O right. I am safely at the house of my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and two nieces in Kirkland.  My flights were fine, completely booked was lucky to get a window seat because group b on Southwest, but I didn't have any major issues with people in my rows. I did buy books though.... 1 at the little market at Mitchell (Renaissance Books, the large used bookstore outside of security area in Milwaukee wasn't open yet at the time of my flight here and will be closed when I get back at like 11pm on Dec 2) then 3 at Tattered Pages Book Store in Denver airport, and then was gifted a Hallmark movie quality romance novel with a cute dog on the cover by the attendant scanning boarding passes. Which made 5 books I had to try to fit in my carry on luggage on top of the 4 I had brought with me in my purse for reading at airports and on planes. 

Book I chose for airports/airplanes and I'm currently reading: 

Books I bought at airports en route westward: 

Book I was gifted at the gate of my flight which looks terrible as a book but would probably make a great Hallmark movie: 

Books other than The Once and Future Witches which I packed to bring with me this visit: 

Books I have acquired so far since leaving Madison: 

 Then when I got to Seattle, my brother-in-law ordered me a Lyft after I got my luggage because due to traffic, them all coming to get me would have been 3hrs in the car with antsy 7 year old, 5 year old, and a wailing unhappy 5 month old baby. 

Immediately upon my arrival, my nephew Jack and niece Monroe commandeered me by literally hugging themselves onto my legs before I even had a chance to eat my dinner my sister had kept warm in the oven for me. Right now, Jon is still work from home and Miche is on maternity leave til February (and will likely be work from home once back.) So about the only times I currently have to myself this visit are when Ellie (my 5 month old niece Eliot) is getting diapers changed or being put down for a nap and then after Miche and Jon head to bed at 10/11pm and before everyone is up at 7:15. (7:15 is when Jack and Monroe's color alarm clock changes so they are allowed to get up and play and leave their room.) This is a much more orderly structured lifestyle than mine where my ADHD means I have a tenuous relationship with time management and my own Circadian rhythm.... Also I'm an introvert who gets migraines from empath overload, so I spend a fair chunk of my life either taking my dog for long walks in the woods/near water or gardening or alone at home curled up with my animals listening to music reading books and sipping on tea/coffee/whiskey/wine as the mood strikes me and even a lot of my hours I get in at work are while it's only me and my dog because I can hyper focus to get things done.  I love people, but I don't get lonely when I have alone time even if I don't see any humans for weeks or months at a stretch -- I just get lonesome for the missing of specific people's energies when they're far away from me. And if I'm lonesome for missing someone I love, their absence feels the same degree of phantom limb to me no matter how long they're absent from my life.... But I'm definitely a lot more solitary and introverted in my typical life than when in the midst of visiting my sister where everyone misses me and wants my time and attention and love because they truly only get to see me for 2-6 weeks of the 52 weeks a year and only ever in about 2 week blocks of time. Which I understand and I want to spend as much time as possible with everyone while I'm here -- and I don't go visit people for introvert recharge. I can hermit at home to my heart's content, lol.  Often when I'm here I get some introvert time in the garden but it's cold and the ground is hard and it's not a good time for planting. (my sister and I have a relationship where I like getting my hands in the dirt with plants and she likes having plants and they have yards with lots of space and they have lots of money -- so they buy tons of plants for me to put in for them and we all hope they can keep them alive between my visits.) It's been sunny and bright since I got here (it's a standing joke that I always bring the sunshine to Seattle area when I visit here) and will be sunny but cold until Mon night when like a week of rain starts along with group stage of World Cup. Haven't looked yet at the week after that of my visit. 

So like, I'm sorry if you miss me and all my words and overthinking here, but you should genuinely not expect me to write here again until after Dec. 2 because my time to myself is at an absolute premium right now...... Other than short periods of time when everyone else is at school/working and my sister is taking care of Ellie's needs or it's night after everyone else has gone to bed or like when I'm in the bathroom, I haven't been alone without other people surrounding me since 5am on Weds and I won't until after midnight or so Dec 2/3 (whenever I have picked up my dog and get dropped off at my own condo again.)  I did get an email late on Tues night that they would be putting in new carpet in my hallway on Thurs (today?yesterday? Time is tricksy) which means that I won't be home for the earliest worst off gassing fumes of the new carpet. Which is good! May be a long term ongoing migraine issue when I get home though.... On verra. 

