Sugar Pie Pumpkin

This is a sugar pie pumpkin. It is the most pumpkiny pumpkin I have ever seen. I think every pumpkin wants to look like this in their soul. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to cook with it, but research reveals that I can, which is a relief. I honestly thought these sort of pumpkins only existed in the movies.
I am going to make mum's pumpkin pie with it, hopefully!!

Pumpkin Spice M&Ms

Here are the special fall flavoured M&Ms - they taste like someone tried the concept of putting cinnamon and nutmeg with chocolate, but without using the real spices... Not a hit in my book. We won't die wondering!

Pumpkins and autumn

I don't know the origins of the tradition, but suddenly, for Fall (autumn) there is a slew of special seasonal stuff to buy. Pumpkin spice candles, tea, coffee, biscuits, muffins, M&Ms. Special pumpkin themed crockery, soup toureens, cups, and table linen (as seen in the photo above, which is a Williams Sonoma window in the mall).
New wreaths for your door - take down the stars and stripes theme, and replace with autumn leaves, interspersed with wheat and (you guessed it) pumpkin. Shops have already started selling Halloween stuff, but that seems separate to the more high brow pumpkin theme. I think maybe the high brow stuff is looking forward over Halloween to Thanksgiving?
It just all seems a little strange to focus on the pumpkin/corn/wheat harvest  in a country that sells bananas year round, no matter what the season?

Walk with your kids!

4.30pm on a wet cold day, we had had very energetic visitors in the morning, I was tired and it was nearly time for me to cook dinner... But I had promised a walk to find puddles. I'm so glad I stuck to my word!! (It helped that it was frankfurts and veggies for dinner - nice and easy and quick)
It turned into a delightful 20 min ramble - the kids sprinted ahead in search of the next puddle, the air was fresh, and on the way back, we saw a squirrel eating a nut in a tree, as well as stopping to look at various seed pods on the ground and pick up some pine needles for dad to look at.

Fall is here

You can't really avoid the fact that it is cooling down, and that the leaves are turning different colours (and falling). I guess the other indication, is that the kids are in warmer pjs, and we are trying to find jackets, boots and gloves...

Amusing themselves

This is the end of an hours solid play on the back deck. I sent them outside with the soccer ball and the blow up watermelon (don't ask) and told them to amuse themselves, so I could cook tea (new recipe).
1 - play with ball/watermelon - rolling, throwing, much giggling and exclaiming. My flowers were got several times.
2 - run in circles - around the two balls. singing "run in a circle, run in a circle" over and over. Or pretending to play the trumpet. Then falling onto the deck and declaring that they were dead. Then starting over with the running.
3 - They took some matchbox cars out on the deck, so I rolled out the carpet mat to give them a bit of comfort.
4 - rolling the carpet to make little tunnels that they could crawl through.

I really feel like today, they started getting the true meaning of amusing themselves!

Death at the Center of Love - Ruth 1:16-18

Ruth 1: 16-18

The secret of love is commitment - v17 Love given voluntarily, and until death

The cost of love is uneven - v18 Naomi silenced. No thank you recorded. The people we love may not love back the way we expect. We shouldn't be keeping track in a relationship! Eventually, because we are human, this will grate, we will get tired of this. How to endure?

The power of love is faith
Her love was rooted in God, not in a person, and it flowed out to Naomi.
Ruth didn't follow God in wealth, with His specific promises in her ear, as Abraham did. She loved Naomi inspite of Naomi having no future in a man's world. She was willing to narrow her own life to love another - this was going to cost her a chance at finding another husband and security (she doesn't know about Boaz yet!).

Faith as a noun - rather than a verb? So, instead of faith being a mountain you climb, it is a valley you fall into. She rested in her faith.

The life of love is beautiful
Ruth's love pointed to Jesus' love. So incredible that she (a woman) is included in Matthew's lineage for Jesus. God calls us not to a pilgrimage/task, but simply to receive His love. From receiving that love flows the natural consequence of wanting to tell everyone about it.

Photo - http://pastor-taylor.blogspot.com/2010/09/finding-god-in-unexpected-places.html