Reading Dickens by candlelight

Hello, fall. I see you have come in with a bang and not a whimper. First, it seemed that the time change brought the seasonal change along with it--I got out of work at nearly sunset (alas, 4:30 is sunset now), and noticed that most of the trees had finally started to change as I was driving home. It feels like summer has been endless, but I think this was the deathknell. It's...a pretty deathknell, though?

We then had a thunderstorm this evening that went on for ages and was worthy of epic poetry. It also knocked out the power for about three hours. I had the option of using the battery power remaining on my laptop to work on my statement of purpose or to read. I chose the reading. I had a pretty decent setup, all things considered--we have this candle-holder shaped like a reindeer, and its antlers can hold up to five taper-style candles. It was actually quite bright with all of them going. And it set the mood for Hard Times, that's for sure. I even managed to take a shower by candlelight, because my mother has approximately 8.6 million of the things (hey, I'm grateful), and we could have several in pretty much every room of the house. The house smells very floral at the moment.

All the dark made me veeeeeeery sleepy, though. I may have to go to bed early. Hmmm...