DEBORAH CROMBIE: Nothing says tempus fugit like getting the email from the online office supply saying that they have your 2025 planner in stock! 2025!!! How the heck is it 2025 already?
You will probably know by now that I am not a huge plan-in advance person. Other than thinking, "I absolutely must go to Bouchercon next year," and tenuous ideas about a trip to London, 2025 had not really impinged upon my consciousness until now.
But I ordered my planner, which will join the ranks of previous Quo Vadis Ministers (yes, I save them! My life therein! And I have a great time picking the color of the cover! This year's is violet) and now the blank pages are beckoning. The arrival of the planner marks the start of a new year for me. This is fourteen years of planners (plus 2024, which is red) in the photo! Unfortunately, I didn't keep them in as much detail in the earlier years, but I can at least see the big events (like trips to London!)
What about you, dear REDS? Is there a time or a ritual that says "the clock is ticking" to you?
RHYS BOWEN: It’s always a shock when I go into the drug store in the middle of sweltering summer heat and there are Halloween candies on the shelves. When I see Starbucks and its pumpkin spice lattes i know that summer is officially over. Tempus seems to fugit so quickly these days. It was only a blink of an eye ago that I was writing 2023 on my checks. Slow down, please. I want those lazy hazy days of summer with picnics on the beach, sipping wine on the balcony, sitting out and watching the moon rise… where were they? Why did I let them slip by?
HALLIE EPHRON: A few weeks ago, I bought myself a new planner for 2025, too (better not to wait too long or all the good/cheap ones at Staples are gone). I live by the thing, and like Debs I keep the old ones. I’ve got the last 18 in a pile. And I often need to refer back.
Halloween ambushed me at the supermarket. We’re already talking about where to have Thanksgiving. But the biggest marker of time: the days are already very noticeably shorter.
I’m with Rhys, 100%. Instructions to Time: SLOW DOWN!
LUCY BURDETTE: Me too on the slow down! I don’t use a paper calendar anymore, everything is done on the computer/phone so it won’t be kept for posterity. (Though honestly, why would anyone want to keep my calendars??) I’m not surprised to see 2025 on the horizon because we’ve been planning the Friends of the Key West Library speaker series for the spring. It’s going to be a doozy!
It’s been so gorgeous here in CT the last couple weeks, with that slight crisp of fall in the air, that I’m really trying to enjoy every minute I’m out.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ohhh, Lucy, someday invite me, okay? And yes, it is gorgeous here in Boston, too. I have a day-by-day notebook calendar, and a monthly calendar magented to the white board in eye-view, and the yearly one on my phone and my publicist's google doc and she ADDS to the phone, soI am constantly making sure they are all in sync. I love my notebook calendars and white board calendar, and I have saved them all for years.
The one that’s vanished–I used to have little calendar books I always carried my purse–but they went away, sadly, with the advent of the cell phone. RIP little day-at-a glances.
I am seeing leaves fall now, and I want to stop them! ANd certainly the days are shorter, and the undercurrent in the air is cool, not hot. And no more iced coffee…that’s how I always tell. There’s always a moment when they don’t seem tempting anymore.
JENN McKINLAY: I’m with Hank! I want to come to Key West! LOL. I gave up dayminders when I retired from my library gig ten years ago, but I do have a wall calendar by my desk with big squares where I write everything (mostly deadlines but also fun stuff) and I save them for posterity. I’m sure the Hooligans will throw them out when I die. Whatever. It’s supposed to dip below 100 here in AZ this weekend. I am giddy.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Jungle Reds Mini-Con in Key West! Woo hoo!
I keep trying planners, etc. and they never stick. The only time-keeping thing that seems to work for me is the Google calendar, loaded with everything in my life and plenty of alarms.
Right now, enjoying eighty degree weather in September, I’m hearing the clock ticking loudly. I’m already overdue ordering two cords of wood, and I need to schedule my furnace tune-up and have the chimney cleaner come over before the heating season begins. Oh, and I need to make sure I’m on my plow guy’s list for snowplowing this winter! At least I haven’t had to pull my fall and winter clothing out of the attic… yet.
How about it, lovely readers? What tells you that there is new year on the horizon?
