Sometimes you just have to post *something* to get back in the game.

It's been months since I've written anything here - I have so much to say, and catch up on, and yet only have about five minutes free, so I can't really do any actual catching up.  But, in order to get over the paralyzing "I haven't written in months" feeling, and be able to get on to some real posting sometime soon, I thought I'd better just say something, anything, to start back up.

Life has been going, per usual, at a crazy pace.  It was busy with a two-year-old and working, but somehow moving into our house brought about ten times more craziness.  We've had re-grading and landscaping to do, gutters to install, a new boiler is coming, lots of painting on the horizon; in short, the usual with any house, but our daily cup of activities surely runneth over. And then of course our state got slammed by a hurricane on Sunday.  We were very fortunate in that we had no ill effects from the storm - our leak prone basement didn't even have more than a few wet patches on the walls (which is remarkable, given that when we moved in every storm brought huge puddles on the floor; go gutters!)

It's hard to believe that the summer is nearly over, but every morning now brings a chill that quickly reminds me of how few weeks are left before it is truly cold.  Since for so long my year revolved to the 4-H calendar, our weather now is what I immediately think of as "Rutland Fair" weather; rapidly cooling, but with still warm days, still shorts and t-shirts most of the time, even if the morning is cool enough for jeans and a sweater.  It stands in sharp contrast to "Addison Field Days" weather, though, which is generally blazingly hot, tank tops, sweat, icy drinks, and the promise of a drenching evening thunderstorm.  We're not yet at "Eastern States Expo" weather yet, though, when you open your door early in the morning to a frosty smell in the air that hints of snow, and when modeling a woolen outfit suddenly sounds like an awesome, rather than tortuous, idea.

I haven't done much in the way of preserving this summer: see the rant above about being so busy, but I have found the time to start putting away the bounty of (intentionally planted, this year) cherry tomatoes that has begun to come in.  Aside from the tomatoes, and my herbs, which have done extraordinarily well, the garden was mostly a bust this year.  I don't know if it was the weather, the soil, when I planted, or just that I didn't choose varieties carefully enough, but almost everything "got" something.  The tomatoes have blight (though cherry tomatoes grow fast enough to stay ahead of it for most of the season).  The zucchinis were taken out by vine borers (after a good harvest of about six fruits).  The summer squash succumbed to powdery mildew (smaller harvest than the zucchini), and so did the pumpkins (which have yet to set any fruit, and most likely won't at this point).  Since it was too late in the season to plant much else when we moved in, it felt a bit like a failure.  But I've decided to turn it into a learning experience, and I definitely know what to look out for next year when choosing plants and seeds.

Overall though I'm really sad to see summer end this year.  For some reason fall this year is bringing all sorts of thoughts of mortality, and the shortness of life.  I'm excited about apple picking, Halloween, and walks in crisp fallen foliage, but I'm really, really not ready for the months of winter.  Not ready to be stuck inside all winter with an extremely energetic two-year-old (though fortunately, we've made a friend across the street); not ready to give up weekly walks to the library, my newly rediscovered love of running (but it's oh so hard to keep going once the snow builds up on the sidewalks), or frankly, to pack away my capris for jeans and wool socks.  But being inevitable, I'm trying to accept the season change gracefully, and find good in whatever comes my way.

Anyway, my five minutes has come and gone, so I'll wrap it up.  Soon to come, though, if I can find another spare minute here or there: yarn along updates, pictures of our house (and house progress), and other random ramblings!   I hope you all are well, and haven't completely given up on me.

Truly, I haven't died...

An update in bullet-point form, just to summarize the last month or so:

• We found, and made an offer on, a house at the beginning of May
• The offer was accepted, but we had to scramble to meet some requirements for our mortgage loan, due to using the VA option (such as getting carpet installed in the property, and scraping and painting peeling window and roof trim)
• This rather unbalanced my work schedule, mental health, housework, and of course, LW's finally-tuned schedule
• We closed on the house the second weekend in June, and proceeded to move.
• Moving with a two year old, even two towns over, is a major hassle.
• Did I mention that LW turned two in the midst of this chaos?  We're bad parents.  We didn't do much to celebrate.  I gave her chocolate icecream with a candle on top and called it good.  But we're planning a dual house-warming/two year birthday party for next month.
• After being in the house about a week, we discovered a section of mold in the basement.
• Panic ensued, but it looks like it'll be ok with some fairly limited cleanup.
• My mind is also full of all sorts of quotes and such for other projects that need to happen.
• Also, I managed to plant our rather minimal garden.  I will take pictures of many things soon!
• Not much knitting lately.  I finished a baby shower present for a friend of mine, but then the house saga began.  However I now have a dedicated office/craft room, so that will help. 
• Of course, there's little time to knit, what with hanging blinds and needing to paint, and still unpacking, and such.
• I look forward to a time six months from now when I'm no longer freaking out about the possibility of mold in our walls, or an unknown pest invasion, or that my daughter is slowly being poisoned by lead paint.  Seriously - I think it would have been easier to live at a time when we weren't so well educated... a little lack of knowledge can actually be good for you...

