The October Finish Line

The last week of October careened towards Halloween. Here are some journal clips and anecdotes:

Monday, October 23rd: Amber as she was browsing our bookshelf: "I love getting lost into reading. Because everything is so peaceful and I'm so focused on something."

Pepe's for donuts after practice one day! 

Tuesday, October 24th: It is in the 40s and raining outside--the same weather we had at cross country practice today. So cold! Especially after the warmest October of all time. I didn't even run at practice today, but I was freezing when we got home. A freshman on our team forgot his running shoes today, so I loaned him mine since we're the same shoe size. He gave me his Nike high tops to wear while he ran. A bunch of the guys on the team got a kick out of my sweet teenage footwear, haha. "Coach! Nice shoes! Where did you get them?"

Jay was in charge of family scripture tonight, and one of the verses listed in the Come Follow Me book that we read was Philemon 1:20 "refresh my bowels in the Lord." There was no clarifying footnote and when we read that phrase, I snorted in laughter. Jeff said "a spiritual enema" and I about died. It was not a very...focused scripture study. The epistles of Paul are killing us!

Wednesday, October 25th: It was cold today! It "warmed up" to 45 degrees by XC practice this afternoon, and the overnight low is 27! Our heat is on full time as of yesterday morning. It's crazy that today was our last regular season XC practice! I ran with two of the girls, and I entertained them with stories about my "thwarted high school romances." They enjoyed my stories, and we agreed that high school is not a romantic time. It got SO cold and windy at the end of practice, we were freezing!

We visited the new house on our way home, and the kitchen counters are in!! The trim is being painted and it looks good. Our house is going to be so bright and beautiful! It doesn't feel real, oddly enough, now that it's looking so nice--we've never lived in such a pretty house before.

Thursday, October 26th: [district meet day--see separate post here for details]. I wanted to write this memory down, because the more I think about it, the more I learn from it: On Sunday while I was making dinner, Rose was in the kitchen with me. I realized that I needed to put on my apron, so I grabbed it and explained to Rose, "it might have been a prompting from the spirit or not, and it might not matter or be life-changing to follow through right now and put on my apron, but it is always good to act right away on positive thoughts and promptings. It gives us practice responding to the spirit and recognizing what the spirit feels like. And we never know which small simple prompting will end up being important!" I was kind of babbling at the end there, so I stopped talking and kept cooking. Later I realized that following that seemingly silly prompting to put on my apron gave me the opportunity to teach my daughter in an everyday moment about spiritual promptings in an everyday setting. So putting on my apron wasn't about the apron.

Monday, October 30th: Evernote [my journaling app] deleted the long rant of a journal entry that I wrote last night, about me being taken for granted and underappreciated. Maybe it's for the best that those thoughts have been zapped from the books because I was not in a good mood when I wrote it and I was not very nice.

Jeff stayed home with a cold today, so I got drumsticks and made a big batch of nourishing chicken broth for soup. Then this evening after XC practice, Jeff took Dayquil and left for a district coaches meeting in Ellensburg and didn't even have my soup for dinner! Communication breakdown. Sigh. After practice today, I offered some soup to Coach Winger (who also has a cold). He said he'd meet me at home to pick up the soup after he ran an errand. I put lentils in the soup instead of rice or noodles, and they did not cook all the way while I was a practice! So I had to crank the stove and hope for the best when I got home, to see if they'd cook before Coach Winger arrived. I also drove a girl in our ward to and from group piano lessons with Rose and Amber tonight, which added another dimension to my busy-ness. Thankfully I made it back home in time to give Coach Winger the soup, and thankfully the lentils had cooked.

Tuesday, October 31st: Halloween. We did the ward trunk or treat in record time tonight. Usually our ward has a chili and hot dog dinner before the trunk or treat, but this year it was blessedly only the trunk or treat. Jeff stayed home with his head cold, and I felt jealous because I dislike the hassle and sugar of all Halloweenyness. The kids and I arrived at the church at 6:45pm, waited and chatted for 15 minutes, then handed out candy for 10 minutes till we ran out of Blow Pops and Starbursts. Jay helped hand out candy until we ran out, then he walked around with his friends and snagged a pocket of candy remains for himself. I chatted/commiserated about Halloween with sympathetic friends for another 10 minutes and left for home at 7:20pm. Efficient! It was 38° and dark and still the easiest, shortest Halloween of all time.

Wednesday, November 1st: I dug in and practiced two songs in depth on the piano today. It was satisfying and difficult all at the same time. I finished up week 7 of 8 in my strength and conditioning program today with plenty of core work, leg lifting, pogo hopping, and sprinting. It was satisfying and difficult at the same time. Why can hard some things be both satisfying and difficult all at once? It is an interesting phenomenon. I feel the same way about learning Chinese on Duolingo. And drawing. And coaching, honestly. My favorite pursuits require that balance of grit and enjoyment. I guess that's what makes them interesting!