The changing leaves [and the cooler temperatures], harbingers of fall, put me on notice that the year will soon be over . . . .
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the year just flies by . . . I'm with everyone who asks for time to slow down! . . .
And, yes, I have a planner . . . .
When temps start to cool down and we are looking at Halloween, I know the next year is coming quickly. Right now, I'm trying to hang on to summer.
ReplyDeleteFrom Celia: good morning everyone, yes it’s early for me to be commenting but the challenge after my knee surgery is sleep. The meds haven’t helped so here I am wide awake and will be napping in a few hours.
ReplyDeleteThe weather has been wonderful the past few days but my time is on sleep, exercise that knee, and reclaim a new routine. But I am a planner person, a serious PP. This goes back to
my organization business when I went on not one but two expensive TM courses which came with a gold plated TM planner. My iPhone took over and now it’s all digital. But the training stuck and helps me every day.
There are branches of red in the tree outside my window and I’m watching birthdays grow closer as time appears to speed up. Time to sit and enjoy the new moon and my knee.
Celia, I'm so happy to have you and your new knee here this morning! Hope you're healing in leaps and bounds (imaginary anyway!)
DeleteGlad to see you this morning. Make sure you do the PT. Hoping things goes smoothly.
DeleteCelia, I hope you have an outside deck, and can sit in between physio, and enjoy the beauty of this lovely end to summer. I also hope there are not too many hornets to fly into your libation (always the terrible part of the close of the season). Has anyone else noticed that the hornets seem to be less this year?
DeleteI'm glad that surgery is behind you and you are recuperating. Enjoy the changing colors of the trees!
DeleteCelia, the worst is over, and now you and your new knee have no responsibilities, other than getting acquainted with each other, and making the most of your PT!
DeleteDebRo
Strength and patience for you and your knee, Celia.
DeleteElisabeth the Anon.
DeleteSo glad to hear that you're doing well, Celia!
DeleteWhen the sun doesn't come up until after 6:30am. Don't like it at all. Also having to wear a light jacket in the early hours.
ReplyDeleteI love my Google calendar, which is everywhere, but I also love my small Tibetan Nuns Project paper calendar in my office, on which I write everything - professional stuff, birthdays, my occasional weigh-in, and more. I have them back to 2009 but I haven't gotten notice of the 2025 one being ready yet.
ReplyDeleteToday's an exciting milestone - 11-month old Ida Rose's adoption will be finalized! I'm going out to be there in person.
Edith, congratulations on the finalization of Ida Rose's adoption. I am thrilled for you and her parents. Many blessings!!
DeleteCongrats on Ida Rose's adoption being final.
DeleteThat’s so exciting about Ida Rose!
DeleteDebRo
What a blessing for the family, Edith!
DeleteHappy day! So pleased for your family, Edith.
DeleteHappy Adoption Day to Ida Rose and all her family! Elisabeth
DeleteThank you all, dear ones! It's done, and the judge was warm and welcoming. We are SO happy.
DeleteLucy, have you considered having the whole Jungle Red gang down for a library event. You certainly have an "in." Reds, I see a raucous weekend at an air b&b in your future!
ReplyDeleteRemember the song Circle Game? "You'll drag your feet to slow the circles down..." I was about 20 years old the first time I heard it. That line stuck.
I stopped using hard copy annual planner when I retired from the Cdn federal government job. These days, I do rely on my Google calendar.
ReplyDeleteLike DRU, I notice and do not like the shorter hours of daylight.
The "always" sign? In stores where Back-to-School gear, decorative skeletons, pumpkins, and Christmas trees are displayed together. Add in the sun-setting substantially earlier.
ReplyDeleteThe new sign? When I receive the email from Passion Planner that the 2025 planners are available to order. And, like Hank, I miss those pocket planners, too.
