On the Home Front - August 24

A peek through my window…. well, um, our lawn is kinda scalped.  I forgot to tell M. to raise the deck of the mower before he mowed.  Hubby is watering it right now in hopes of saving it.  We had such a mild summer that we had green grass ALL summer long.  First time ever I remember that happening.

What’s going on this week… “Be your student night” at one school.  I went to L’s last week.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to stay late at my school one night and get things organized.

What “the boys” are doing… L’s at a Scout campout/float trip.  M is doing geometry homework.

And...they are definitely growing!  When we take first day of school photos, Hubby gets down on one knee. It used to be so he would be closer to their height.  Now, it's to show how much they have grown!

On my mind…  we leave in two and half weeks to camp with Hubby’s family in Colorado.  I am so looking forward to it and hope we get to see moose!

Of course what’s on my mind before all that is finding a substitute and preparing work for my class.  Hopefully by then, they’ll have their routine down!

On my bedside table…  It’s clear because the house is on the market.  I read over a dozen books this summer, but am not reading anything right now so I’m not distracted from the things that need to get done.  If I start reading a book I usually have to finish it in a day – maybe two.

I am richly blessed…  even though there have been changes at school (new principal and I am in a new grade), I am blessed because we love our new principal and my team has accepted me well and been so helpful.

In reflecting back at what a difficult beginning of school I had last year, I am blessed to not have the same stressors this year.

I’m praying for…  an opportunity for Hubby and also for family – a dear second cousin lost her husband to a stroke Friday. 

I’m still praying for God’s will in our housing situation.  We’d like to sell our house, live in Dad’s while we fix it up to use as a rental and build a new house for us.  We’ll see what His plans are.

Our home…  smells like roasted Hatch green chilies!  We haven’t gotten any since Texas and Hubby was so excited when I found a local place that had them.

Menu planning… Green Chile Burgers, Pork Loin, Cube Steak and Bumblebee Mac n Cheese, Potato Soup.

A photo or two… 

1st Day - 7th grade

1st Day - Freshman

Summer Bucket List Wrap-up

Although the calendar doesn't say it yet, summer is over....the picture above even shows it.  I decided since I made a summer bucket list, that I would give the update.  The ones in italics are done!

1.  Sleep in...a lot!
2.  Go to a drive-in
3.  Read a book with paper pages
4.  Flint Creek with friends from school
5.  A conference or two
6.  Sell our house
7.  Pick blueberries and blackberries
8.  Pick other fruit too
9.  Fly a kite on the beach
10.  See the wild horses
11.  Snuggle with my niece
12.  Go to a museum (or two)
13.  Eat breakfast at the donut shop
14.  Connect/Catch up with friends
15.  Do something with my blog
16.  Restart my gratitude journal
17.  See fireworks
18.  Make something homemade
19.  Finally go to the Flying Pig
20.  Celebrate our wedding anniversary

Some were a little different than I envisioned.  Different good:  I thought I'd end up running over to a local museum to catch number twelve, but we were able to stop at Nauticus in Norfolk on the way home from the beach and saw the Wild Horse Museum when we were in Corolla.  Also good: We saw fireworks more than once.  The ones we saw from a rooftop downtown with friends were especially enjoyable. Different not so good:  Flying kites on the beach wasn't what I remembered!  I had to run more than what I cared to while on vacation and the sand was hot!

Mermaid outside of Nauticus.  You can see the Battleship Wisconsin int he background if you look closely.  I have a picture of one of the boys behind a mermaid cutout (the kind you put your face in) and the other boy buried in the sand at the beach and maid to look like a mermaid.  I will spare both of them from having those pics posted!

We celebrated on 18th anniversary by going to dinner and looking through our wedding albums.  We still plan to go to Eureka in the fall.

Our house is still on the market.  When we put it there, our family was three "list it" to one "love it".  Now that months have passed we are two to two and there's a little indifference even there!

So summer. is. over. It has been one of the most enjoyable summers that I remember.  This is largely in part to our cool temperatures.  It made just normal every day life wonderful.  Usually, we have multiple days (20+) over 100 degrees (and of late, pushing 110). This summer we had maybe two days over 100.

I'm thinking I should be making a fall/winter bucket list!

Things I Learned in July

1.  I learned that I shouldn't take notes for this kind of thing as I go along because I'll lose them.

2.  I am at the age where I can't remember all the log ins and passwords to everything.  In my defense, I think it must be because there are waaaay too many things requiring such things. I have started a collection (all in one spot - not lots of pieces of scrap paper!) of log in information.

3.  Half of July was spent on vacation where I learned many things.  Some are:

• Sand crabs that come out on the beach at night are about five times larger than the ones that are out during the day!



Smaller "day" crab - look in the very middle

• There is a charter school meeting in the old Corolla School House (circ. 1800s - 1950s).  The school is Water's Edge Village School.

• It is no fun for almost everyone on vacation to get a stomach bug (I knew this without having to experience it first hand.)

4.  The blog where I had been finding links to free books just wasn't delivering much any more, but I learned of a new one - eReaderGirl.  I love how she separates fiction, non-fiction and kids!  I just followed her on Pinterest too and she has so many fun reading pins!

5.  I learned about Sidetracked Sarah!  I am not a homeschooler or do I have a large family, but I tend to enjoy those blogs most.  Since school will be starting soon (by the way it's 1st grade this year for me) I was looking for freezer recipes and Sarah's got several menu plans for freezer to slow cooker meals.  They all seem like "real" food (not funny things I've never heard of or that no one in our home would dream of eating) and more like things I normally cook.

6. I learned the hard way that when you don't link your blog post in time that Mr. Linky does in fact close.  So this time I will link with Emily at Chatting at the Sky as soon as I'm done!