Well, that was quite a week...

I won't lie, I'm feeling pretty worn out by this week, and that's even with the relatively happy ending in our household as of this morning.  

It was super chilly through Tuesday (with even a little snow on the ground on Monday), which of course meant that going out to vote and grab lunch (on our one kid-less day this week, after having none last week) was done in cold and a few flurries.  Our voting was quick and uneventful, and it was nice to grab some lunch out to bring home.  Lunch at home is the new date night, I guess.

The sunset on Election Night was beautiful and much needed.  

Obviously the election was the focal point of the entire week, keeping our eyes peeled on the news and trying to avoid as much of the conflict on social media as we could.  I downloaded about three new games this week alone to avoid doom-scrolling.  Based on previous posts, you can imagine that we were happy with the results that came through this morning.  I understand the stress of the folks on the other side, though--heck, we felt it deeply four years ago, and the unknowns and concerns weigh heavily.  All I can really say is that Trump's divisive nature, half-truths, and narcissistic behavior were exhausting to me, someone who has never been that into politics.  It was worse in the last nine months or so, where it seemed like we were hearing from him every day, and every speech seemed to bring a new concerning quote or lack of action.  If I felt a weight from those things, I can only imagine how it felt for people who felt threatened, ignored, or oppressed by this administration.  I don't blame them for openly celebrating their freedom from that today, and it goes so far beyond the usual presidential victory that often feels akin to a sporting event to me.  For so many people it feels like a huge moral victory, and while I don't entirely understand the mindset of the other side, I do feel for their current angst because I remember it all too well.  And I'm honestly not sure a lot of Biden supporters could have mentally gone through four more years of the same stresses (and beyond) that I was feeling.  I truly think suicides might have spiked even higher than they already have during the pandemic.  This was so much bigger than individual political issues for so many people.  I did not like what I saw for the last four years, for so many reasons.  Even if some of the legislation was fine, the tone with which it was done and the general environment around it was difficult to wrangle.  Does it cancel out removing a less helpful former president's legislation if you insult a different race in the process because of deeply seeded bias?  Quite possibly.  Does it cancel out the benefit of a travel ban from China if you take little other action and insist the coronavirus is "going away" when cases are peaking?  In my opinion, most definitely.  So, I am relieved that we at least get a new talk track, and a more sincere, humble one at that.

Anyway, back to the week.  Work was extremely busy all week, but I was productive and kept my projects moving, which felt good.  However, I felt like everything else was discombobulated.  It was one of those weeks where everything just seemed to pile up--from issues with the kids to messes everywhere I looked, from countless undone tasks to a literal eternal pile of dishes since our dishwasher is out of commission.  Maybe the political stress compounded it, but I finally made a list on my phone and started trying to work through it.  Only partial success so far, but hopefully more tomorrow.

Starting Wednesday, it was gorgeous out--not just warm, but sunny!  We're now in the midst of a full week of sunny 60s and even 70s, which is nearly unheard of in November.  I guess it almost makes up for all the 40s and rain we had in the couple weeks before Halloween, but it's just a bummer that most of the leaves aren't there to enjoy anymore.  Working from home on days like these, especially at this time of year where after work daylight is non-existent, is really nice.  Not only can you easily go out and enjoy the weather at lunch or when you need a break, but you can even take care of pesky yard tasks in full daylight during a weekday lunch, rather than spending an hour of your precious weekend.  On Wednesday and Friday I spent part of my lunch cleaning up my garden.  The cold over the weekend finally killed it off (along with most of my flowers), so I had to finally go back out and clear out the tomato plants.  The cukes died off a while ago, and the zucchini and beans came out a couple weeks ago when they stopped growing.  But the tomatoes were still producing, so I left them.  Well, once the cold killed them, I figured most would be mush.  However, when I started clearing out the fencing on Wednesday, I collected this:

Fried green tomatoes, anyone?

I finished the job on Friday and collected another couple handfuls, too.  Those plants couldn't be pulled out intact because they were so tangled in the fencing and tomato cages, but they had to be over eight feet tall!

As if this week wasn't enough already, I found out some amazing news--not ours, and definitely not ours to share--but amazing nonetheless.  That made the last couple days even more eventful!  Hopefully I can share a little here soon.  But it was just another part of a crazy, roller coaster week!