Ah, the memory of paper Day-at-a-Glance books! I moved on years ago to digital but still think about the pleasure of writing entries on paper. YES to a JRW mini-con in Key West; please schedule it for the month of February when I’ll be in town…
ReplyDeleteIt was a ‘stop this’ moment when in September (this month, this year), I was looking for spring bulbs to plant. Last year for some reason, I planted a bag of tulips called pastels – they were soft pinks, strong pinks, apricot and lilac, and even though they were not my favourite colour palette, when they came up late in the spring, they were (accidently) filled in with forget-me-nots and just beautiful! I want to add a few more this year.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile back to the point – I was in Home Depot and stopped to talk with a former college who was surrounded by (horrendously priced) Halloween animated yard foolishness, and asked about the bulbs – not in yet. As for the ugly yard clutter – almost sold out!
A week later, I was in Walmart (see it is still not the middle of September), and once again looking for the bulb display. It was on the floor, but still super-wrapped in cellowrap (we could talk about all this going in the landfill!). A few Halloween things were around, BUT all the Christmas stuff was out or being put out. Arghhhhh!
I bought a pumpkin at the local farm market for our Thanksgiving (in October) pies last week. If I didn’t there would be none at the appropriate time. I have no idea how they had them ripen so early – probably radioactive or something.
Meanwhile, my garden says invite all your friends (you are included), distract them, and have the Harrumper fill their vehicle with tomatoes both red & green. They are safe from zucchini, as they now finished.
Sunny and hot for all this week – we had 12 butterflies emerge yesterday and take flight. We should be finished by the end of the month. Debs. as they fly over your head, you will know they are ours – they are tagged and carrying a tomato!
Oh, and as for the planner – we used to buy the ones with a day a page. These were used as a diary of all the drivel that happened in our lives from buying a rototiller and other foolish ideas, to birth and death of children and animals. We have about 15 years on the shelves. What reading that would be!
Unmissable, Margo!!! :-)
DeleteExactly! Yesterday I finally got around to ordering my tulips for next spring, and all of my favorites were already sold out! You can’t even plant them for another month, so how could they already be gone? So I will be experimenting with some new colors this year… We shall see.
ReplyDeleteHank ~ Something tells me your garden "tenant"..Mister Bunny...won't mind what colors you choose. :)
DeleteHank, perhaps there will be “volunteers” from years past in the “right” colors? My tulips always appeared for several years…dig up, separate plant again. Lots of dirty nails and knees for “old familiar faces” in the spring. Cheers for fall. Elisabeth
DeleteHere on the South Shore it's not quite "sweater weather" yet but the air is definitely cooler and drier early in the morning. I love to take my first cup of coffee out into the courtyard and enjoy just a hint of Autumn before the sun is high enough to bring back the remaining summer temps. I love this time of the year...post summer/pre holiday season...but I'll miss seeing all the summer annuals blooming and the daily pollinator visits from Mr. Bumblebee and Tinkerbell (the little hummingbird). The summer definitely seemed to speed by too quickly. As for calendars I am still very much a paper journal gal. Every September I place an order for my personalized New Yorker Desk Diary for the following year. I have done so for many years always ordering the Diary in red and I, too, save them. I have stacks of them and at times they have proven to be a good reference tool when I need to look up the exact date of something important. Every year the illustration on the front cover is different but this year in honor of the New Yorker Magazine's first issue published in February of 1925 the caricature on the front is based on the original logo...a dandy named "Eustace Tilley" looking through his monocle at a butterfly in flight. (Although "the dandy" on the cover of the 2025 New Yorker Desk Diary is a cat looking through its monocle.) It''s stupidly expensive especially when personalized but it's one habit I plan on not breaking. It has both a daily and monthly calendar for each month of the year with some entertaining information and cartoons as well. I also have a white board mounted on the wall beside my desk that seems lately to fill up with too many medical appointments :( as opposed to fun events. Oh the joy of getting older...the goal being to remain in the vertical position. :)
ReplyDeleteI had to look up The New Yorker Desk Diary! If I wasn't already committed to the Quo Vadis, I would definitely be indulging in one!
DeleteI also did the same ~ I looked up the Quo Vadis and I can well understand your loyalty to choose it as your yearly desk planner. Sleek design and dynamic color choices for the covers. I I immediately was drawn to the bold red. Perhaps one day we'll each be a convert and switch choices or just for the fun of it... be extravagant and buy both! :)
DeleteI am going to have an extended summer because just as it is turning cooler here in Minnesota I am moving permanently to Florida. Not the same as slowing down time though because 2025 will still be here before I know it. Time marches on, as the saying goes.
