I just never thought it would be like this... your brother in Australia, your other brother, well... (big sigh), and...." she just drifted off from there. I felt like what she could've said and didn't was that even though I'm here, it's like I'm not really here. For so long, it felt like I was the second in command - behind my mother - of bringing the family together. My brothers, even if they were around, were always distant and/or complicated to reach. But I was there, doing what my mom wanted (albeit begrudgingly some of the time). It's sort of sad that I don't have the inclination to do this anymore - whether it's my selfishness or complacency or both. Now I've sort of drifted away from the family too, when maybe it's the time that I really need to step in and do my part more than ever before. I don't know. Things seem, for the most part, so much lighter and warmer with J's family - but I know it's not fair to repeatedly elect to spend holidays with them and slight my own family. So, I think we're going to invite people from both sides to our house for Thanksgiving (not that we haven't invited them before) and just hope for the best. We'll see. I know everybody goes through the holiday/family stress and they have situations way more complicated than mine - I guess I just wish I was in a better mental/emotional state to deal with it.