I think I may have fall allergies. I've never really been an allergy person but, they say these things can crop up even in adulthood and I certainly have the genes to inherit my own seasonal dose of the sniffles. I have this strange stuffy nose, sinus headache but clear mucus, mostly no runny nose lots of watery eyes, sneezing and nose/upper throat tickle. It doesn't seem to be getting worse and it has nothing to do with my lungs, just my nasal passages. Mostly I feel stuffy, tickly and sometimes headachy. From the reading I've done it seems pretty likely that some kind of irritant is giving me trouble rather than an illness. I thought we were all getting sick but, the boys seem perfectly fine now and only A and I are all stuffy-headed. I'm considering getting allergy tested just so I know what allergens to avoid and if indeed I'm on the right track or if I'm actually just a sickie. Anybody else have allergy v.s. cold information? I need to eat more local honey! Does anybody else know about honey helping seasonal allergies? they say it's true. I hear Claritin doesn't work on colds...I think I'll try some this afternoon and see if I feel human again.

I picked up some more daffodil and tulip bulbs this past weekend and I'm considering making tomorrow an honorary garden day and planting bulbs, spreading compost, heaping on the mulch and blood meal, tucking the garlic in the ground. Seems like a good day to do it...the weather is supposed to be lovely.

Well, two jars of the tomato sauce I made didn't seal and all the jars of canned tomato pieces didn't take. Guess I must not have gotten things hot enough when I was bottling. I was debating the merits of dashing madly to a farmer's market somewhere today and grabbing another box of tomatoes for a second try. Seems a little crazy to dive back in again when I just cleaned all the canning stuff up but, on the other hand I know we'll eat the tomatoes if I can them and we might as well make hay while the sun shines.

A and I had a date last night a simple little dinner together after our counseling session. Our assignments for next week are:

• Try putting the boys down together for an afternoon nap at 12:30-1:00 and allowing them to sleep no later than 2:30
• Take the boys out for active running around time in the afternoon before dinner
• Have A call me and give me an hour of prep time before he arrives home
• Prep dinner food during the boys afternoon nap to be ready for A's call
• Each of us write separately on how our relationship has changed since we were dating and why we married our spouse.
• Get a babysitter to watch the boys for me once a week during the day so that I can get an hour or two alone

Lots to do these next two weeks. The session was good...productive tips, helpful talk and some possibly useful pointers. I'm cautiously optimistic. As I told A a couple of weeks ago, our counselor is funny. She's good...the stuff she says isn't earth shattering, brilliant or astounding it's just logical, sound stuff and usually it works. Sometimes it's stuff we've even heard before, she just makes us do it. I wouldn't say the chemistry between the three of us is electric or that we particularly love talking to her as a person...she's just good. Not amazing but, she fills our needs: effective, no nonsense, experienced in life and reasonable. I wasn't sure I'd be okay with that but, so far I have no reasons for complaint.

Boston was lovely! We had a royal tour of the city...took a whale cruise (incredible) and generally partied till our sinuses started to complain. By the time we headed home on Tuesday afternoon A and I were heavy lidded and both trying to cope with pounding headaches. Vacation is good but sometimes, home is better.

I'm downing a perpetual draft of tea well doused with honey in attempts to gain some ground. Poor A couldn't take anymore time off work for a sick day so he gave himself a day's gym reprieve and manfully saddled up for the work world again. That's when we're oh so glad that its only a very short week. Today and tomorrow; that's all that's left. I can do this.

In other news...its finally truly cool enough to call autumn without any reservations. The temperatures are dropping dangerously low at night (39 is the record coolest so far) so, I know its time to get my rear in gear regarding seasonal jobs. The houseplants need to be dusted off and brought inside to their solarium perches, the garden needs a good layer of compost and mulch, the cold weather curtains need to be hung, the windows need to be sealed, the dryer needs a tune-up to be sure its in good working order for winter laundry days and we need a cheery stack of firewood at the ready in the living room.

Speaking of the fireplace, one thing I've decided to keep my eyes peeled for at second-hand shops is a set of fireplace tools. We have no hearth shovel for clearing out ash nor a poker for adjusting the stack as the fire burns down. For that matter, I'd love to happen on the perfect household bellows to make the situation even more rosy. Its time to start thinking about having a little fire in the evenings. It sounds so cozy.

OH! And I finished Fast Food Nation while we were in Boston. I'm now reading the above book. I have to say Fast Food ended up being a book I was super glad I read. It was interesting, extremely informative and not a hard read at all. I think I'm actually going to not let Reuben have fast food hamburgers until he's much older and his immune system is much stronger. And the other big take-away is that the labor status of meatpacking factories is woefully in need of reform. I can't believe there's even been a great American novel about the field and yet it's still managed to be rife with scandal. Crazy. I wish I knew some way to make a  difference there. Yet again, the Hispanic laborer gets screwed.

And now I'm reading about genius. I have to say that my biggest take away so far has been a sad one. Einstein was sort of a jerk....at least in his younger life. That's annoying, jerky people but, what really makes my blood boil is that he excused it in the name of genius. Kind of an "I'm super brilliant which means science will be my life which, means I'll just shirk all other responsibility in life and be whatever kind of creep I want to because I'm that way...I'm brilliant!" And the author seems to kind of project the idea that we might feel critical at first but, then we're outsiders, what do we really know of deep genius. This is the way he was. Blech. Gag me with a spoon. I couldn't help but think, I wonder how much more he could have accomplished and discovered in life if he wasn't working so hard at being a jerk all the time.