Well, today officially marks the end of summer for me. Never mind what the calendar says; today the outdoor pools close, so as far as I'm concerned, we'll now be catapaulted into fall. I've been working hard all weekend to maximize my Pool Time. I spent most of Saturday working on my online class, so never made it outdoors then - but yesterday I got in a respectable three hours, and today, which is brilliantly sunny and clear, I intend to spend most of the day at the pool. I'll get in my last half a mile of laps until next May, probably; I don't swim indoors much because [a] my schedule makes it difficult and [b] I tend to get sinus infections if I swim in the winter.

It's definitely moving on towards autumn here. The nights are getting chilly (a fact which is immediately noticeable in the pool's water temperature). The sunlight, while still warming, is definitely waning. Time to prepare the yard for winter - but not today; let's hope next weekend is fine, too . . .

So it's time to look forward to autumn things. My birthday is rolling around soon . . . and before that, Steph is jetting over from England for a friend's wedding . . . Thanksgiving is too far out on the horizon to think about, really; and Halloween is a non-event around here now that the kids have grown up . . . Autumn is a time for walks in the woods, if you can find woods free of hunters. I'd love to get up to Mackinac (ideally over my birthday weekend), but I'm not sure whether that will happen or not. I hope I get in a bunch more bike rides! A colleague has offered to let me park at her house, which is just off Lansing's Riverfront Trail, so I can ride in to work from there (about 5 miles). I doubt I'll be able to take advantage of that offer next week, but I'm hoping to the week after.

Ah, well. I've got a few more loose ends to tie up for the week ahead, and then I'm off to the pool . . .