Halloween in Richfield

Our first Halloween in Richfield!
We decided to Trick or Treat our own neighborhood this year, and hand out candy too!

Leo and I picked out decorations to put outside last week. At the old house, stuff I put out got stolen or wrecked, so I just stopped putting stuff out.

Our pumpkins didn't make it to today, they were too tempting a treat for the squirrels, despite me dousing them in tabasco.

We set up decorations, a table with a fake fire, a bowl of candy, and an urn with hot cider for adults.

Grandma D & Nana stopped by for a little while.

I want to go to there

Really I just want to make this in our living room

Carving!

After dinner we settled in to carve our pumpkins. First time in the new house. we don't have a nice solid floor like we had in our old kitchen, so we covered the table in plastic and carved the old fashioned way.

 A few of us found internet inspirations, and others just carved what they felt.

 They are learning that they need to anchor their designs. Sometimes the hard way. Relia's "Medusa" plan became an alien when we discovered some bad spots on her pumpkin.

 Leo was very proud to have carved his very own pumpkin.

The results of our labor

We probably carved them a little too early, and not having a porch now, they are out on the front steps. I bathed them in tabasco, hoping to deter the squirrels. 

Fingers crossed.  

Pumpkin Carving

They weren't the best pumpkins to start with, and everyone had grand ideas about how theirs would look. We let them have at it, and some lessons were learned about how you need to anchor a design. In the end, everyone was proud of their pumpkin.

bulbs!

This afternoon I dug up the whole garden trying to sift out weeds, AND put in a ton of bulbs for next spring. I kept telling myself how good it will feel when all those daffodils and tulips come up in the spring. It really will, but my body hurts right now.

And I don't do windows.

Until now.
At our old house, in 14 years, I cleaned a few of the windows exactly once. It was right before we put the house on the market, and it was 6 windows. It took a tall step ladder just to reach the bottom of the window, and then it hardly made any difference because I would have had to disassemble the storm windows to clean the upper sashes. Today I cleaned almost all of our windows in couple of hours with a medium height step ladder!

New neighbors?

Relia came running into the house, "Bald Eagle...in the tree!"
I grabbed my camera and sure enough, in the tree at the south end of the pond:

Another reason to be happy in our new home. 

Pumpkin picking

After our visit to the Eagle Center on Saturday left us pumpkinless, we decided to hop on a trolley to see if we could have better luck by lake Bde Maka Ska. 

On the way to the pumpkin patch we got to ride on "the other trolley" that we'd never ridden before. 

Eagle center

T'was a rainy Saturday, but we still headed south to the Eagle Center in Wabasha. 

They were having some sort of Fall celebration, which meant there was a fun set up for the kids. 

We'd told the kids we'd stop and get pumpkins on the way back, but it was raining pretty steadily, so we couldn't.

Anniversary

Crappy Shitty anniversary.

Next Thursday marks one year since my last conversation with my brother.

It was his decision to cut all contact. I've tried to respect his request.
Sometimes I wonder, is he playing a game?
"If you really loved me, you would try to contact me anyway?"
But I can only take him at his word.

The kids have pretty much stopped asking when this whole stupid fighting thing will be over. Why we can't just say sorry and move on. Kids are wiser than adults.

For everyone's sake, I truly hope that he figures out what he needs from his family in order to be a part of it. If that cannot be, I hope this is truly making him happier.

Losing it?

I knew there was something important I needed to get done.
I knew it was something that was time sensitive.
I knew I needed to do it online.
I just could not remember what it was.
Did Facebook make me think of it last night?
Did I dream something that made me think of it?
What was it?
What was it?

Half an hour later (maybe an hour, I'm really not sure) I figured it out.

Property tax refund.
A pretty good chunk of money.
Yay! But holy moly, I can't believe my brain failed me like that.

I wonder what else I'm forgetting.

Busy weekend

So much done this weekend

The previous owner left us a "gift" in our garage: A big OLD side by side refrigerator. It served as a doorstop, holding the access door shut. When I found a scrapper to take it off our hands, I needed to put in a new way of holding the door shut. It only took me two trips to the hardware store and a chisel borrowed from dad to get a new deadbolt installed.

It was a nice day, so I did some work organizing the shed. Not sure it I'll be Abe to get all the patio furniture in her. We'll see.

Our fair photos have outgrown their frame, I did some rearranging, now we are set for the next 17 years!

Pulled out and sorted the winter stuff too. This is just the first round of mittens. I have a third wave ready for when the first two fall.

Pretty satisfying.

Wow

It's kinda hard for me to believe that less than six months ago we lived in a completely different house. This one has so quickly become home to me.

Yep, I'm becoming one of those people

I'm sore again! At first it felt discouraging, but then I realized that I am doing more.

Longer planks, longer cardio, the whole shebang. Today, I did two one minute rounds of stepped burpees and I didn't stop! 

A boy and his cat

When we got the kittens we told the kids, "If you are not nice to the kitties, they'll be afraid of you." 

Tybalt didn't get the message. Felix manhandles that cat every day and Felix is the one Tybalt prefers.

More work out stuff

I don't want to become the person who goes on and on about the changes. Since hardly anyone reads this I feel like I can get it out here.

Immediately after I wrote that I had changed my routine and stuck with it, I went 4 days without getting up to work out. I thought I'd jinxed myself. But that isn't possible. It isn't luck that I have been doing this, it is me. Me deciding every day what I want.

Now that I'm back on the wagon, I am feeling sore again. I don't think it was that I took a few days off as much as it is me doing more with my exercises. Pushing myself a little more. Heavier weights, longer planks, harder stretches.

Yay me!