Fun in the Fall

The leaves are really starting to come down, especially in the front yard. I don't know if our ash tree out front just loses leaves before all the other trees on the street, but I know we always have a time every Fall when you look down our block and all the other yards are fairly clear but ours looks like a tree exploded on it. Grace and Jim raked a big pile today and had lots of fun with it.

Whew

Well, I just finished one of my busiest months ever. So here's a few updates (for anyone who cares).

1. The Lakewood Home Festival is OVER!!! If you are not aware, I have volunteered tons of hours to this for the past couple years. It is a great cause - raises lots of money for one of the local elementary schools. And honestly the main reason I worked on it was to try to get a little leg up in getting a transfer for my kids into that school. But after I'd committed to being the Underwriting co-chair for the second year, all the school boundaries were changed. And this particular school went from one allowing lots of transfers to a true "neighborhood" school, with no room for transfers AT ALL. Since I'd already committed, and this particular position is pretty important and pretty hard to fill, Jim and I decided that I should ride it out and go ahead and do it. Over 100 hours later, I'm almost finished with it all. Just some follow up, getting books straight, tax letters sent in January, then hand everything off to the next person. Yay!

2. My catered speaker dinner I hosted at church is OVER. Occurring last Friday, the same night as the beginning of the Home Festival, both events together almost caused my head to explode last week. But the dinner went off great, and the speaker was awesome. She's coming back to do a Lenten women's retreat that I am for sure going to attend, and will probably try to convince Mom to attend with me.

3. I missed Halloween with my kids due to a nasty 24-hour stomach bug. Luckily Jim was already coming home early that day, because I couldn't do much of anything other than lay on the couch. He took the kids over to a friend's house and the dads took the kids out to get candy. I'm sad I missed it, because apparently once Alex figured out how the whole trick or treat thing worked he was all over it. He was wide-eyed excited when they came home that night. And now I have a big bag of candy we didn't hand out at our own door because I couldn't get up to answer the phone, much less hand out candy.

4. Cousin Amy's baby shower was Saturday, and she looks so cute all pregnant! Wonderful time catching up with aunts and cousins. I got to make some of my yummy appetizers and Audra's punch recipes. And Grace loves the baby doll I won in one of the games. She's already christened it Ava and carries it around all the time.

5. I start work tomorrow! I'll be the new nursery coordinator up at church, mainly in charge of making sure any nursery needs for church meetings or events are adequately staffed. Not great pay, but half price tuition for my kids school which makes it worthwhile. And finally now when Jim complains to me "So are you getting paid for all that time you spend up at church?" I can say "Yes I am!".

6. Lastly, I made a tasty chicken noodle soup out of the last of my homemade chicken stock last night. Mmmmm! Not a cold day, but overcast and a little rainy, so the soup was a good fit.

Even with the job starting, I feel like I finally have a little breathing room in my life again. Aahh.