With the gorgeous weather again today, I wanted to make sure we got out in it.  After seeing the presidential results come through, I did a run this morning--my first in two months thanks to my leg/butt pain, the weather, and illness. It ended up being a bunch of intervals over three miles because I am clearly out of shape, but at least my bad leg felt better!  In the afternoon, since Jacob had to miss his game last weekend, I let Craig keep his turn in the game-watching department and Carter and I went on another adventure.  This time we went north, to the lake.  We went to Hamlin Beach State Park.  I only think of Hamlin as a couple towns over from us, but it's a solid half hour, straight north to the lake then straight west on the expressway.  But it was a lovely drive along the lake!

Carter's first priority was the playground, of course!  But at least the view from up top was beautiful!

Carter loved how the sun made the leaves look like gold! 

After the playground, we walked out on a pier.  There were tons of geese in the water nearby, audibly squawking up a storm!

There wasn't much color left, but everything was so blue today!

Erosion and high water has been a big problem in this area for a couple years now, but this spot seems pretty set with all these giant rocks!

It was a lovely, peaceful day.  Despite a bit of a breeze, the lake was very still.  

We came across a nature trail and attempted to hike it.  Carter, as usual, got in a good run.

The color wasn't what it once was, but it definitely had some late fall charm.  

Along the walk there was a long wooden walkway that went out into what I imagine was a giant bog of grasses.  It looked pretty dry in between ponds, but maybe it's wetter in summer?  I assume all of this was green a couple months ago (much like what was along the river when Carter and I went to Turning Point Park), but I'm not sure.  You could just see the lake in the distance.

Along the path we saw this amazing spot where the trees made an arch over the path.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was cool.

At one point we got to this pine section, and Carter was convinced that it was like something out of a horror movie!  He's right--in the movies they should not have gone in there!

But it was very serene in the middle of it!

By this point I was getting a little nervous about where we might pop out or how long the walk might end up, so once we saw this last pretty spot, I went toward what looked like a clearing.  It dropped us a bit outside the park entrance, but it left us a reasonably direct walk back in the end.  And thank goodness, because I was getting tired!

On our way back to the playground, we stopped in this one small spot that had direct access to the water.  We jumped out of the way of waves as we looked at the stones near the water.  It reminded me of Camp Pioneer, right down to the abundance of zebra mussel shells.  Some of the rocks were really pretty, though, and the lapping water was so peaceful.  

Carter had a field day finding fancy rocks, and I even found a couple tiny pieces of green glass.  It was fun seeing him collect treasures, even if it did mean we had full hands and pockets for a bit!  This is our haul.  I think the bigger ones might make it out to the garden one of these days, to hang out with the other big ones I brought home from Camp Pioneer.  Some of the smaller ones will probably end up with his panned rocks from Howe Caverns and his crystals from his fossil dig-type Christmas gift last year.

After that it was back to the playground for a bit before heading home for dinner, a movie, and a certain very important political speech.

It wasn't quite as amazing as our last outing, but it's always fun to get out in nature and get Carter away from screens for a while, especially on a gorgeous day like today.  I just like exploring new places, and seeing Carter find some fun in it was a nice bonus.  

A few more gorgeous days left, plus a day off this coming week.  Next weekend we have a family wedding, which will be fun but different with COVID...but what else is new?  Cases are on the rise so I'm hoping nothing gets in the way in the meantime.  If nothing else, we made it through the first limbo week of November relatively unscathed.  Let's see if we can keep the next couple interesting...in a good way!

A Very 2020 Halloween

This Halloween was shaping up to be a weird one anyway, but it was even more out of sorts than expected.  Problem #1 was that Jacob's COVID test from Thursday still hadn't come back with a result.  My results arrived in about 36 hours, but his were taking longer.  Part of the issue was that he's under 18 and therefore couldn't have direct portal access, either himself or through my account.  So we were essentially at the mercy of the lab to send them manually.  In the end, the lab never did send them.  I finally got a text at 2:30pm on Sunday from New York State with the result, which was thankfully negative.  But, of course, the result was more than a day too late, both for his Saturday basketball game and for his Halloween.  But at least it was in time for school today!  Still, Jacob was bummed on Saturday when I refused to bring out his DJ costume stuff from last year.  He originally just wanted to enhance it this year with a few more things, but we never got to the store (again, weird year) and obviously we couldn't go at the last minute due to his illness.  He kept asking me to get what we had out of the crawl space, but I reminded him he couldn't go near trick-or-treaters nor could he go out himself, and I didn't want to tempt him.  It was definitely a bummer, but we've since given him a bunch of candy to ease the loss.  But it's one of his last Halloweens as a kid and it was certainly not the way he wanted to spend it.

