Glowing Gold

Especially during nap time, the golden sunlight beckons me out side.   I desperately want to get my feet in this:

But rather than frolicking in the fall leaves I have been doing this:

Sorting through the many boxes and bags of fabric and other art supplies and giving them accessible homes for the first time in years.  My husband set up the craft armoire his mother sent me for my birthday, and I am finally moved in.  It was a three day undertaking.

This morning I just couldn't face another day inside.  I know that for my own sanity and the well being of my children (so they don't have to deal with a super crabby mom) I just had  to get outside.  We got dressed, ate breakfast, I packed a back pack and we piled into the car to drive down the highway to the Valley of the Moon Nature Trail on Rock Creek.  We walked along the trail through waves of grasses, wound our way beneath the towering cotton woods, found a picnic table and sipped hot apple cider.  We just soaked it all in.

The rustling of the wind through grasses and leaves, the patter of the water over rocks and the whole world just glowing, glowing gold.

Even on the mountains golden larch trees are standing in their full autumn attire turning the almost uniform green of the summer's tree shrouded mountains into something magical.

The aspen leaves shimmering in the sun, in constant motion.  Those leaves that remain holding onto their stems tightly.  I sat entranced, expecting at least one leaf to give and float away on the wind, but not a single one let go of its place.

I loaded the kids back into the car.  They both sipped on what remained of their hot cider as we drove the twenty minute drive back home.  I felt as if the golden sunlight had warmed us so thoroughly that we all must be shimmering just a bit, waving in the wind, firmly secured in our own places in this world.