First Day of School

What a wonderful group of kids. Emily looking so grown up on her first day of her last year in elementary school – 6th grade! Olivia was totally excited about going off to 1st grade and Lucas so wants to start school right now, but he only had his assessment. He’ll start next week.

Time got away from us and all I got were hurried shots and many were blurry. Rain and fog didn’t make for the most perfect setting. Nothing like the photo shoot I dreamt about! :)

I mentioned yesterday what a slug I’ve been. I’m really not in a position to tell you everything, but just know I’ve got more on my parenting plate than most.

I tried to snap out of my funk and did for a couple hours. I picked some of the produce from the garden. These are Olympian Cucumbers. Most are 7-9 inches and have a total weight of 7 pounds 10.4 ounces not to include the yellow one. (What’s up with that?).

The carrot on the far right is a Red Cored Chantenay and I love the flavor. The rest are Danvers #126 and just another carrot in my opinion. Also pulled a handful of bunching onions. We’d better get serious about eating those. There are lots and yellow leaves are falling out of the trees like snow today.

What a lousy spinach year. I’ve tried four beds in different areas and all of it has bolted before growing. This is the extent of my summer harvest. At tiny bit of Baby Spinach.

My first red tomatoes! They are Early Girl and should have grown much longer, but did I mention that it is 40* (or colder) in the morning? The only broccoli that didn’t go to seed. Our first Golden Nugget tomatoes (that neither of us liked) and a handful of peas.

I made blackened chicken salad for dinner with everything, but the chicken being grown by me. Technically, if I had some ambition the chicken could have been ours as well. We have four that we ready to be butchered a long time ago. *sigh*

You may also remember that I mentioned that I did a little in the yard with Emily’s help last week. Very little in comparison to what should be done already.

We found a lot of balls, toys and trash in all those weeds.

I swear no matter what I do it goes back to this in a day or two. I’m dangerously close to taking everything to the dump. I’m sure they can find a way to entertain themselves with a stick and a rock!  Actually, it’s the little bits of trash that you can’t see in the photo that make me the most nuts. Toys are part of childhood, trash is not.

The freezer still needs to go inside. The wood for the wall sits waiting. Some trash needs hauled. His tools need put away. I’ll really be glad when you see nothing but a beautifully sided house. Will we ever get there?

Coolers, dog beds, toys, trash…a freaking jungle.

I got most of it. Having a weight set is great, but when the teens are too lazy to use it there’s no point in keeping it. Maybe I can get Mr. White to haul it away. Please. Down to a couple pallets and a tote that I’ll pick up today.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Actually, more like the ice cubes in a cool drink. I suppose I could just look the other way until it snows and deal with it next year, but that seems to be what we’ve been doing ever year. Time to win this battle once and for all!!

The kids had a great first day of school. Olivia rode the bus all by herself this morning for the first time without any problems then I went back to bed for two hours ‘cause that’s how I roll. :) Now that I’ve allowed myself an hour on the computer, Lucas and I are headed out to tackle some kind of project. If anything, he can keep me company.