I'm ready for the weekend! Oops, it's Sunday night…

Thanks to my friend Suzanne (who showed me this), I have most of this week's lunches made already. Such a relief! Tomorrow morning I will be dropping off some of my children for their first ever daycamp experience. Then I will take the others to the children's museum, and then grocery shopping. After that I will fix all of the suppers for the rest of this week. (Thanks again!) For the rest of the week I will be busy with seasonal cleaning, school for becoming a "real live" web designer, and making jewelry and vinyl decals for my store. Not to mention the all-important work of snuggles, hugs, kisses, giggles, and story reading. Oh yes, there's also quite a bit of paperwork shuffling going to be going on, as three of the children have leveled up to another grade in school. 

My dog needs a bath, my garage needs sorting, and my store needs all of the new items I have dreamed up to be added & clickable!

And I'd like to read a bit, and draw a few pictures, and maybe even paint some.

Is it the weekend yet?
I'm tired.

;)

( for the record, I am NOT complaining. I am delighted with my lovely, busy life. It just strikes me funny sometimes, & I wanted to share that with you.)

Our Fire!

I just LOVE how our little fire truck sidled up to pose beside the "big boy" fire truck!

We had a chimney fire! I'm so excited about that, because #1: everything and everyone is OK. (it could have gone so bad in so many ways!!) and #2: my children got to learn and see how the whole process goes from calling 911 to heading back into your house after the firemen leave. Also- it's been a catalyst for some very sweet, comforting, and encouraging things to happen. For those that want the whole story of "What happened?!"...

Yep, it's cold! (Inside and Out!)

Winter is here!

Yes, it's **cold**. But it's a real, brisk, invigorating cold! Like I learned to love when I moved to northern Michigan. Here in the south, the cold bothers me more. It may be because I assume the south shouldn't be cold, but I think it's because it's a different kind of cold. Wetter, bone-chilling, depressing. 

When I popped on to FB this morning (just for a few minutes!!), people were posting "It's so cold here..." comments and stories. Everywhere. It's just cold everywhere. I saw pictures of frosty windows, sheets of ice inside windowpanes, bedside glasses of water frozen solid, and snowed-over cars that had to be pointed out.

I don't have any dramatic pictures like that, but I do have a "first", that never even happened to me when I lived on a bare, windswept hill in northern Michigan in a house that was built of square timbers in the 1800's and had almost no insulation. In that house, when the wind blew, the curtains fluttered, and when we put shrink plastic over the windows, the wind swelled it out till it split! BUT, the laundry never froze to the inside of the washer like it did this morning! I'm sure that's got more to do with the fact that our washer is in our unheated pantry than it does with actual temperatures, but it sure made me feel COLD! 

Today, to "celebrate" the cold, a lot of our school is on the couch, cuddling under fleece blankets, courtesy of the many science and history videos available on Netflix streaming and Amazon Prime Instant Video. And there will be no laundry to fold and put away, because the water pipes to the washer are frozen. Which is a vacation for now, but I'll have to hustle to catch up once they thaw, because laundry for 10 people isn't something you want to get behind on. And, we're doing diaper changes in the common area ("look away, kids!"), because the thermostat on the space heater beside the changing table bottomed out at 45*, and I'm not going to strip anyone bare and scrub them with a cold wet wipe in that! Call me a softie ;0)

So, that's our "it's so cold..." story. Nothing dramatic, nothing exciting. Just how I like it :0)

Are you keeping warm?

Mulberry Picking and Our Backyard Jungle (pictures)

Not much to say, just a peek into our day :0)