unsubscribe.

word of the day: unsubscribe /ˌənsəbˈskrīb/ cancel a subscription to an electronic mailing list or online service.

You can subscribe to a lot of things, but according to the official definition, apparently you can only unsubscribe to mailing lists or online services. Fortunately, that's at least part of the reason why this word is on my brain today.

I get lots of junk emails a day (is my poor word choice here why Lily asks to read "lossa" books lately? Maybe I should bring some stronger words into my daily verbiage). But really, lossa junk emails. I think I was sending 20 some emails into my trash can every day until, in a fit of annoyance, I realized I could probably just unsubscribe. So that's what I've been doing all week. Instead of sending the cruise promotions and YMCA newsletters straight to the trash can, I've been opening them, scrolling to the bottom, and clicking "unsubscribe." One or two clicks later, and I'm free.

Free! (and over-dramatic)

Every time I click “unsubscribe” on an email, I wonder if there are other things in my life I should equally unsubscribe to. Unnecessary junk--in both the literal and figurative sense I suppose. I’m sure there’s lossa it.

Speaking of Lily, she has recently unsubscribed to her pacifier. Jake, ever the voice of reason, told her that pacifiers are for babies and that she’s a big girl to which she replied, “Pacis are for big girls.” (She’s smart, this one.) Anyway, we took it away cold turkey and after a few tearful bedtime routines, I think we may be on the other side.

Norah continues to unsubscribe to everyone who is not me. I keep thinking, “Surely she’ll leave this phase soon,” but then I remember myself as a five-year-old on my mom’s hip and realize that I may have to settle in for the long haul on this one.

Jake recently unsubscribed (for now at least) to in-patient medicine after two. long. months. He’s been home before 3 p.m. every day this week, has the next four weekends free, and

(honestly, I’m so happy about it that I don’t even know how to finish that sentence.)

And me, well, I’ve unsubscribed to summer which is fitting, I suppose, on the first day of fall. It was nice to actually carry summer into September instead of transitioning into school mode while summer danced on without me. We celebrated today by picking apples off of trees and grapes off of vines.

I’ve always been especially fond of the start of a new season because it signals change and new things. Each season envelops the one before; summer, in this case, folds itself into fall. You can’t have one without the other, and I find that the seasons of my life morph in much the same way.

So, as the changing landscape proves the normal way of things, we’ll keep working to get rid of the junk and subscribe ourselves to the good stuff.

First order of business is to turn the apples from the apple orchard into apple crisp. And, minimize my in-box, of course.