Friday bullets - July 28, 2017

Thankfully yesterday was a much less exciting day than the day before. I'm not sure we can manage that level of activity on a regular basis.

• First, garden pictures... because I promised. These are all of the side garden which I spent all of Wednesday weeding. Ignore the ugly black soaker hose, which will be better when there is more growing to cover it up. I can only buy so many plants at a time.

• I like to sit out here each morning (in one of those yellow chairs that in the second picture), and eat my breakfast and drink my coffee. It is lovely and quiet and peaceful. Well, at least until the children all slowly wander out to join me. Every morning, I am also joined by quite a host of small dragonflies. The blue ones are my favorites.

• It has been nearly a week now since I have missed either the turn to our street or the turn to our driveway. I had lobbied to put the golden lion (which moved with us) out where our drive meets the road, but was overwhelmingly voted down. It would have made it easier to find... and to describe to other people. Instead, it is sitting on our front porch.

L.

• D. finishes up his class today, and he really has enjoyed it. Yesterday they did their presentations to a whole host of VIP's. It seemed to be part of some opening ceremonies for the classroom they are in, which will be host to future classes such as this one. D. was very excited when he got in the van yesterday, and announced, "The mayor [of Aurora] shook my hand, and told me I did a good job!"
• Tomorrow, TM and P. leave bright and early (A. is driving them) to head to Evanston so they can leave on our church's mission trip. They will be gone a week, and we will miss them. I'm afraid that they will also find Alabama a bit warm.
• We have started visiting churches. The first one we went to on Sunday was a bit smaller than we are used to. I'm afraid we caused a bit of a splash, even though TM requested that everyone try to be as normal as possible as we were leaving home. Everyone was very nice, and very welcoming, but I think we will also keep doing the visiting rounds. You don't really appreciate not having to explain your unusual family at every turn, until you have to do it all the time.
• I have started to do some research for our big vegetable month next month. If I plan it right, we might be able to get in ~46 different vegetables during the month.
• Part of the research was to check out some library books at the library today. I realized that the only picture books we checked out were the ones I picked for R. No one else was interested in them or wanted any. It has been over 20 years of having children who crave picture books. I'm not sure I like this turn of events. At all.
• I have now had two children announce that they are done with summer and are ready for fall. While I enjoy fall weather, I'm not sure I'm there yet. I think I need another several months of summer to feel as though I have recovered from the spring and am ready to move on. Besides, my [insert TBD name here] room still isn't done, and school cannot start until it is. Heck, planning for school can't even start until it's done.
• Y. showed me yesterday that a plastic buckle has broken off her AFO's... again. It's the same place, same flaw. It means I need to call our new orthotics place that was recommended to me, and work on getting her in. These things are so crazy expensive, it is more than annoying that they can't hold together for more than a few months at a time.
• Creating interesting places to read is my current fixation. Look at this one.

Do you see the little green bench there under the maple? It's a lovely place to sit, though if it has rained recently, the mosquitoes can be bad. Applying bug repellent first, is kind of necessary. 

• Finally, I also have a couple more puppy pictures. Olive is 8 weeks old today.

We think that most of her growth has been in her legs this week. They just look longer to us, though she herself, doesn't look extraordinarily bigger.

And now it's time to be off. Enjoy your Friday.