The Last of Sweet September

This is her Nanny McPhee look

Summer is officially over.  Geese fly over head.  Matt heads to work emboldened in purple pink rays that turn golden before he drives away...nothing can stop the morning.  Nothing can stop him. Fog hangs heavy on hillsides.  Trees begin their subtle show.  The garden gives goodness still, though long neglected and overrun with weeds.  The tomatoes continue to shine though our harvest is much smaller than last year.

I took the fans out of the bedrooms last night which made for a still and quiet night.  I heard crickets again- a sound I haven't heard since the torrent of fake wind from a box first began.  The cutting flowers are giving their last show, the flower circle is all dark and dried and dying.  Sadness.  I will mourn the flowers most.

We haven't started school yet.  I gave myself until the beginning of October, as I did last year, because now is a very busy 'putting-up' time for me, though I've done very little of what I should be doing.  (Apples!  Beets! Pesto! A last load of fridge pickles! Too many things!)  Instead, I've been determined to go through that granary and downsize our clothing bins.  I was resolved, I should say.  

A good week of work and I've finished about 65% of it.  While sorting through clothes, I also worked at doing the summer/winter clothing switchover which is always a big deal too.  I've gone to bed sore and exhausted every night, from lifting bins and carrying overloaded laundry baskets, but I've gone to bed happy and excited that it is all getting done.  The great stuff that I just don't need I've been washing up and dropping off at two different consignment stores (which equals more laundry too!).  What doesn't sell is boxed for a yard sale this spring.  What isn't in top-notch condition is getting donated.

In two weeks alone I donated 11 garbage bags of clothes and made $160.00.  I have 7 bins ready and waiting for yard sale time this spring...and anything that doesn't sell then will be donated too.  That, to me, is an accomplishment WORTH the exhaustion and sore back!

  I have a special 'Mama Fund' where all yard sale/consignment shop /photography money goes and waits for me to do something special with it.  I've been hoping to buy a new camera with that fund as my camera now is broken in several ways and is taking worse and worse pictures (I tried to have it repaired and cleaned earlier this year but was ineffective.)  I had saved almost $500.00 up until a few months ago at which time I had to empty it out for porch supplies.  So the money I make from this endeavor is going to begin that fund again.

Every time I say goodbye to another adorable dress or baby suit (which is harder to do when one is expecting a baby!) I think, a little more towards the camera!  And that makes it just a bit easier.  I hope to have enough to get the camera BEFORE Tiddle is born but since I am running out of clothing, that might be like squeezing milk from a lemon.  (Or maybe that isn't a saying...but it still works, I guess.)  We'll see.

No matter what, with every bag that leaves this house I feel a little bit lighter.  And right now, that is a really, really great feeling.

The Porch Project continues...

After our vacation, Matt had a few more precious vacation days to do whatever he wished to do.  

Can you guess what that was?

Any?

Guesses?

He wanted to work.  Specifically, on the porch.  

Matt had made a ton of progress on the porch project this spring, getting the whole roof up and metal sheeting put on.  But then, right when he was on a roll, I said "WOAH- hold up thar, pal.  We need WOOD for WINTER!  I am NOT freezing my patooti off this year!"

So the porch project had to, necessarily, be put on hold. 

We've split over 18 face cord of wood for winter throughout the summer.  We will likely need 4 more  face cord split, but we are at a place where we could comfortably resume porch work without fear of being totally unprepared for cold weather.

Frankly, I kinda loved the porch just like it was.  

But Matt insisted it needed fascia and ceiling and lights, etc. and in retrospect, I guess he was probably right.  ;-)

He began with ceiling work.  Electrical boxes, soffit.  The soffit, my friends, was stinkin' expensive- more than even the steel roofing!  

Every time I have to scrounge around to find money to pay for porch supplies I keep telling myself this is a huge investment of money but it is also a huge investment of happy for plenty of decades in our future.  DECADES.  

And how blessed we are to have been able to do it while the children were young enough to still be able to spend many years enjoying it.  

Matt had plenty of helpers...which is another thing of joy for me.  It will be fun to look back at little Judah helping hand stuff over to Papa.

Or the toothless grins of sparkly girls.

Let's just linger here a moment...

shall we?

Yes, Mattie, I *did* just post that photograph.  Love you!  Muah!

When the ceiling was up, then it was time to paint.

This picture cracks me up.  

Firstly, I really dislike talking on the telephone-it is one of my least favorite things in the world- so I avoid it at all costs. How fitting that Matt snapped a picture of me chatting away on the phone like an everyday busybody the very moment a neighbor called to ask a quick question.  

Also- I am 26 weeks pregnant here but from the looks of things, I only grow babies in my upper arm and chin area.  

Chin babies.  

(You know you are jealous!)

Next was putting in the REAL stairs (as opposed to reattaching the old, ugly stairs just as a quick and easy way to get on the porch in the meantime...see first photo)

Unlike his impatient, half-hearted wife who encouraged him not to make things so difficult and "just put the stairs on the grass for goodness'sake!", he did things the right way and put down stone first.

I wanted nice wide stairs- so they stretch almost 6 feet across.  A true southern porch.

We still have a *few* more things to do: rehanging the siding that had to come off directly below the porch roof and installing a few lights.  And putting in railing (hopefully next spring.  Our bank account is begging for it to be next spring!)

But it the meantime, 

Our front porch sitting has gotten a whole lot more elegant.

Big Vacation: Days 2&3

The day after Baltimore, we headed further south to a sandy beach on the Chesapeake Bay.  I had googled fossils and shark teeth beaches and this one seemed to be a hotspot.

My children have never been to a sandy beach before...even if it was only brackish water and not the 'real ocean', it certainly gave us a taste for it.

All except for the jellyfish that kept floating up on shore.  They were probably dead or dying but I got stung a handful of times anyway.  Even if they were dead/half dead, their stings HURT!  I never even swam, I was just so intent wading and searching for shark teeth, I didn't see them coming.

The kids didn't really like swimming in the water either, after I got stung the first time.

So we played in the sand.

I made a mermaid.  The kids made fortresses or buried each other alive.

And we DID find shark teeth!  (And many other little treasures...)

Matt found the first few teeth which I had determined that *I* would do, so every time he called out he got one I inwardly growled.  He found them first but his were all small.  I found the two biggest ones- so there, Mattie!

After a lovely, long leisurely day at the beach we went the motel.  I made sure this one had a pool we could swim in... no one was afraid of swimming then!

The kids fell asleep faster that night (and I laughed when Emily mentioned in the comments of the last post that they hide out in the bathroom because that is EXACTLY what Matt and I did both nights!  Not the most romantic of places, a motel bathroom, but it worked.)

The next day we headed home but stopped at Gettysburg for a little jaunt.  We walked around the shops downtown and the visitor center and then, because we were so beat (I never realized how exhausting vacationing is!!!) we headed home.

A really, truly trip to Gettysburg will have to happen in the future because I have been there and it is an amazing place.  Walking the visitor center and some downtown shops doesn't even remotely cut it!  My boys (all three of them!) would go NUTS if they new what Gettysburg really had to offer.

But we were so tired and so ready to get home we just...did.

 I'll show you pictures of how we spent the rest of Matts' days off tomorrow- 

Here's a hint: we stayed home and worked!  ;-)