All 3 kids had church activities on this dark cold rainy night, and Jeff drove them there and back again as penance/balance for him skipping the trunk or treat last night. I was glad to shower my cold bones after xc practice, get straight into my pajamas, and stay home snuggled up for the rest of the night.  

Our trip to Pepe's inspired my artwork the next day.

Trading shoes with Shaun at cross country practice. His trendy Nike high tops were not comfortable at all!

I happened to glance out the window as the truck carrying our countertops was pulling into the driveway across the street! I was so excited to see them all day!

One of the tricky measures I puzzled and slaved over while practicing piano. It's starting to sound better, but whew, that 6/8 rhythm plus ledger lines plus four flats is testing me for sure!

Dramatic clouds in our big sky after some rain. This views are less than a mile north of our house--taken while I was running on Wednesday.

Our skinny white rental house yard cloaked in yellow leaves. It will definitely be weird not to live in this house when we move across the street! We've lived in this little house for six and a half years!

Post-run picture with the vibrant yellow leaves in our yard. I need to plant a pretty tree in our new yard-- there are currently only a few tiny scrubby dogwoods that hopefully survive the winter.

Daniel Hernandez (my PT) writes my strength workout on the board and sometimes it's a mental workout trying to figure out what his writing means, haha. I try to guess before asking him, but I'm often wrong.

COUNTERS!!!! They cut the island counter too narrow--it's supposed to have an overhang for stools--so that will be changed, but COUNTERS! I wonder what it will be like to have counters made of rocks in my everyday life. I've always had plastic-ish counters, even back when I lived at home as a teenager. The quartz seems so decadent and fancy, but are we going to break all of our dishes on it? Hah! (That big box on the island is the kitchen sink.)

Window trim is now white! (this is the basement)

A master bathroom with two sinks?? Luxury. The five of us have been sharing ONE single bathroom sink for the past 6 years. Are we going to miss jostling each other while brushing our teeth when we move? Hah, I doubt it.

The master shower floor is done--I think it looks cool. This shower is massive! I can stand in the middle and rotate on the spot with my arms extended straight out! (with my hands in fists--if I open my hands they hit the walls.)

More painting, and this is the last picture of that fireplace unit in its original orange glory--they had just sanded it down in preparation for painting when I took this picture. I haven't managed to see it in daylight to take a picture since it was painted though.

Doors upon doors, all freshly painted and stacked up.

HALLOWEEN:

Rose and Amber carved pumpkins on Saturday, October 28th. Our friends the Kannelys grew a large pumpkin patch and gave pumpkins away to everyone in our ward a few weeks ago.

Jeff, Jay, and I elected not to carve pumpkins again this year, but Rose and Amber spent well over an hour carving. All I had to do was cut off the top of Amber's pumpkin. I made sure to show Rose how to do it while I cut Amber's lid off, so Rose was able to cut her own pumpkin lid. Minimalist moms raise independent kids, right? I prefer thinking of myself as minimalist rather than lazy...haha

Rose

Amber. We never actually put candles in the pumpkins...haha, oops.

Amber got out the bricks one day.

Rose made her Halloween costume out of cardboard: she dressed up as a bookshelf and wore two slabs of cardboard with books drawn on. Our ward hosted a stake Halloween Dance on Friday, October 28th, and Jay and Rose both went. I forgot to take pictures of them in their costumes that night. Jay dressed up as Kronk from The Emperor's New Groove. He wore a white button up shirt (to simulate the lab coat). We printed off the good and evil shoulder angels and taped them to his shoulders.

One of the least romantic aspects of my life is cooking ground meat. This was three pounds of hamburger meat, which went into a triple batch of shepherd's pie.

I felt very angsty on Sunday afternoon: while I cooked hunks of ground beef, my family lounged and relaxed in the next room. Sigh. I don't know what I would have rather had them do while I was wrestling that burger meat into perfect brown crumbles, but I always feel like a slave when I'm the only one working while my family plays.

Salvaging the Sunday angst with a family walk across the street to see the new house.

New siding and deck!

The back of the house.

Sibling Twister: this made me laugh. Rose and Amber fell after what seemed like only two spins every time.

Sunset view from our newly finished back deck.

Ward Trunk or Treat:

Amber dressed up as Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. Rose was a bookshelf. Jay wore all black and let people guess what he was--he said yes to every guess.

The quantity of candy that Amber amassed in ten minutes of trunk or treating was horrifying. I think I was not the only parent in attendance who wanted to get Halloween over with as fast as possible.

Rose organized all of her candy by genre and flavor.

Jay picked through his sisters' candy hauls and imposed a "brother tax". The girls didn't even mind. They only get to keep a sandwich baggie full of candy anyways, so Jay's tax did not bother them at all.

CANDY. BLEH. I ate one pink Starburst and called it a night.

I'm glad it's November!