1. School started the week before Labor Day for Rocky and Abby, and the week after for Ellie. As busy as it makes our days, I've been so looking forward to routine (though my home routine got quite disrupted; that'll be a point all of its own).
Abby is in 5-day, all-day kindergarten. She thrived on 3-day all-day preschool last year, but she's definitely struggling this year. She's had a number of "I miss you, Mommy" meltdowns, and has to get up at 6:15 each morning to ride in with Rocky. I drive her in once or twice a week, but then she gets only an extra half hour of sleep. There are definitely pluses and minuses to having her go to school in the system where Rocky teaches.
2. We weren't originally going to send Ellie to preschool yet (she just turned 3 the beginning of August). But as I was trying to figure out daycare for her the two afternoons a week I work in the church office, the lightbulb went on -- let's see if they have any openings in the preschool that's also run in our church. And they sure did! So even Ellie gets to go to school this year.
3. Our biggest news/struggle the last few weeks have been our cats. Over the years we've started getting more annoyed by them than enjoying them, and when one of them started peeing on the furniture over the summer we started thinking about finding them a new home. Then we discovered fleas in the house (the cats liked to sneak outside any time they saw the door open) and knew something really needed to change.
After talking to a number of people and putting out a couple of Facebook posts, we found a friend who was willing to take them on her little farm to see how they'd do as barn cats. We brought them over this week, and I think it will work out just fine!
So instead of enjoying some of the extra free time I've had during the week writing blog posts or reading, it's been spent doing extra laundry and daily vacuuming. Ugh. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon!
4. In my "spare time" I've done a little bit of canning. Growing up, I remember my mom having huge stockpiles of canned food on the shelves, and while I don't plan to have nearly as much as she did, I am experimenting with a little more each year. This year I made 8 pints of peach salsa, 18 quarts of tomato sauce, and 12 pints of zucchini bread. I hope to do applesauce soon too.
5. I'm considering doing the Write 31 Days challenge again this October (here is my list of posts from last year). I liked what I did last year, writing about brand new kids picture books, but I'm afraid it might not be as easy since I don't work at the library every day anymore. I suppose I could just check out all kinds of new kids books when the kids and I make our weekly trip. But maybe I want to do some different book-related posts. I don't know...
Any tips for getting rid of fleas in the house? Do you do any canning? What should I write about for 31 days?
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