I’m trying something new. I’m going to journal here (the pc version of course) and skip my usual morning journaling in my beloved moleskin. Poor moleskin. He’s going to miss me. Journaling on the computer is how I started blogging in the first place. I can type so much faster than I can write (which you will see might be a hinderance). Thank you 8th grade typing class with those heavy black metal typewriters that clacked so loudly. Anyway, in preparation of November write a Novel month (what’s it called? NOVOPOMO?) I thought I’d try to write daily here first. Disclaimer alert. I should never say my goals out loud because I invariably break them or resent them. But here I go!

The problem I have with writing a novel is that I don’t have really strong plot-writing skills. I can describe a character, a room, all sorts of things. I can even write dialogue, I think. I just have trouble coming up with a really good plot arc. That was my whole problem with the Secret Agent Josephine in Paris book and the reason I never wrote any more Secret Agent Josephine books (though I still want to get back to the Secret Agent Josephine At Home). I just couldn’t write a kids’ spy book and have it be something silly about chasing down the blueberry caper or solving another stolen art mysteries. Snore… Spies are about murder and duality and finding secrets with trickery and sex appeal. Not exactly children’s literature material.  I just couldn’t make Secret Agent Josephine a go-go-gadget character, even though she sorta was. So she sits in my head getting extremely bored.

ANYWAY! I swear, journaling with me (with the ease of typing) is just an endless stream of tangents. I thought I was going to start this post talking about Fall! Ha! Another tangent: A long time ago, I think during my messenger days of sending Bethany Actually a million texts all day long as a release vent for my failing marriage, I programmed my computer to type hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! instead of the word “ha” as a shortcut because I was terribly offended by “lol” back in those days. I was such a snob. To this day (through three computers even,) every time I type anything with the letter “h” and “a”, it automatically fills up my screen with hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! It’s terrible. hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! it’s like a virus hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! I can’t get it to stop. Try typing hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! ppy Birthday or Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! lelujah or hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! nd job. Just kidding. I never type hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!nd job. And I don’t remember how to fix it. So I’m constantly backspacing over my hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! to turn it back to ha-something

So Fall!! I was thinking about it just before I sat down to type because I stuck a spoonful of caramelized sweetened condensed milk in my coffee this morning and it was swirling around so majestically. Joon had a baking babysitting event this weekend (I’ll have to blog that later) and she taught herself how to make caramel by baking sweetened condensed milk in the oven. It takes about an hour but turns out amazing. So caramelly and gooey! We have a ton of it now so I thought it would be a good idea to stick a spoon of it in my coffee with a nod towards Starbucks and their endless parade of fall-themed drinks. Take that Starbucks. I’m probably going to gain about ten pounds right before we have to get holiday pictures taken. Groan.

But it also feels amazingly fall-ish because we actually hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!ve a chill in the air in the morning. I LOVE a change in seasons. I felt the same way about summer. When you wake up in the morning and something seems different, it’s magical.  I cannot wait to wear sweaters and socks and slippers again. I have fuzzy UGG slippers and they are THE BEST.

The girls have been wearing heavy over-sized hoodies all through summer. Eighty degrees in the shade or not. They are nuts. They have heat rash to prove it. Hoodies have been a fashion statement this year and they wear them every single day like a uniform. The bigger the better. I think they each have about twenty hoodies apiece. I know this because they don’t hang them up or fold them and put away them in drawers or on shelves. They just leave them hanging around their room in various stages of inside-out-ness. Finally I got sick of the problem and designated two of Bug’s expedit baskets for hoodies instead of old toys that she hasn’t played with since she was six. It was a rite of passage. Out with the toys, in with the bins of hoodies. So now she stuffs them in her baskets and we are all happy.

You might be wondering how these teens could amass twenty or more hoodies each. Well, it’s something like this: every time we go to the store to buy them some necessary garment like a shirt or a much needed bra they end up picking out a hoodie instead. And then there’s me being the clueless parent that I am and I fail to remember that they already have several at home. It could also be that the teens are extremely persuasive. They are!!! They make it seem like the hoodie in question is some kind of collector’s item that their life depends upon. I’m just stupid. I fall for it every time. But no more I say. They have enough hoodies to dress two rugby teams and they would fit too!

I digress again. I’m hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! ppy it’s fall and I cannot wait to carve up a dozen pumpkins for all my alphamom crafts. In fact that’s what is on my to do list today. What a silly job I have.

I was listening to Where’d You Go Bernadette on audible the other day when I was suddenly struck with a very strong desire for a Cinnabon. The narrator was describing being enticed by the wafting smell of Cinnabon and then eating it…I don’t know what got me. I think it was her description of it being a “puff of deliciousness.”  Let me just quote her because it was such a great paragraph:

“The Cinnabon wasn’t going to eat itself, so I sat. Trams came and went as I pulled apart the puff of deliciousness, enjoying every bite, until I’d realized I’d forgotten napkins. Both my hands were plastered with icing. My face, too. In one of my vest pockets was a handkerchief. I held up my hands, surgeon like, and asked a lady, “Please could you unzip this?” The pocket she unzipped contained only a book on Antarctica. I lifted it out and wiped my hands and, yes, my face, with it’s clean pages…”

I remember exactly where I was walking with the dogs when I heard that passage read. I was standing by the dog drinking fountain by the tennis courts with the courts to my left and the lake to my right. I was heading home. It is of no importance where I was other than it makes me laugh that my lizard brain paid such excellent attention. I suddenly wanted a Cinnabon very badly.

I haven’t had a Cinnabon in over twenty years. I think I’ve only had two in my entire life! I had no reason to want one until I heard that passage. First of all, I rarely let myself eat giant pastries (except maybe an apple fritter once a year) because I am convinced they will give me diabetes. (It’s really a crying shame).  And secondly, they don’t sell them where I live. The nearest mall that had a Cinnabon store was 23 minutes away.

Oh, you know we did.

We made an excursion of it!  I waited for the girls to get out of school and then Lubna and I kidnapped them and headed off to the destination mall. It was a total adventure and completely fun because it felt like we were doing something forbidden. Neither Lubna nor the girls had ever had a Cinnabon. The cashier laughed at us when I told her so. We were Cinnabon virgins, except I was like Madonna and *like* a Cinnabon virgin because it had been so many years.

Was it as good as I anticipated? Totally! The liberal sticky smears of cinnamon sugar between unraveling pieces of warm yeasty bread, the ooey, gooey frosting… it was so good! It was amazing, plastic fork and all.

The girls were starving because they had skipped lunch at school so they insisted on having orange chicken from Panda Express and some kind of Philly cheese steak sandwich from the food court BEFORE they had their Cinnabons. I know, so boring like that. What kind of kids want desert second?!

Sadly, by the time the girls got around to trying their Cinnabons, they were full from over-eating their late lunch and the excitement was definitely not as brilliant and vivid as it was for me.  I was meanwhile having a full-on psychedelic trip with all my pleasure centers going off in my brain. But whatever. At the end of the day we were a pack of laughing, silly girls hanging out at the mall on a school day. It was completely novel.

Everyday I write down three things in my journal that would make today great.

Eating a Cinnabon was on today’s list.

I dare you to add it to your list. Or better yet, make some from scratch.