Because this year was so screwy, it's fitting that despite two previous opportunities to buy pumpkins, we didn't get them until Friday.  And even then it was a bit of a squeeze.  I stopped working a bit early (it had been a long week!) and dragged Carter out on a chilly, rainy day to the Garden Factory an hour before closing time.  We usually go there for indoor activities and pumpkin buying, but this year they didn't have any events.  But they do have a half price sale at the end!  On the way there, I asked Carter what kind of pumpkin we should get.  He said he wanted to do one using the stem as the nose, which I found out later came from the movie "Goosebumps".  Since he hadn't been that into the pumpkin buying at first, I really wanted to indulge his creative idea.  So we headed out into the cold drizzle to look at what was left of the pumpkins, and we searched for one that would sit nicely on its side.  I had been intent on not getting a giant pumpkin this year since they're so much work to carve (and I always do it solo), but when the perfect pumpkin turned out to be a 27-pounder, into the cart it went!  And since they were so cheap, we grabbed a uniquely shaped tall one, a squat cream-colored one, and a small orange one to complement the decorative ones we got at Stokoe Farms.  All told, including a few big apples for apple pie, it all cost less than what we would have paid for that single 27-pounder!  I spent most of Friday evening carving them with a little input from Carter.  This was the result, just before they went outside on Saturday:

As for Saturday, it ended up being quite the crazy day.  For starters, I woke up and saw this in the yard:

It was a rather large doe, and she ended up sitting there for at least an hour and a half.  The yard was quite pretty with constantly falling leaves and some long-awaited sun, so maybe she just wanted a nice view.  But admittedly, after our twin fawn deaths a number of years ago, any deer hanging out in our yard makes me nervous!  We do see evidence of deer once in a while--my half-eaten tomato plants, hoof divots in the yard--but it's still pretty rare to see one around.  I couldn't spend too much time admiring her because I had bills to pay (nothing like waiting until the last minute) and a long day to prepare for.  

We eventually had to rush through lunch amidst checking my email obsessively for test results (in case Jacob could play his game at the last minute), just so Carter and I could hop in the car on time to head out for a busy afternoon.  First stop was the church where his basketball games were last winter.  They were finally handing out the end-of-season prizes that they usually give out at the big closing celebration.  He got a pretty cool basketball and a really good ice cream sandwich from a local ice cream stand.  After we did that drive-thru process, we had to go park at the Wegmans across the street so he could eat his ice cream (costume down around his waist, just in case), mostly because we couldn't get to our next stop too early due to space issues. 

Our second stop was our church's socially distanced Trunk-or-Treat.  As cute as Carter looked in his costume, we discovered pretty quickly that we had a problem.  I guess I should start with the story of his costume.  Originally he wanted to be Fishstick from Fortnite.  He loves Fishstick YouTube videos, and it seemed to be his favorite Fortnite skin.  The problem was that the Halloween store version (Fishstick as a pirate) was $60, and the Target version (a regular Fishstick) was $35.  That was still expensive but doable, but it was nearly immediately sold out.  I couldn't find anything else similar anywhere.  I wasn't sure what we were going to do, and one night we went to the Halloween store to browse for other options.  It became clear that nothing was jumping out at Carter, but as we shopped, I noticed one single Fishstick pirate costume hanging on an endcap.  It was the right size and was incredibly marked half off, but it was damaged.  I looked at the large tear along a seam on the front and wasn't sure it was doable, so I stuffed it back in the bag.  We left that night empty-handed and I figured maybe we'd look online again or see what Party City had to offer.  But the more I thought about it, the more I was sure we weren't going to find anything he liked as much.  So after a long work day and school day, 24 hours later I dragged him back to the store to see if he could try it on, or if it was at least returnable.  We found out that because it was marked down, it wasn't returnable, and they weren't doing try-ons either.  Thankfully, the manager had mercy on us and let us use the bathroom to see if it was at least a decent fit.  And thank goodness, it was.  So $30 later, it was ours.  I brought it home, did about 45 minutes worth of stitching, and poof, perfect costume!  I did a shockingly good job with fraying fabric considering I fixed it by hand.  You never would have known!  But aside from putting it on once to test it out and again for a school assignment, we left the costume alone so it didn't rip out again.  

