Suddenly, Manual Labor!

Just when you find yourself wondering where on earth you can find manual labor for your child to do, The Awesome Husband will take that opportunity to dig, line, and otherwise build a fire pit, and there's plenty of manual labor for a child to do during that project!  Hauling logs, backfilling holes and hauling away extra sand, fetching tools and putting them away - all are jobs that will get morose, electronics-driven boys moving if there's a promise of fire at the end.

As for me, I got to sit down by the fire after it was built and warm my bare tootsies.

I am one happy mama.

Productivity and... Wait, It's Almost October?!?

I discovered today (quite by accident, I assure you) that tomorrow is the first day of October.  I knew it was coming, because Oz and I spent the weekend watching helplessly as our hands and feet carried us around the house and yard putting up Halloween decorations, but I somehow still expected September to last another week or three.

My mantel.  Most of it, anyway.  You can't see the black roses in this shot.

I may have a serious Dept. 56 problem. 

I didn't even notice the candle had fallen until just now.
Wow, I'm observant.

Suck it, Pinterest.  My son's closet offers
better choices than your store-bought ones any day.

Still, we got a lot done this weekend.  In addition to all my decorating, Oz changed out the rocks in our front garden.  I say 'garden' - that's not entirely an accurate description unless you consider a rock garden a garden, which I guess I don't.  This unplantable space is good only when it rains, because it floods like the Flavian Amphitheatre during sea battles, which keeps the porch from flooding, and I like that, because a waterlogged porch isn't on my list of things that make me happy.  Formerly it held a bunch of red-brown lava rock and several very large pieces of sandstone.  Both Oz and I thought those didn't match the character of the house, and I can also tell you from experience that walking on lava rocks with your bare feet is a bad, bad idea.  The new rocks are much nicer on the soles.  Lava rocks also are not a very effective barrier for plants because they're lightweight and somehow maintain a lot of space in between the stones.  I had to spray for weeds, which I hate doing, about every month or so, and even then the weeds were multiplying.  Oz put down a new double layer of landscaping fabric under the new rocks, which makes me love him even more.  We'll see how this holds up.

New rocks.  Way better. 

I also hauled myself into the kitchen and made cake doughnuts and triple-chocolate cookies.  The doughnuts were for me, more or less, and I realized how dependent I've become on my cast iron pans for frying things when I decided, for some unknown reason, not to use cast iron to fry the doughnuts and the kids came down during the middle of a very frustrating fry session and hollered, "FISH STICKS!!!!"  Suffice to say the doughnuts were getting a bit burnt.  I couldn't get the oil temperature to stabilize to save my life.  Stupid electric cooktops and non-cast-iron pans... I will say this, though.  Toss burned doughnuts in cinnamon and sugar, and all is forgiven.

Please ignore the state of my sink.
We're focusing our negative energy on the pan.

Not forgotten, though.  Stupid pan.

Mmmmm taste the char.  A food blogger I am not.

The cookies were payment to Oz for all the effort he's put in around the house lately.  He's been working overtime to keep me fat 'n' happy, and he's succeeding admirably.  He's been dying for cookies for a long while, so I finally hunted down the recipe I'd saved on Pinterest and made him a gigantic batch (seriously... the recipe made 95 cookies.  NINETY-FIVE.  That number hasn't seemed so significant to me since I was in catechism class as a 6th grader and had to learn about Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in great detail).  I prized a dozen out of his clutches and took them to a friend's house because she was driving us to dinner at a restaurant downtown where we met up with two other women and scored free lemon drops courtesy of the anonymous gentleman who left before the drinks were served so we couldn't even thank him and tell him that for some of us **hackhackMEhackhack** that was the first drink they'd ever had that was sent over and purchased by someone else.  Delicious.

Triple-chocolate cookies make the Oz Cookie Monster happy.

So, anyway, tomorrow is the first day of October.  My son will turn 11 in a week and a half.  I'm really not okay with this, but apparently it's not up to me and time will march on whether I like it or not, and if you try to tell the boy that he isn't allowed to turn 11, he will laugh at you.  Don't ask how I know.  He lost his sixth (seventh?) tooth of the year yesterday, and he's got yet another tooth that's actually being absorbed (GROSS) because there's nothing to push it out and he refuses to let me pull it even though it has no root.  Soon his mouth will be full of adult teeth and adult thoughts emerging as adult words.  With teenage attitude, of course, but the seeds are planted for eventual maturity... I hope.

I simply cannot believe how quickly this year is going by.  I really do think it's time to hibernate now.  Anyone wanna join me? 

A Rainy Saturday

Now that it's gotten cold, it's kind of fun to look back at the weather even a few weeks ago and see how much of a difference, oh, 20 or 25 degrees can make.

Rain also makes a difference.  A few weeks back we had a warm, rainy Saturday.  It was one of those lazy days where we *could* have gone places, but it was rainy and nobody really wanted to get out in it and walk around, so we stayed home.

I turned on some jazz music through Pandora...

... and the kids painted their sculptures that they'd made.

Oz took a short nap on the floor in front of the couch...

... and after he got done painting, M1 climbed up on the other couch and imitated him quite successfully.

M2 and I had more energy than the boys.  After she finished painting, she grabbed an umbrella and went puddle-ducking in the back yard.  The bottoms of her pants were soaked, but she had a blast.

Mama stayed in the house and did the weekend cooking.  Applesauce was the first order of business...

... and while that was cooking down, I made some cream of mushroom soup to use in a casserole later in the week.  I was surprised to learn how easy it was to make cream of X soups; Pinterest is my friend!

I also made another Pinterest recipe that was amazingly delicious.  These little rolls have half a frozen (well, thawed, but formerly frozen) meatball inside along with a small piece of string cheese.  The rolls themselves are canned buttermilk biscuits that I divided in half and wrapped around the meatball and cheese bits.  Bake and serve with marinara sauce.  YUM.  The bowl in the back is tortilla dough.

Even though it's only been chilly for a couple of days, it seems like summer is definitely over.  That's all right, though.  I'm quite ready for fall.  Bring on the apple cider!

Fall Means...

Fall.

It might not be the best season of the year (sorry, folks, but I'm a springtime girl... provided we've had an actual winter, of course.  This year didn't count.), but it's close.

One of the things I do love about fall is decorating the house.  Spring is nice, of course, because it's all flowery and fresh and pretty.  Fall, though, is all about getting everything ready for winter.  All the smells and colors have a delicious appeal.

My mantel, for example, is now covered with leaves and candles and two little scarecrows that hold votive candles of their own.  The evenings have been cool enough at times to open the windows and let in a little bit of a breeze.

I've gotten a drink station all ready underneath the cabinet that holds the mugs.  We have containers of, from right to left, coffee, regular tea, herbal teas, and hot cocoa.  There are marshmallows in the pantry.  All I need now is some whipped cream to make the cocoa muy delicioso.

The kids have been looking forward to fall, too.  As soon as there was a cool evening, they donned their new fall pajamas and parked themselves on the hearth for a picture.

I told them to snuggle up and act like they liked each other, and I got this:

And then....

Oh, my.

BE NICE, KIDS!  This is going on the blog for posterity!!

Much better.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled day.