elainegrey

The fall leaves have been lovely last week. After my early season whining, i'm appreciating the glow in the woods. I am planning on cutting down some trees that are shading some of the prettier trees including the red maples. I think we've peaked and last nights rain stripped out lots of leave. Still, there's color to enjoy.

Friday night and much of Saturday i read Tad Williams'The Dragonbone Chair: Book One of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. I was wrestling a little with my internal "shoulds" but finally settled with myself that i wanted to read all day, it didn't mean i to be tortured about it. When i bought the second book in the series, i got the audio book as well. This means i can ride the bike listening as well as read, which i did on Sunday night, for 40 minutes.

Saturday night we went to my sister's for a Halloween party. I burst into tears as we pulled out of the driveway: the past four years -- mom's stroke, pandemic -- have been so hard. My niblings had lots of their friends over, parent-friends were there, my dad, her husband's sister and her family... I'm not a party person, but it was so lovely to see the niblings with their friends. One of my drama nibling's friends came dressed as Elton John with the white jacked with feathers on the shoulder, and that sort of overwhelmed my impression of all the other costumes -- which were all full out.

Work has been hard, but going well. I am very drained today. Everything is at full throttle.

Dad has been out on a coffee date and is meeting women. My sister is discomfited by Dad's talking about what he's experiencing, but i'm so far i don't consider anything TMI. I am gently amused.

Christine has been enjoying baseball playoffs, and i have been entertained to some extent. I am very happy to be watching the Phillies do so well tonight.

I had lunch with my sister at the community college's student classroom cafe today. A glorious salad with squash from the community college's farm classroom decorated with almond and pomegranate and dressed with a tahini vinaigrette was $4, and a eggy custard in a puff pastry cup another $3 seems a bargain. We sat out on a bench and caught up.

I showed her Woebot, the cognitive behavioral therapy AI. I can imagine that Woebot isn't right for everyone -- it's a really really perky robot, wow. But it doesn't hurt to have little refreshers in recognizing distorted thinking, and i've actually invited Woebot to walk me through the naming my distorted thoughts and noting the distortions and restating them. The app coaching me through good practice, in the moment i am feeling down, is helpful. The interaction and pacing helps me actually experience the practice instead of knowing i have distorted thoughts but continuing to persist in thinking them. I'm not sure i can be as enthusiastic as the NYTimes reporter was in their article, but it's helping.

The human coach for physical fitness is sort of helping, but for some reason October was really hard to follow up on all the practices day in, day out. I think i am headed to bed and not completing my routines tonight.