Fast-forward to Halloween, and we put on the full mask (with COVID face mask under) upon arrival at the trunk-or-treat.  First he was having issues with his face mask sliding down.  Then his hat fell off.  Then we realized he could barely see, and I was essentially having to lead him around like a blind person.  Because all of the stations involved socially distanced candy distribution, it was really hard for him to see or hear what he needed to do to get his candy.  I think he was so distracted by all of it that he hardly ever remembered to say "thank you", and when he did it was hard to hear behind double masks.  The whole thing just felt really awkward and I had a sense of impending doom about how the evening might go.

But at least he looked really cute!  (OK, weird but cute!)

As I alluded to, they tried to find as many creative ways as possible to give out candy without contact.  It was hung on clips, it was wheeled to us on a skateboard, it was under numbered buckets, and it was even shot out of a unicorn's butt!

With the pooping unicorn, who shot candy directly into the well-placed bucket from its butt!

This one had the cutest Great Pumpkin/Charlie Brown theme!

In the jungle, the candy came through an elephant's trunk!

At the end there was an obstacle course, which he obviously took off his mask to do!

Carter was pretty dejected by the end of the event.  He had a nice bucket of candy and trinkets, but we were really nervous about how trick-or-treating might go in the dark, if it was this hard in the light.  We talked about doing it without a mask ("but then I'm just a pirate with orange arms!"), or even changing costumes to Jacob's 2nd grade costume (but it was pretty similar to Carter's last year and we tried so hard to get this one), but neither of those sounded good.  Back at home, I desperately grabbed the mask and thankfully realized that the mesh in the eye hole could be pulled off basically intact (just in case), and once that was off, it seemed much easier to see.  After that, Carter's spirits were revived a bit.

After all that, Saturday afternoon still wasn't over!  I took an hour-plus round trip drive to pick up donuts for Jacob (last round until next October), followed by some slightly hectic dinner decisions and subsequent food pick-ups.  After that, out the carved pumpkins went with the rest of the porch pumpkins!

As for trick-or-treating, Carter and I got ourselves bundled for a very chilly (but thankfully dry) evening out.   

Note the eye slit is no longer orange--you can just see eyes in there now!

We did all of the next street over, which is usually hoppin', but it was a bit lower key this year.  By the end of that street, he was a bit chilly and wanted to head back, knowing the plan was to warm up and go out for a shift with Craig.  We got better gloves than what his costume had to keep his hands warm, and back out they went!  By the end of the night, he probably did about 25-30 houses.  Not too shabby!  As for us, we only had about nine trick-or-treaters total, but that was better than last year's rainout where we only had two!  

As a whole, once we got through some growing pains early in the day, Carter had a pretty decent Halloween.  But it was definitely a double bummer for Jacob, who not only missed trick-or-treating, but also his basketball game.  We're thankful he was negative, but it stinks it took so long to get that answer.  Hopefully he decides to give it (at least) one more go next year.  I'd hate to see his kid Halloweens end like this.

As for the rest of the weekend, I braved the wind and rain to drive to Buffalo to drop off cookie dough from Jacob's fundraiser to Craig's cousin and my mom.  It was taking over my freezer so I wanted to get it out quickly!  Despite the weather it wasn't a bad trip.  I had a blast with Craig's cousin (our flower girl), her husband, and her sweet baby girl.  She was born a couple months early but is absolutely taking the world by storm.  She's already close to crawling at eight months and is such an active, inquisitive, adorable little girl!  Then I headed to my parents' to catch the end of the Bills' game and hang out.  Thankfully, after an hour and a half in a mask at stop #1, I got Jacob's result on the drive so I could go maskless with my parents!  After a nice but quick visit, I got on the road just before the sun set on the first night post-time change.  As a result, it was a mostly dark drive, but I was still home in time for dinner, and now we're off and running to another week--and a crazy one it will likely be!

Big day tomorrow!  But we'll see if I decide to spew my election emotions here or not...hang in there, folks.

