With my return to my regular evening library schedule and my slightly more ample hours in the studio, I have been much more organized and productive the past week than the entirety of summer.  I don't dare say I am caught up, but the state of "caught up" is a little brighter a chimerae on the horizon than the past few months.  As such, with book stuff more on the orderly side of disorderly, I can turn back to both my own projects (laying out ghost landscapes, getting salvage ready for submission,  preliminary designs on the next zine project dreams about houses and bees.) Also, all those new crafty things I continually mean to get to, but that keep getting piled under the deluge of book and other business.

There are also library/curatorial things afoot that bring some of our CC alumni/dgp authors into the spotlight, which will have us be throwing up some work by Abigail Zimmer, M Forajter, and Jessi Lee Narducci for the impending manifestation of the Aesthetics of Research Series, along with an ample list of their inspirations, research materials, and the general muck from which creation springs.  (We'll be doing more of this in the future, as well as featuring some other alumni, faculty & other CC community folks with various writing projects, both in the arts series and as part of a future blog interview series.)

The weather is turning, and promising a cooler weekend (during which I will be catching some paternal family reunion action in Rockford complete with cookouts and fire pits and s'mores aplenty..(this is the local-bound version of the usual Wisconsin trip, which didn't quite happen this year, so we're staying close to home.) I've already done the wardrobe switch from sundress to sweater dresses (and corduroy!  corduroy!) and am actually looking forward to some autumnalness.

September already, and I am ready for the dive back into the real world.  I am trying to stave off the inevitable panic, which should have me all aflutter for at least a few days.  To sort of just relax into things rather than too much fretting and futter.  In the studio, there are still some new author copies to get out and a bunch of orders to get packed up.  There are manuscripts to read and things to submit and plans for new paper goods to get underway (including the above postcard from my unusual creatures series and a bunch of new notecard designs .) In the library, there are no doubt stacks of new textbook orders and reserve requests and general new semester busyness.  At home, grocery orders and fall cleaning and putting away summer clothes (there will be another major switchout in early October, but I like to get the really summer stuff put away after I stop wearing them--September is usually still warm enough for a lot of summery dresses to get one last wear...)

September and I still get excited about back to school and treated myself to new nailpolish and legal pads and scented gel pens in the spirit. (also some new clothes--plaids and fall florals and sweater dresses, oh my!)   A couple days back,  also hit up my favorite apple orchard for cider donuts and raspberry salsa and spotting some adorable baby goats.  Though it was still technically summer and not many apple varieties yet picked, it was rainy, clouded over, and autumn-like.  Yesterday, the annual family Labor Day fish fry , and while I don't really eat fish, there were burgers and taco dip and the giant pitcher of hurricanes.  (hurricanes I may have sampled a little much of and that left me rum-drunk and a little drowsy.) But while we say goodbye to summer, sometimes I have to wonder where it went.