MAKING IT THROUGH THE WEEK (AND HEY, WE MADE IT!)

This is the week that felt like a month. I walked out of work each day feeling like I had just survived a natural disaster: eyes glazed, limp arms, hungry - you get the picture.  And each day we have a myriad of things to do in the evening, but after Monday and Tuesday, when we realized what kind of week this was (all of our phone calls started with a big sigh, and then, "so....we survived"), we designated that Wednesday evening would be our haven. At least for an hour, before the rush of bed time and the insistence of the to-do list set in, we would build a little fire, roast hot dogs, and just sit with each other. 

And we did just that. 

P.S. Don't be surprised by the abundance of fire pit photos you may or may not see here on the blog. It's my favorite thing right now. 

We are all so relieved to be at the end of this week; here's to hoping this weekend goes nice and slow...and with eyeballs wide open! 

A FIRE PIT COMES INTO OUR LIVES

...yes, a fire pit!!! 

But first, a bird feeder.  We finally put up the glorious bird feeder that we made a couple of weeks ago at Simone's birthday party. It was exciting! We've been checking it every day since.

After we put up this hunk of a treat for the birds and deer of our neighborhood, I showed Sloane the fire pit that I had made while she was napping. 

Ta-da! It's your very basic run of the mill fire pit, but I am terribly proud of it because I made it all by myself. Ken was more than willing to help, but he had a project of his own in the garage and with only a few free hours in the afternoon, i rolled up my sleeves and got to work.  I hauled 14 cement blocks from the car to the backyard, dug a hole about one feet deep and three feet wide,  placed the cement blocks around the hole, and then filled the bottom of it with marble rocks. Not a bad set up for $30 and two hours of work. 

I love a hundred things about a contained fire and I'm relieved that having this pit means several fireside moments these next few months. Fire-gazing, fancy smore combinations, hot dog on a stick, clothes seeping with the smell of campfire - bring it on!

Important lessons in fire safety.

At this moment, she breathed out a, "wooww!"

Our backyard looks like a campsite!

And then our friends came over...and we broke it in with marshmallows. Watching the tots rejoice as they roasted their marshmallows over the pit did me a world of good and reinforced my belief in humanity and hard work, and all that. 

LIFE LATELY

I apologize in advance if this post has no sense of cohesion whatsoever. I am planning for this one to be a brief scrapbooking session made up of photos from my iphone album and thoughts from my mind's miscellaneous box.

A couple of business items to start:

1. I love podcasts and I am so grateful to the internet world for the deep and diverse world of them. Recently, I have discovered a couple recently that I think are worth sharing. One of them is Serial, a new podcast from the creators of This American Life. I am more gripped by the unfolding of this investigative journalism into a particular case, than I have been for any recent television show. The other is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day podcast. The other day, the word was 'tankini', which I knew, but what I did not know was the backstory for the word, 'bikini', which was explained in that 2 min segment (they are all about 2-3 min long) for tankini. Fascinating. 

2. This song. 

3. That photo up there is from Sunday morning- I adore these boys and so does Sloane. They were all in the middle of playing when they were asked to step off the playmat for a moment by adults needing to move things around, and so they stood to the side, waiting, and I said, 'hey look over here!' so that I could snap a picture and those are the faces they gave me. 

This weekend was full of accomplishments - one of them being that I ran my second Rugged Maniac race, the second being that I made a fire pit ! (rest assured, more on the fire pit later).  During the first five minutes of the race (similar to the first five minutes of the first time I ran the race back in May, and come to think of it, similar to the first five minutes of any time that I run), I thought to myself, why am I doing this again? And then the adrenaline kicked in and the first obstacle was in front of us and then I was having a blast. I almost didn't run due to a wonky foot situation but it all worked out and it felt wonderful to realize I had gotten stronger from the last time. 

On Friday though, before the race and while I was feeling sorry for myself regarding aforementioned foot injury and a tiring week, I self-administered the following things: 1) a trip to the wine store with Sloane for a wine tasting and a gorgeous bottle of Malbec, 2) a dinner of butternut squash soup, Gouda cheese, grapes and wine, 3) an hour of finally finishing up the book I was reading. 

Sloane took this picture! She said she wanted to take a photo of us. 

Sloane can get into the car by herself...almost.  Her efforts are inspiring.  And a family photo from the state fair, for good measure! This is towards the end, when we were covered in sweat and melted ice cream, the way all days at the state fair should end.

I have been making a lot of hash lately.  Squash has been shimmying their way to the big bins at the grocery stores and so I have made some sort of hash about three times already this week in various combinations having to do with butternut squash - pear - chorizo - sweet potato - breakfast sausage - kale - red onion - pepper, etc.  You would think a picture of hash would make perfect sense here but all I have is a photo of some glorious steaks before Ken put them on the grill, so here you go! I love it when that man grills.

And finally, a moment to acknowledge the amazing thing that is Sloane and Rusty.  She bosses him around, hugs his tail, his ear, his body, anything she can get her hands on, gets freaked out when he runs in her direction barking at the top of his lungs, spits bacon down to him when she thinks we're not looking, always makes sure he has water and food in his bowl, warns him not to eat her stuffed animals while she is gone, berates him in the same tone and manner we do,  and always wants to be the one that gives him his treats. 

And there we have it! I don't know how else to end this except to say I've been doing a poor job of getting enough sleep so I'm going to go give that another try and I'll be back, don't you worry. 

WE GO TO THE STATE FAIR!

The thing you have to understand is that, for Sloane, going to the state fair and seeing all the farm animals there is the equivalent of a huge celebrity sighting for an adult, if that adult cares about such things. 

We went to the state fair last year (and she wore the same chambray shirt! partly because I buy her clothes a little bigger and partly because she is little for her age...allegedly) and although she initially seemed interested in the cows, was terrified when we actually got up to them and she realized they were ginormous.  However, this year, she was 100% on board and couldn't have been more excited to touch the animals and get up close. 

A sweet passerby randomly offered to take a family photo for us. 

I wish she told me my shirt was doing a weird scrunchy thing. 

But also, Sloane seems so grown up here! 

Hey a quick game of find the baby girl with her papa!

The horse stables are my favorite. When I was young, my parents sent us to this summer camp for a few years where, among other things, we learned how to ride horses, and I loved it so much. I love seeing each of the horses; they are terribly majestic.

This girl showed us her horse and Sloane took it all in, her eyes wide as saucers. 

We ventured into the area that had the kiddie rides and games and we let Sloane play one game that had to do with picking up plastic ducks out of water. She 'won' and picked out a stuffed cow as her prize! She was pleased with herself and carried that cow around all weekend. 

This girl LOVES her ice cream. She gets it from her papa. 

She is also good at sharing. She gets that from her mama. 

And then we happened upon an area where they were offering pony rides! All the time we were looking at the horses, Sloane would ask if she could get on one, and I told her that unfortunately, she probably couldn't get on one for a few years, but then there we were! pony rides for anyone under 85 pounds! I was so excited for her I could hardly stand it.  Ken and I gave her pep talks, wondering if she would be able to handle it without getting freaked out, but turns out, she is a PRO. When it was her turn, she got on the saddle, sat straight up, held tight to the horn and rode that pony as if she'd been doing it all her life. The joy and pride that was coursing through that little body was pretty much the best thing ever. Ken and I were beside ourselves. There we were, two regular folk, watching this tiny human being that we had created (!) experiencing pure joy from being on a pony for five minutes.  This is the stuff life is made of, we would reflect to each other later.