Fall Funk

As if we didn't have enough going on to help contribute to the usual fall funk that hits post-Halloween that I mentioned in my last post, the last couple days have given us a solid shove into it a couple days early.  As if the cold, rainy weather all week wasn't enough...

Jacob was home sick almost all week.  He started sniffling and sneezing on Monday night, and by Tuesday morning it was clear we couldn't send him to school like that.  COVID aside, just dealing with a super runny nose with a mask would have been a nightmare.  But under these circumstances, there was no way.  Well, one day turned into four.  On Thursday we took him for a test, figuring we'd at least know by his game today.  But alas, that didn't happen.  I don't know if testing is slower since cases are up significantly this week, or if it's more that he's a minor and couldn't have his own portal access, so we seem to be at the mercy of the lab to manually send results.  Their customer service sends back essentially the same message in questionable English every time, no matter what question I ask.  It has to be relatively local so I'm not sure why.  Hopefully we get something tomorrow so he's OK to go back to school Monday!  Of course, today was Halloween, so that made it a bit more of a bummer.

Thursday was Carter's parent-teacher conference.  We knew it could be a rough one, and sure enough, it wasn't great.  Maybe even worse than I expected.  We knew focus was an issue.  We knew his overreactions to any sort of correction were an issue.  But I don't think we realized the degree to which the correction issue was happening at school, and we definitely didn't expect to hear that his manners at school have been pretty bad.  He tends to not say please or thank you, like when asking someone to open something in his lunch.  He gets defensive when someone tries to help him with his work, but also gets mad when he needs to redo something because he wasn't paying attention or wouldn't accept the help that was offered.  We see that a lot at home, and unfortunately didn't have much advice to offer the teacher.  I know he was having a few minor issues in first grade, but I feel like being away from the school setting for so long made him completely forget how to behave.  It felt a little like our Kindergarten conference for Jacob, but at least this teacher tried to be positive and I know she's trying to figure out how to help him rather than just shoving him in a corner.  But it was hard not to have much to offer because we don't have any luck at home either.  We did let her know that we'll probably be moving toward an ADHD evaluation and shared what we've been through with Jacob, so hopefully she tries to see him through an ADHD lens, rather than just a normal high energy boy lens.  I'll admit I felt a hint of PTSD as I relived some of Jacob's struggles in my mind and tried to figure out how to make this better more quickly.  I had visions of the endless scales and questionnaires.  Of more appointments and doctors.  Of the decisions and fears surrounding medication.  I barely survived it all the first time around and now have to do it again.  I'm sad that this is our reality again because Carter seemed so much more typical as a toddler.  With Jacob, we knew early on something was up.  With Carter, the issues have only been in the past few years.  Maybe it was too much screen time.  Maybe it's all the taunting and bullying from his brother.  Maybe it's bad parenting.  Something changed and I don't know what it was.  It all makes me so sad, and this conference made it all the more real.  Home school is definitely making the issues more apparent--both because we see them and because he's lacking the consistency of the in-school rules and routines--but it's officially something we need to take action on now.

On the heels of that, yesterday morning I went into the crawl space--in part to survey my cast-off electronics to see if it was worth going to my work's annual e-cycle event, and partly to track down a hand-me-down winter coat for Carter--and I noticed a wet spot on the floor.  The last time this happened was six years ago, almost to the day.  That time was the day after Halloween, when we had the double doozy of finding a similar crawl space puddle and discovering our garage door spring had broken (actually happened the night before) on the same day.  That was an extra rough weekend since we were trapped in our garage for three days.  Well, this new puddle seems to have a similar source, right under the dishwasher, at least judging by the puddles on top of the bins under it.  I have no idea how long it's been like that, but judging by the corrosion on the bins and the black spots on the floor (mold? mildew? dust? junk leeching out of the floor?).  Luckily we now have a go-to plumber to call, who will be here on Monday, but with shortages on almost everything right now, who knows how long it will take to get fixed...or figure out whether we should just finally buy a new one since ours is broken in multiple spots that luckily don't affect its functionality.  It's over 10 years old (it came with the house and didn't look particularly new then) so I'm sure it doesn't have long to go.  So that sucked.