Also. In my sister's car on the way back from dropping Mo off at her daycare, my sister's mix randomly played Mike Posner's Cooler Than Me. Which confused me because I didn't know how my sister's very eclectic music tastes had found it and flustered me a bit for making me think of Eric unexpectedly when I've been trying not to let me think of him but rather to accept that there isn't a place for me in his chosen life path this life for whatever happiness/meaning he's seeking for himself and so I should focus on what brings me joy and where I can scatter light and goodness and love into this crazy world wherever my life does touch other lives. I don't LIKE that conclusion or that stoic nihilism of what I can't change isn't mine to choose instead of my typical undaunted optimism sunshine rooted in love always full of hope and magic and finding unexpected improbable solutions to make manifest what people thought impossible general approach to living this life. I don't like it, but I don't know what else I'm supposed to do with the hand I have and my considering free will to be sacrosanct and the choices other people have made and other people's actions/inactions/boundaries.... I mean reality doesn't ask you to like it, it just smacks you upside the head with hurt if you try to lie to yourself or deny truths due to biased preferences..... But still I got very in my head flustered wasn't expecting my sister to suddenly remind me make me think of Eric while in the car on the way back from Mo's daycare.  I'm not sure what to do with that, Universe definitely keeps poking me telling me I'm not supposed to give up on him or the bond or pretend he doesn't exist.... I've always been honest here about whatever I'm thinking about him/our soul bond and my relationship toward his band/songs in the wake of the choices that complicated it all by the defensiveness and bullying behaviors via ostracism of me in the band's name for my honesty of how the country music was affecting my synesthesia - and now everything there is fucked up and songs I loved deeply can't make me feel anything but hollow.... It's just.... Such a fucking mess that didn't ever need to happen and all created because of choices of defensiveness and ego rather than truth speaking and empathy.... But I don't know what to do with all the emotional turmoil of being reminded so suddenly of Eric while in a state of happy where I expected nothing to remind me of him.... I've compartmentalized put all those emotions inside a box up on a shelf of my heart while I'm here. But anyway. Found it worth mentioning. 

Also this was my tea tag tonight: 

It seemed fitting and apropos and full of hope for the future no matter what right now is.

*Yawns* sleepytime for me.... My sister has much plans for me tomorrow and the next couple weeks - and my Alexa random music wakeup playlist they make me goes off at 7am. (They often pick random silly songs to make me wake up laughing start my day with a reset of me in my factory defaults overflowing love light cheerful bubbly optimistic grinning chaos Muppet magical self. This morning was Karma Chameleon, lol. Last two visits, it was all songs by the guy who does Raining Tacos -- which are all ridiculous electronic dance songs about fantasy situations often involving Mexican food.)

O! Right! My "I live in a snow globe" night time walk with my dog around my circle on Tuesday night as part of my not sleeping at all before my travel day because too much to do night.

Isn't it beautiful?!?! The drive from Madison to Milwaukee was the most gloriously beautiful!!!!! *Sigh* pristine beautiful new snow just makes my heart light up and my soul shine bright and feel like somewhere on the other side of the bright sparkles and softness and peaceful quiet of rest before new growth there's the most beautiful blank slate to write something new. Also. More practically..... Every time I'm somewhere without snow at Christmas, someone on the Jewish side of my family dies on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. It's a strange coincidence, but it's happened three times now...... So not only is fresh falling snow exquisitely fairytale beautiful, but it puts to rest the part of my heart that is anxious over the potential of losing loved ones when it's after Thanksgiving and there's no snow on the ground. I'm so happy to have such beautiful snowfall protecting everything so early and helping my heart know peace rather than anxiety if there will be snow or if someone will die.... No snow here right now, but it's beautiful and there's time for me to get back to where the snows fill up my Decembers. 

Bonne nuit. Sweet dreams. I'm going to drink my chamomile tea and read a little of Ethical Adaptations to Climate Change until that combination knocks me out to dreamspace. And. Remember. If you don't like your life path trajectory, you're only ever one choice away from completely changing it for the better to get you on one that will get you to a future you dream to reach. You just have to be honest with yourself (and others) so you can be clear sighted about what needs to happen and have the courage of your own convictions and then you choose to make a plan to do what you must then step out in action on that choice. Free will is always there -- you just have to accept the responsibility of it as well as the rewards then step out in the direction you choose. And that's how you change your fate and create the life you want to reach the happiness you seek. A completely different life path is always just one choice away ricocheting through your fate lines to change your entire future. And that's why free will is sacrosanct to me. Because with it, you always have the risks and rewards of true freedom for your soul's growth. Without it, there is no meaning to anything anyone does or could ever do. And there's always a way. It may not be obvious and it may be so difficult that  nobody believes in it except you. But there's always a way to whatever you most desire truly enough to devote your actions and choices to making real.  Whatever you set you heart on to guide your course, there's always a way if you choose to find it and live it.

*Yawns* chamomile kicking in, probably not going to get very far in this essay tonight. S'okay. The words will be there to teach me ways to think new paths and in new ways whenever I have opportunity and energy to read it. 😘 Sleep is of greater importance anyway right now. 

Until the next chance I can make to write here (and beyond it too) may the hours of your life bring you: Sweet dreams and polar bears to hold your soul in love and all the stars shining above you to bring you home and sparkle fluff from the sky turning the quotidien into fairy realms and the way the skies are painted in brightest hues after the deepest grays of gloaming and music that makes everything hold still as you experience it so your heart beats differently than it did before the song entered your life and whatever (or whoever) brings to you the beauty and joy which warms your heart makes you hope for brighter days then you've ever yet lived are still to come. And my words will be back here at some point. Eventually. Just maybe not until December. 

P. S. Tonight the skies are clear enough here at Finn's Hill in Kirkland Washington that out the window (which faces Juanita Bay and is within a few miles of a nature preserve) besides my bed I can see Orion and Sirius framed between the darker shadows of the giant evergreens. I can't always see the stars when I'm here in the Pac Northwest due to cloud cover and overnight rains, but tonight it will be the warrior and his faithful dog watching over me and those beloved constellations will be the last thing I see before I sleep. 💖