ReplyDeleteJust think if the Reds all showed up in Key West for a fundraiser how many of us might make the trek to Key West - instead of Left Coast Crime or Bouchercon it could be Jungle Redercon KW! I'm sure someone could come up with a better name!! LOL.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago my daughter introduced us to COZI which is a wonderful internet calendar that I have on my phone. You can include as many people as you want to be on the calendar. I can put in events or activities as can the other family members (who are selected to be on COZI) so we all know not to make appointments that conflict with other family events. Like I can see a meet up at the cafe with a friend won't work Sat morning as I can see my granddaughter has a soccer game at that time.
Happy New Year Reds and readers, because those of us in the NE US know that the real year starts in September. Our days are getting shorter (for all that they're in the 80s this week) and our nights cooler. Color is just beginning to touch the leaves. It's wonderful.
ReplyDeleteSeptember is calendar order season for me, too. Suzy Toronto's latest for my wall and Deb turned me on to the Quo Vadis calendars eight years ago. I had to get up and count because, yep, I keep them, too. I've tried to stay cover consistent, but that hasn't always been an option. Last year I found sage green and I'm glad they've brought that back this year. I find it restful. So strange. I also keep a huge 2025/2025 desk calendar that I decorate with sticker and to do items. It's colorful and joyful and it makes some of the more onerous tasks of my life fun.
Yay, Kait! I'm tickled that you like the Quo Vadis. I rotate the color covers, so I can tell them apart when I'm starting a new one. I use my Quo Vadis as a mini-diary, with everything from what we had for dinner to the weather. Incredibly boring for anyone else but very useful to me!
DeleteHere in southern Calif Sept & October are our "summer" months. It is when the Santa Ana hot winds blow in from the desert and head westerly to the coast. Last week we had temps in the 90's at the coast. It is also unfortunately fire season and we had three large fires in the LA mountains.
ReplyDeleteAnd our "winter months" are May Grey and June Gloom when it is overcast and cooler.
I live in the southern end of the Bay Area. We do suffer from May snd June gloom. This year summer started in March, very hot very early. We have not had one day below 95 since May. It has not only been 100, but 105+ most days. I do not live in the Central Valley, we are only twenty minutes from the ocean. The only changes here, are it cools off a little more at night starting in late October. Summer ends after Thanksgiving.
DeleteI didn't really believe in "June Gloom" until I was in LA for a conference in June of '23. The sun never came out!
DeleteWhen the tax-free weekend hit in MA in mid-August, I ordered a ton online including my 2025 "At-A-Glance" planner. Then, I transferred all of the 2025 hold-the-date entries that were in the back of my 2024 "At-A-Glance" to the 2025. Even though the stores around here already have Christmas decorations up, we here are really enjoying the mild and dry weather enabling us to finally sit out on our deck! An iced coffee, a book and the hum of the leaves rustling in the wind relax me!
ReplyDeleteAlicia, that sounds lovely!
DeleteI am loving everyone's comments this morning! I have to run out for an appointment, but will answer everyone as soon as I get back!
ReplyDeleteJunglerederthon in Key West. I like it!
ReplyDeleteSchool starting the first Tuesday in September was the harbinger of the fast approaching new calendar year but now local schools are starting mid-August, which just seems wrong.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a wall calendar but I gave them up years ago because everything was on my office computer's calendar. My personal life doesn't have a lot of change in it with the exception of medical appointments. Those appointment cards are actually taped across the top of my computer monitor so I see them every day. I may need to go back to a wall calendar when I retire.
When all the kids go back to school, even in August, it's fall. I'm watching yellow leaves falling from a couple of the trees outside. I'm pretty sure that means it's fall. The family birthdays of my siblings are starting: one in August, two this month, and two in November. It is fall!
ReplyDeleteIt always feels so wrong to me when kids are going back to school the first week in August!
DeleteNo paper planners for me - although I do have a wall calendar above my desk. I have it more for the pictures of greyhounds than to write on, though. LOL
ReplyDeleteFor me, it's the first blush of gold on the leaves, which is happening now in the Laurel Highlands. I drove down the Loyalhanna Gorge last week and there are spots of color. There is also a crispness to the morning air, which I love, and the mornings are noticeably dimmer.