Add in the election and a rise in COVID cases--not just nationally but locally for a change--and it was a tough week.  I was crazy busy at work, and I could tell I wasn't in much of a Halloweeny mood.  I guess I felt better when my co-workers all also admitted on a call that we were not feeling any urge to participate in the office-wide costume contest.  We were so into it last year with our Mario theme, and this year, nada.  It would just be one more thing to stress about.  But it sucks we're all feeling this way.  

I've had moments recently where this reality gets to me a bit.  Like, if you would have told me a year ago that this would be our life--wearing masks, working from home, schooling partly from home, virtual everything, that we'd gotten through multiple months with malls closed, that I'd only have eaten in a restaurant once since March, and that every holiday could be affected...not to mention that we'd live like this for a year or more, and that it's been so heavily politicized that no one can agree on how to manage it...I'd have thought you were literally insane.  And yet here we are, stressed out but shockingly well adapted.  It's sort of mindblowing if you think about it too much.  And yes, it totally stinks that this is our existence, but it honestly could be so much worse.  Heck, tonight I read about all the new lockdowns in Europe, and yet people here have the nerve to 1) insist this is just about the election; and 2) complain even though almost everything is open, even if it's not to capacity.  I know this has caused hardships.  Businesses have lost a ton.  It stinks weddings have to be small, restaurants are only at 50%, and theaters are even less (now that they just opened after seven full months), but what's the alternative?  Letting things run amok again and shutting down more?  No, the death rate isn't what it was but it is still killing people and it's still causing long-lasting health impacts.  We'll live our lives as much as we can, but we're not going to be reckless because we don't know what might happen.  If you don't care, that's fine, but wear your mask in public because I don't want you endangering me or my family.  It's like the difference between seatbelts and DWI.  There are laws for both, but only one impacts the safety of others in addition to yourself.  By all means, go out to eat, don't sanitize, make fun of masks in your own house if that's your thing...but if your actions can impact me, please at least be considerate in public and wear your mask and try to keep your hands clean.  It's not that hard and it's not the beginning of some slippery slope of loss of freedom.  I'd have hated to see those people during rationing back in the war years!  I'd love to see the kids back in school more than anything, but beyond that, where things are now seem pretty livable to me.  But the fact we all carry these weights at all is hard to think about, and it's only going to make this "darker" part of fall a bit harder to manage.

This post took me an extra day to write, so Halloween is just going to have to wait a day or two.  More soon--hopefully with COVID test results in hand!  

News and Notes, Forced Fall Family Fun Edition

Another week down.  I guess it was an interesting one.  Mostly because I ended up getting a COVID test on Wednesday.  I came down with a cold on Monday night.  It was mostly just some post-nasal drip and some fuzzy-headed congestion.  By Tuesday I had some body aches.  Nothing crazy, but enough to make me uncomfortable at my desk all day.  I was functional, and under any other circumstances it was just a simple cold, but under pandemic circumstances, it was worrisome.  After all, we went to a picnic at my cousin's last weekend, and we probably had a little more indoor time than would have been ideal.  But then again, Carter had a short-lived cold last week and sneezed all over everything (because he did it about a thousand times over the course of a day), so it wasn't a stretch that I just caught his.  But then a friend of mine knew someone whose kid had sniffles for two days and tested positive, so that really made me wonder if it was possible Carter had it and passed it along.  Either way, with two kids in school and a handful of activities on tap, I wanted to make sure I wasn't passing along something I wasn't expecting.  

The test process was fine.  It took a little bit of figuring out that I was best off going to the local community college for free state testing.  I wanted whatever was fastest, and while it seemed like the community college was quick enough, I still checked in with my doctor.  They initially recommended an urgent care, but that would involve paying an urgent care co-pay (which on a high deductible plan is obscene) so the free test it was!  It was a drive-up thing, and pretty much you just made an appointment ahead of time, showed up, put your ID in your window, and drove through with the windows up.  They found your paperwork and stuck it in a crack of the car hood (since it was pouring and the wipers were in service), sent you into one of two lines, and you drove into a semi-permanent structure in the parking lot.  They review your paperwork (which you approve through a closed window), and you eventually pull up, lower your window, pull your mask under your nose, and get a swab to the brain.  I thought I'd be OK since I had a lot of time with a scope up my nose last fall during my sinus infection from hell.  But no, the 7-10 seconds of swabbing was really uncomfortable.  My eye watered for a solid minute afterward.  After that, the wait was on.  I checked the portal (and my email) a lot over the next day, and finally my result showed up after 11pm on Thursday.  Luckily, it was negative.  So, just a cold and back to life as usual.  Much ado about nothing...but better safe than sorry.

