Fresh fall leaves

She passed! Note the empty seat next to my girl on her way to her race.
I do not have to rake these.
Lots of runners.
My favorite in this race.

A quiet life

Things have calmed down a great deal now that we are mostly unpacked and the kids are settled into a routine with school. Of course, calm is relative. I move in fits and starts as each point on the schedule requires different amounts on Mom intervention.



Tomorrow is an exciting day in many ways. It marks the last race of the season for each child. My boy will be participating in an All City race for all the teams in his league. My girl is running in the regional JV championships, which fortunately is being held at a golf course just north of here. The fortunate part of it is that she has her long awaited drive test scheduled for 8:30 Saturday morning. Her driving is doing fine, so we expect her to pass. Her friends are now regaling her with horror stories of their tests. One boy told her how he was rear ended, not his fault, and failed the test. Parallel parking the large beast that lives out my window between four cones will be an interesting job. She has been over to practice on the course in the parking lot at the DOL, so there is hope.

Of course the storm predicted to bring rain and snow to the region tomorrow could make all the festivities even more festive.

If this is not sufficient activity, we have signed a contract to replace the 34 year old heater that came with the 34 year old house. Nobody could point at any broken parts, so the home warranty company has been left out of the process, which puts the whole thing on us. We had to hire a plumber to rearrange the pipes under the sink in the basement to accommodate the condensate drain which comes with a 90% or more efficient furnace.

While he was here, we had him rectify a problem in the upstairs bathroom. The job finally involved replacing the faucet, the sink and the pipes under it, so the kids have an almost new bathroom. Just to show gratitude, my girl said she liked the harvest gold sink better than the new white one. Too bad sweetheart, they do not sell that color any more, and are not likely to in the near future. She still has a harvest gold toilet and tub to feast her eyes on for the moment. One of the reasons I did not want to keep the refrigerator which was in the house when we first saw it was the color which implied that it was too old to be efficient. While all the plumbing was going on, Shadow was banished to the back yard. She may like to chase squirrels on her own time, but sitting out there instead of jumping all over the plumber was not her idea of a good time, so her kind daddy went out to sit with her. She was not interested in the book, but she likes the bench which gives her a royal view of her realm.

Fall Color

A few shots from the weekend:

My girl suffers from red eyes, but the new camera fixes it before I even see the picture. Even close up, it passes the test.
The start of this weekend's race.
My boy finishes his run.
Out my window, fall is here.

New cameras?

My brother just put up some shots from his new camera, so I feel obligated to show what the new Nikon will do too. I started without zoom, added full optical zoom which claims to give me a shot 3.5 times closer.
Then I maxed out the optical zoom which brings me 4 times closer.

I also cropped the image in the camera to see how close I could get, and compare that shot to one taken close up without zoom for clarity.Oh, that's where it went.

One tough week

I just looked at my last post and realized it has been a while since I have been able to sit down and think. Maybe if things settle down around here I will have more to say. For the moment, we are running from one thing to another. The ceilings are done, but now it is time to paint. We are getting bids on a new furnace. We may need to blow more insulation into the attic. Somewhere we need to find someone to blow the water out of the sprinkler system before it freezes and breaks the pipes. Yesterday I did find someone to keep our Shadow when we go away for Thanksgiving with the family.

On top of everything else, and really setting it all aside, we spent more of the last week in doctors offices than is reasonable. I forgot to mention in the list of truly important things which cannot be set aside such as getting kids to and from school with lunches and homework in hand, taking said lunches to school for those cute little darlings who leave without them, and transporting them to the sporting events of the season. If it is fall, it must be cross country, the running kind. Next season is winter so it will be skiing. Lots of fun.

This morning, it was cold enough for frost. Rather heavy frost for the first week of October, but then I guess that is what happens when we move so far north. It was pretty right until it was on the windshield of the car and my girl did not go out early enough to warm it up and melt it. I let her take the easy way out and drive another car since I bring it home. I remind her that when she is driving herself, a little more planning ahead will be in order. I will not let her have the one in the garage just because she slept in. I will be attempting to locate those ice scrapers too.