Nothing beats those first cool mornings, Liz! My idea of heaven!
DeleteThis morning, it was so cold I turned on the heat - that's the signal summer is over, although northern CA where Rhys and I live continues to send mixed signals for another month. It's mid-September and I'm already sick of the constant pumpkin spice everythings at the stores. I will never understand how coffee+artificial pumpkin flavor can be anything but awful tasting!
ReplyDeleteYes, but you live in San Francisco where it is always cold. Definitely not representative of Northern California weather. It is always winter in SF.
DeleteActually, I live 20 miles north of the GG Bridge, where temps in the 90s are a feature of summer! The difference between those places at the Pacific's edge where the fog rolls in and stays for days and inland, where the hills block the fog, is dramatic!
DeleteUgh on the pumpkin, unless it is something with REAL pumpkin in it. They were tasting pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting at Trader Joe's today--yum. (But I resisted!)
DeleteSorry, my reply above was harsh! I meant it ti be a funny comment on California micro-climates. Even with the fog and clouds that came in today, it is still over 90 now that the sun is back.
DeleteAs far as weather in San Francisco, I always think of the quote, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."
DeleteWhen I see the kids getting on and off school buses again I know that my beloved summer is leaving me. (Sniff…) I do use a paper planner that is just able to fit in my purse. I take it everywhere, and can’t function without it!
ReplyDeleteDebRo
Count me as one of those who loved - and actually USED - the "Day at a glance" purse-sized planners. I don't know why I didn't port that habit over to at-home paper planners, especially since it's not like I spend that much time traveling.
ReplyDeleteI sleep too late to see the difference in dawn, but I've been noticing how it's close to full dark just a bit after 7pm here. This is the time of year I try to remind myself longer nights in the winter-ward season is the price for those beautiful, sun-until-9pm evenings in summer.
Rick does the dog poop pickup in the evenings, so we measure the change in the days by how much earlier he has to go out:-)
DeleteNext month, three things are happening that say "time is flying" to me: My 55th high school reunion (gulp), on my birthday. My youngest daughter's 15th high school reunion. My oldest daughter's 35th high school reunion. (They are 17 years apart.)
ReplyDeleteI'm catching up to my mom, who is holding out for her 95th birthday party in January.
Karen, I hope your mom has a fantastic celebration with all her loved ones!
DeleteDebRo
You definitely have the genes in your family, Karen! I hope you mom has a wonderful birthday.
DeleteI have MY booklet planners all the way back to my freshman year of college--can you believe that? Who but me is ever going to look at them? Actually, I do occasionally page through a few years' worth, trying to find this name or that of someone I knew 40 year ago! I'm with Grace, Dru, and a few others: I know time is passing because of growing darkness or light. In June, it's light here until almost 11 p.m. Now, it's already dark by seven, at least on a cloudy day. By December it will be dark by five, if not earlier. But I love the long, light-filled summer days, so I pay the price with a lot of darkness!
ReplyDeleteYay, fellow planner girl!!
DeleteI no longer use paper planners and recycled the old ones as the years went by. We just had a week plus stretch of very hot weather (above or close to 100) in San Diego. Yesterday my husband and dog came home from their morning walk wet from a sudden rainfall! Today I am wearing jeans for the first time in months! I would say that signals the end of summer but it’s supposed to be in the 90s again by Saturday…. — Pat S
ReplyDeleteWe had "false fall" here last week, Pat, but are now back into the mid-to-upper 90s. Ugh. But we know it won't last, and the shorter days make it so much easier to bear.
DeleteMaybe an even bigger indicator of tempus fugit than the 2025 planner was the pumpkins going out at Trader Joe's last week!
ReplyDeleteI saw some at Home Depot today! (And beyond thinking about it being a little early, I was thinking, “Pumpkins at Home Depot??!”) — Pat S
ReplyDeleteI enjoy celebrating holidays but they're all getting mashed together. Like we're supposed to be costumed for Halloween, while gnawing a turkey leg and decorating our Xmas trees. Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteSo true!!! Love your comment!!
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