What else is new...?  Not much, I guess.  Mostly we're just counting down the days to the election, dealing with subpar weather, and surviving the usual mayhem the kids throw at us.  The fights have been on the rise lately despite Jacob promising he'd try to be nicer at our last therapy session.  Even when we call him out on it, he just doesn't seem to care, which is discouraging.  So, in the meantime, they find every possible way to annoy the heck out of each other.  At least they're separated all day, so at least we get that break.

Carter's home schooling has gotten in a bit of a better groove, but it still takes a lot of time to walk him through every assignment and his focus is crap.  We really need to get him evaluated.  I'll be interested to hear what his teacher has to say about him during our parent-teacher conference this week.  On one hand he seems to do his in-school work well and his teacher doesn't seem to have any specific beefs that come through on video calls (and trust me, she'd call stuff out if she could--she's not afraid to shame a bit if it's motivating), but his focus at home is so abysmal that I can't imagine that it doesn't come through a bit at school.  I want to get a seat belt and strap him into his chair just so he has a physical reminder he shouldn't get up.  He ran laps about a dozen times behind me during my work call the other day (much to my co-workers' amusement...and amazement), even though he was supposed to be doing his math.  It's exhausting.  So if she mentions anything (and probably even if she doesn't), I feel like we need to get him checked, just so we know what we're dealing with.  I know remote school is hard for even typical kids, but this is nearly impossible.  We're managing through the tag team, but Craig is likely going to be spending more time at work soon, so who knows how that's going to work out.  Not well for my work, I'd guess.  I desperately wish they could up the number of days of in-school now that we know infections aren't exactly running rampant, but I also know that distancing isn't really possible that way, and closer contact could mean a higher likelihood of exposure.  Plus, the holidays are coming and that could get dicey.  Ugh, the holidays...don't even get me started.  Thanksgiving is one month from tomorrow and Christmas is two months from today.  And I have no idea what we're going to do about either.

After our last fun fall outing, Carter was being super affectionate and sweet.  Part of it is probably that he loved getting back on a playground and getting a little one-on-one treatment, and part of it was probably that I finally downloaded Roblox for him.  One night he randomly climbed on my lap while he was playing and sat there.  While it was a bit awkward and I essentially only had one functional hand, I had to document it because I know these moments aren't going to last much longer.  He's finally hit 50 pounds and I laughed this morning when we went through his overflowing pants drawer and stripped out about five pairs that were fine in the spring but now at least an inch too short!

We had a pretty miserable weather week with a ton of rain, and I can definitely tell the leaves are on their way out.  It makes me sad to see that the bright reds are disappearing and more and more trees are already stripped.  I like fall...in September and October.  I love cider, donuts, pumpkin patches, apple pies, pumpkin spice, fall leaves, my glass pumpkins, my jeans, more comfortable weather, and to some degree, Halloween (it's fun, it just induces stress most years).  But once Halloween is over, it's often the equivalent of the first couple weeks of January when the Christmas sparkle fades--in the words of one of my favorite comics, "a cold, gray, bucket of suck."  But instead of cold, gray January, it's cold, brown November, when all the golden hues fade into early darkness and we have a long three-plus weeks of blah until Thanksgiving, just so we can eat turkey and get started on Christmas.  And who knows what all of that looks like this year.  I forced myself outside in the cold yesterday and today to clean up my yard a bit.  All that's left of the garden is the still-thriving tomatoes (and a lot of rotten ones that were out of reach in the mass of greenery).  I pulled a bunch of weedy junk out of the way back (so maybe it won't re-seed itself as much) and did another phase of weed whacking to try to clear out all the overgrowth back to the rock wall that was visible when we first moved in.  It's a battle with all the blackberry vines, but I'm going to keep trying!  While I was out there, I enjoyed what's left of the fall color. 

The neighbor's trees are so pretty.  They were skewing more red, but I think the red leaves fell off and the rest turned an orangey-yellow.

