blessed beyond measure

We seem to say every fall that summer flew by. But this one actually did fly by, enough that we knew it was flying by all through the midst of it. We'd look at each other and wonder where these days were going. I'd say we blinked and it was gone, but looking back there are some great memories to remind us that a lot of greatness happened during that blink. Tomorrow is October, so it's time to bid a proper farewell to the humid season by sharing some thusfar unshared moments that defined our summer. Our garden was something else this year. We kept it looking pretty nice, given the blessing of a new tiller. We canned maybe 15 quarts of green beans, and ate and gave away probably just as many. Cukes, squash, and zucchini did better than in previous years. The tomatoes didn't come around until everything else had given up the ghost, but they have been plentiful. While we were in Florida, the beetles ate our corn. All of it. All of it. Every single stinkin e...

This is a story of that time when our house turned on us. I mean, turned . It started small, but terrifying. On Wednesday this happened: I hate bats, y'all. They have always been creepy with their huge wings and beady little eyes and shudder-inducing random flight patterns. Vomitous. A few years ago this girl at work got bit by one and it temporarily paralyzed her neck muscles and she had to be in the hospital for like a week. Creepy is no longer adequate and if I ever see a bat these days it's a tuck and run sort of situation. The good news is that by the time we got home late Wednesday evening, he was gone. Which is nice, otherwise I would have had to live in the car til the boys could construct some kind of secure tunnel from the driveway to the front door. And even though he hasn't come back, you can bet every time I've crossed the porch since, it's been with head pulled into my shoulders like a turtle, and fast as my two-foot legs can carry me. An...

She was impressive from the start. Like moths to a flame, weather experts near and far latched onto Hurricane Florence more than a week before she made landfall, which gave this OCD preparation expert plenty of time to stew things over and imagine all the possibilities. Early on, Florence was supposed make a near-direct hit on Virginia and glide slowly over top of us, dropping feet - feet - of rain. She was the size of both the Carolinas put together and strengthening basically by the minute. Five days before the predicted worst of it, just before lunch, Brandon emailed me that Florence was at category 3 and I needed to think about getting whatever we'd need for days without power, and to go sooner rather than later so I wouldn't have a panic attack at the Black Friday version of Kroger. And then... It took under an hour. So I hopped on a late - and what ended up being a long - lunch break. Yes, I was the crazy lady speeding her heavy cart full of water, Pop Tarts...

I imagine it's true for everybody, that certain parts of life sort of take on a life of their own. Let's take Aden's room for instance. He has approximately six billion toys. That's counting each Lego separately. And his room most often looks like a tornado ran through the Walmart play section. Every once in a while, to quell the OCD eruption rising up within me, I'll take an hour or two and put everything where it goes. Because there is a place for everything. Then the room looks huge and nice and Aden will compliment me on a job well done. To which I, um, sweetly reply that he needs to keep it this way. Dude can't do it. How on earth he is able to make such a mess in a very short time is just inexplicable. Maybe Toy Story had it right and they're all just party heartying during the day. Poor Aden would rather chew a toe off than clean up. When we do go through the painful process of making him pick things up, he does a decent job with ninet...