Apologies for the spaces as of late: my husband bought me a Mac laptop for my birthday, and I'm still lingering on my old Dell with photo uploads, which makes for some indignancy around here. For now, I peer up and see cloud-streaked blue skies.

I love that there are still pockets of green outside. We've had bright, insistent sunny days and a few seriously gray ones speckled in. My mood often remains in the gray; I'm hoping to move into color soon.

It's been so gray outside; we had a week or so of blue skies and incredible sunshine, and now I need lamps indoors during the day. I usually transition so smoothly into daylight savings, but this one is weighing exceptionally heavy on me.

A noon walk on Memorial Bluff. Ryan brought a tennis ball along and bounced it on the wooded trail's hard packed earth. The leaves are either brown and lining the trails, or still lingering green. Collected acorns rattled in my bag against my hip.

Birthday walk with Ryan and the pups down to the park and back. Dual lawn mowers on either side of the street. A squirrel eating a nut, just feet above me, glowering down. Bur oaks stretching craggy arms toward rooftops.

A quiet morning, full of sun and long shadows. Zephyr still pulls, but Penny hangs back, and I let them both take long snuffles in the decaying leaves. No crows, but still the chatter of a lone squirrel, the whirring engine of a recycling truck.

Two squirrels bickering in the trees. Crows upon crows. Downtown, the rhythm of a train. In the treetops, remnants of summer's nests. Dogs burying their noses in dried hydrangea.

First neighborhood walk since the sprained ankle: evening sun that much earlier, autumn leaves are all dried out and shushing and crackling, crows and wind chimes competing to be heard.

There was lots of walking done this weekend, but only one of real importance: congratulations, BJ + Lynn on your Halloween wedding! Ryan looked awfully handsome in his orange-accented tux, it was so very wonderful to see old friends dressed as peacocks and geishas and ninjas and strange television characters, and if you want to see more of the ruckus, see this post on field | work.