A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Sometimes you've just got to hang with the neighbors. (We all should have done that years ago, but no day like today to start.)

Debbie & Jody had us all over to their house; he grilled hot-dogs & she made her grandmother's Cowboy Soup. Carl & Janey brought brownies, chips & pasta salad. Tim & Amanda sent baked beans with their oldest kids. Scott & I brought bananas, apples and the makings for S'mores. All-in-all, we had quite a spread with plenty of leftovers. (Here, why don't you take some of this home with you? Hey, why don't I leave a few of these here?)

All of the kids had the bestest of times, from the little 20 month old to the newly hatched teenager. Jody has made an awesome "treehouse" from scraps: they salvaged two slides, a friend's fence, various pieces of lumber from various projects, the leftover shingles from the re-roofing, "grass" outdoor carpet, even a old attic-access ladder. The only thing they bought was an extra long slide. It looks like it might have been made from a kit, but when you use it, you see that it's recycled and an original design. I was very impressed! The whole thing was great & proportioned such that the littlest kids could climb up to the top (about 20 feet off the ground) and back down to slides they were comfortable using. Well, by the end of the evening, Janey's C and my DLG were flying down the really tall slide, but younger siblings always do push the envelope.

MLB learned to use Nerf Dart guns. He never knew such a thing existed (we're such closet pacifists,) and he was overjoyed to shoot at the electronic target and get 100 points every time. Not that he gave that poor target a fighting chance, shooting as he was at point-blank range. Every kid 1st grade & up was armed and aiming. The oldest kids had the best accuracy, but then again, their father does work for HPD.

Oh, and the neighbors have a new puppy. If the temperature had been in the 80s, the kids would also have had a pool or something and been in utter backyard heaven.

We adults stood around talking & getting to know each other better as a neighborhood group, refereeing as necessary. The fire-pit was lit up in honor of the chill evening air, and those world's largest marshmallows were roasted on the world's largest toasting forks by happy dads & kids.

And I didn't have to worry about Auburn losing today. Oh my, yes.... it was a beautiful day indeed.

Lack of Content

I seriously considered just leaving this entry blank today.

I do not want to post a run-down of today's cleaning activities (although I did take some extra time to play chase with my daughter & get in plenty of hugs and tickles. Soon, too soon, she'll be too big for mommy-cuddles. And she's just so cuddly.)

I will say I'm looking forward to Saturday. I'll be taking my boy with me as I power-shop through South Huntsville; we'll end up at Costco for the snacky-snacks & a budget lunch date. Later in the afternoon we'll get together with all the neighbors "on the corner" for a weenie roast next door.

You won't BELIEVE the size of the marshmallows I found to roast!

Things Could Look Worse

Well, the few Halloween decoration I put up this year are now down & back into their boxes. I'll give myself about two weeks to get things really picked up before I let my husband haul out the tree & start stringing the lights.

No, I'm not a Christmas fanatic, but I like a lot of lights on my tree. We went pretty minimal with the tree last year; we weren't sure what an unfettered two-year-old would do to it, but she did pretty well. (She didn't actually pull the tree down on herself until after Epiphany when I had all of the decorations off so Scott could de-light it. I'm not sure if she wanted a closer look at the lights, or if she thought she could use the tree to boost her out of the playpen. Oh well, all survived.)

My house is SO piled up.

• There have been TWO laundry mountains-- adult & kid. It piles up quicker now that cold weather is here and I'm feeding my ancient machines smaller loads.
• I've also got summer 3T clothes pulled & awaiting distribution.
• Then there's the various piles of things for the Rummage Sale in February that need logging on my spreadsheet & stored; easier done if I don't have two little helpers saying, "Hey, that's mine!"
• Still haven't hit a lick at my scrapbooking.
• I've yet to finish all my mending & household repairs.
• My brother's moving back home, so a pile of stuff I'd stored in a bedroom at my parent's house came back here.
• Super-couponing has let me collect stuff for the monthly food pantry drive; but the church swaps up pantries each month, so the stuff leaves my house only every four weeks.
• And did I mention that we deemed our son so utterly irresponsible with his toys, that we removed them from his room & stored them in our old Protege? The boy doesn't seem to miss them--- AND my folks have ask me to lend my brother that car.

Uh-huh. Why on earth did I think I could squeeze out a blog post every day?!?

Oh yeah, my blog, my rant. (I feel better.)