This is the way back that I'm working on.  Unfortunately the pretty reds are invasive trees that spread like crazy.  You can see off to the right where there's an area in front that's flatter than all the rest of the junk in the foreground.  The right is mostly up to the rocks.  I did another huge section today, so hopefully we'll be good to go in the spring.  Oh, and remains of a dead skunk are still in my way because I have no idea what to do with them.

Speaking of those last gasps of fall, we actually had a last gasp of summer on Friday.  It hit 80 degrees!  Carter had a half day of school, and I would have loved to make the most of it, but sadly I had a lot of work to do and my boss was off, which made taking off harder.  But I decided that I was going to cut out a little early and we should try to hit up a new pumpkin patch in the late afternoon-early evening hours.  I'd been seeing cool pictures from one across town, and with a gorgeous day and a little extra time to work with, I wanted to give it a shot.  Of course, between the two kids I was practically dragging them kicking and screaming.  Carter flip-flopped about wanting to go a couple times, and Jacob was refusing (which I was going to allow him to after his lack of enjoyment at Stokoe).  We almost didn't go after Carter said no again, but then Jacob changed his mind (likely because I was ticked off), and we all ended up leaving a little after 4pm.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being a nice little visit (aside from Jacob's constant complaining).  As we got our bearings, we checked out some chickens.  There were some gorgeous feather patterns, but this fluffy, fuzzy one cracked me up.

We should have looked for a pumpkin first because there was a line to wait in to get into the store, which is where you paid for pumpkins and bought tickets for the hayride.  But we planned badly and didn't do that, and by the time we were done there was no way we were waiting again to pay for a pumpkin...so Wegmans it is!  Anyway, we got in line to go into the store and once we were in there we scooped up half a dozen donuts, two giant cookies, and a half dozen gluten-free cookies.  We got our hayride tickets, and headed for that line, but on the way (while Craig was dropping off the baked goods at the van), we had this photo op!

I happened to run into a friend of mine here (an old trainer at the gym) and marveled at how giant her kids are now.  Seems like not that long ago we were both pregnant (her son is just a few months older than Jacob and her daughter is a couple years younger).  

It was a lovely evening--warm and pleasant, with lovely golden sun.  Definitely a pretty view with all the pumpkins. 

Craig took some pictures while we were waiting in line for the hayride, and since I rarely make an appearance here, I'm including them here...even if you can see the tired in my eyes.

Yes, Jacob officially looks taller than me here.  He probably had a little boost from his shoes compared to my flip flops, but yeah, it's that close now...

Ready to go...even if everyone's eyes make us look miserable!

The hayride turns into a haunted hayride at night, but the daytime stuff was pretty creepy by itself!  Might be fun with Carter in a couple years, though!  It started off passing by the giant teepees (note the skeleton up top)....

The bats aren't real, but they look real enough!

They had lots of crazy scenes like this...

Creepy tree...notice the face!

They had a rock band that sang the Monster Mash!

The fake fog looked extra creepy with the setting sun...

Skeleton bonfire...

This actually tips as you ride under it!

Another crazy scene...

Near the end was a tunnel that lit up with eyes and some jack o'lantern faces.  Those pics didn't really turn out.  But it was neat!  When we got off the hayride, there were some animals to explore--sheep, goats, alpacas, a miniature horse, and a donkey.  I thought the donkey was a second horse, but then it made a very obvious donkey sound!

Hard to see but they all had pretty funny haircuts!

Our last stop was to see the inside of the teepees.  They were huge and filled with carved pumpkins!

Another chance to see the difference between cameras--above was the phone, and these next three were from my camera.  The phone had a hard time capturing the color in the snake below and the other pumpkins, and I wanted to zoom in on some faces.

They were really cool!  What a fun space!  I just wish the kids weren't being jerks fighting and then getting impatient to leave while we were inside.  Sigh.  This was what you saw when you looked up on the way out in the last teepee...

Before we left, I forced one more photo op...which almost injured Craig and Jacob in the process because Jacob was being stubborn.  Ugh.

So, while it wasn't exactly the dreamy fun second pumpkin patch visit #2, it did have some fun parts and I got a little more fall fun out of my system on what's likely the last nice day of the year.  I guess it's going to be a party of three at these types of things next year.  Or maybe it was just an extra few bad days for Jacob.  He's been extra tweenish this week.  

So, on to another week.  Halloween is coming quickly, but still some deciding to do on how we're going to handle it.  It never ends right now, I guess.