The Changing Leaves

One of the things I love about fall is the changing of the leaves. Shades of bright green start to fade, then brillant shades of red, orange, and yellow appear and then the leaves are just a pile on the ground. The memories of the previous spring and summer fade and you await the new growth in the coming spring.

Flying into Chicago on Saturday morning the forest preserves were patchworks of yellow, orange and red. Here at home, many of the trees have lost most of their leaves – this morning the street sweeper came down the street to clear out the big piles of dry leaves.

Down in Chattanooga the leaves aren’t quite as far along in their season change. The first weekend of October when I did a lot of mountain driving the mountains were covered in green with just a few spots of autumnal colors. This week as I drove through the mountains for the last time this year the patchwork quilt was vastly changed – not nearly as much green and a lot more reds and oranges.

As the leaves are changing this season, it is also a season of change for me as well.

So long Scenic City…for Now

Last week was my final week on the project down in Chattanooga. The 8-10 week assignment in May ended up lasting 23 weeks. It had been 4 years since I had a travel assignment for work and it was a bit of a rough start. In August my role in the project changed from wearing one hat to wearing lots of hats. As I’ve mentioned (and the lack of blogging since August indicates) my world became pretty crazy and work was close to all that was happening with me. In September the system went live, I worked an insane number of hours and in the midst of it also marked 10 years in consulting. In addition to learning a new software with this project I also learned a lot about me and how I work. I can honestly say that this was one of my favorite projects.

I look back on the last several months and while the “who practices some trade” side of Artisan was definitely the driving factor in my activities there are also some fun memories. One plus of the travel assignment was that I got to see my family much more than I normally do – at least one weekend a month I was down in the ‘Ville instead of coming back to Chicago. Another plus was forming some new friendships that will continue beyond the duration of the project.

When I first learned that I would be traveling I had grand plans for all the knitting that would happen – well, not nearly everything was accomplished & most of the knits were simple in nature. (Click to see the set) As I mentioned in my previous post, I did make it to a local yarn store once. Now that I’m back home, here are the yarn souvenirs that I picked up. I don’t know what projects these will become – the colors definitely remind me of a lot of the scenery that I saw around the Scenic City.

Hello Home…

Now that the Chattanooga project has wrapped up it is good to be back home. My next project will keep me in Chicago so I’m looking forward to getting back into a routine that doesn’t involve living out of a suitcase. I will be working downtown so I will have “El” commute time – it may involve knitting or maybe catching up on the stack of books that I have been wanting to read.

In the coming weeks and months I think that the “handicraft” side of Artisan will be done more frequently. The “Knit List” seems never ending with all the projects I want to complete – many are on the needles already – a lot of the projects I showed earlier this summer are still “in progress.” Scrapbooking has been pretty nonexistent this year – but I’m already looking ahead to the winter retreat weekend in January & all that I can accomplish then. And cooking…well after eating out 3 meals a day for 23 weeks I’m definitely ready to spend time in the kitchen. In fact, a friend is coming for dinner tomorrow & I’m looking forward to making a big pot of soup.

I’m enjoying a bit of downtime before the next project begins. Stay tuned for more blogging. I’m also looking forward to heading to Dallas this weekend to spend some quality time with Miss Butterfly & Miss Doodlebug!