Anyway, that's what's going on here.  I want to get back to writing more regularly, I really do, but my to-do-list is seriously a mile long!  When I get caught up, though, I'll post some pictures as well as share the story of how we found our house (and the ups and downs and all arounds of the process).  It's a compromise - it doesn't have the couple of acres of "room for a horse", rather is in a suburban village and has about 1/6 of an acre little tiny lot.  But there is a big enough back yard, and we have a small garden, and the neighbors so far seem nice, and we're walking distance to lots of good things (yarn shop, great library with fabulous kids section, shopping complex, parks, a church, etc), so it's not a bad compromise all and all.  And, my husband only has to drive 15 minutes to work, instead of the 45 it would have taken from anywhere that did have room for a horse.  Evidently a horse isn't a part of the current "blessing-package" :)

Hope you all are well!  Pray for us, in this transition, please!

Blog silence

I'm not meaning to be on hiatus at the moment, just have about six too many irons in the proverbial fire.  My husband's twin brother's wedding is next weekend (for which I am, as mentioned before, making the cake).  I also, after a fruitless attempt to find a dress to wear to the wedding locally, decided I would just make a dress to wear...  I hadn't done any sewing projects since LW was born, and let me tell you: this one reminded me all over again why I haven't!

But, I have it nearly done, just need to do some hand sewing details to finish it, and do the hem.  I really like it - I found this reallly pretty embroidered linen on the bargain rack (ok, it was still $7/a yard, but that was half off what it usually is), in this pretty light blue, and also found a darker blue/teal shawl to wear as a wrap to Mass, since the dress itself has spaghetti straps.  My husband has been a champ, watching LW and taking her for walks and such so that I could get the majority of it done; now I will be retiring the sewing machine again for awhile (actually, probably not for too long, as I saved enough of the material to make a little something for LW herself).  I love these sorts of projects - after they are done, that is!

I'm also trying to make some real world time to catch up with a few friends, and spend some summer evenings with husband and daughter.  The summer has totally gotten away from me; I can't believe that it is nearly August already!

On which subject - our second wedding anniversary is next week.  I simply cannot believe that we've been married for two years already.  The time truly has flown, and I am happy to say that our bond continues to deepen, and we definitely (or at least I believe we do) understand each other a lot better now than two years ago. 

The garden, like the rest of my life, is growing out of control; LW is teething (great, more teeth to develop cavities); life is just busy, busy, busy.  Today, at the end of a long, hot, sweaty, sticky, cranky-baby day, I actually momentarily longed for winter - for hot cocoa at the start of the day, for the cozy comforts of hunkering down at home to wait out a snowstorm, and the much more quiet, methodical pace of life that comes with shorter daylight and reduced ability or desire to go anywhere.  But then I snapped back to reality, because I hate winter. 

In other news - I'm finally taking a week's vacation the second week in August, and I cannot wait for that time off.  Since I work only part time from home, I no longer receive paid vacation or paid days off, so I have to put in extra time in advance in order to take any time off; thus days off are extra precious, and this will be the first real vacation that I've had in a year, since I went back to work after LW was born.  I haven't taken more than two days off in a row in the last year, and essentially every time I did that, we were traveling somewhere for a holiday, so this should be a real treat.

Anyway, I know this post has little or no real substance to it - just a quick explanation of things being so quiet here!  In reality, quiet in the blogosphere equates to insanely busy in the "real" world.  But never fear - in a few weeks or so, once fall really settles in, I'm sure I'll have more than enough to say (not that I don't now!), and more importantly, time enough to say it.

God bless, now get outside and enjoy the quickly speeding summer!