Happy Halloween

From our garden to yours...


If you live in our neck of the woods, we'd love to see you and your little ones!

Snow, really?

It's October. It's not supposed to snow!

I'm just thankful that we're not building our house this year. We broke ground the middle of October, and I can't imagine our framers working in this weather.

I was hoping to get some good fall pictures with the leaves, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. How do fall pictures in the snow sound?

PLAINSTONE.COM

Holidays

I can't believe it's almost Halloween. That means that Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away and Christmas is shortly thereafter.

I had BIG plans for this year. I wanted to decorate the house and be festive. And I do have a few decorations up (I'm hoping to get some pictures). Someone gave us a fall basket last year, and it was the only real festive thing we had in our house. This year I made a wooden basket for chocolate, made a wreath for the door, and made a wreath centerpiece for the table (it needs a candle, but I am having a hard time bringing myself to buy one. I'm thinking maybe a flameless candle!). We have pumpkin lights and bought metal ghosts at Art in the Park. I have a sign that says "A witch lives here with her little monster" hanging up, and we bought a stuffed pumpkin that Kellen likes to lie his head in. (Ok, writing all of this makes me feel like we are really festive!) But we didn't go to the pumpkin patch, which has been our tradition since Dan and I started dating. We didn't carve pumpkins (though I'm *pretty* sure that we bought a carving kit - I can't remember if we carved pumpkins last year, though I know we made it to the pumpkin patch). Kellen has a costume, but he has yet to wear it, and I'm not sure he's even going to keep it on. The good news is that we have neighbors that we love who we can go trick or treating to. Last year was a bummer not to be able to go over to our neighbors' with Kellen dressed up as a monkey.

Hopefully I'll have pictures of him this weekend, but here is our little pumpkin last Halloween.

Fire ladders

We have a two story house now. And fire safety is on my mind all the time, yet we still don't have a fire ladder.

We've talked about our plan if something happens before we get one, but I know it's not enough. We need a ladder. We need to practice.

I've been looking at them on Amazon, and so far, I think I like the built in ladder better. It is permanently mounted on the window so that if there ever were a fire, all a kid would need to do is throw it out. When our kids are older, a ladder under the bed might be a perfectly fine solution. But while they are young, I worry about them figuring out how to assemble, secure, and get out! The only downside is the cost. I think we might get two of the permanent mount ladders to put in the nursery and Kellen's eventual big boy room. Then we'll get one or two of the ladders that go in the closet or under your bed for Dan's office and the laundry room. Does four ladders seem excessive?

Settling

It's ironic really, this settling.

Our house is finally starting to feel like a home. More and more days go by where I think of this house as our home more than the old one. We still don't have a lot of our "stuff," but little by little we are adding more new "stuff" to make this home ours. I have Halloween decorations up, some that I even made!! We celebrated Kellen's birthday here, a celebration memory in our house. I am starting to think about decorating Kellen's big boy room and about what the nursery will look like for the next kiddo (no, we are not having another baby right now!). It's starting to feel normal, settled even.

As we settle into this house and into our new routine, our house also settles. It makes noises, as though it's relaxing into an overstuffed Lazy Boy in anticipation of an afternoon of football. Unfortunately though, this settling, this relaxing, causes problems in the house. Our garage door gets stuck often. Doors don't close exactly like they are supposed to, hinges slightly off. Fortunately there are no cracks in the walls, though I know it can happen.

It's funny, settling. It allows you to relax but not to the point of complacency. I guess that's ok.

"You look familiar"

I don't go out a lot. It's not really like me, but with as overwhelming as this last year has been, I think I'm in self-preservation mode. And there's fear now, always fear, that if I will again come home to a neighborhood the way I did on August 25th.

But it's nice to be around other people. Really. Inevitably though, I will get at least one "You look familiar."

I volunteered at Moppet Togs today (the children's consignment sale), and I got this several times. It's an awkward position because I don't really want to be known as that woman who was pregnant when her house burned down in that bad fire, "you remember?" Sometimes I will say, "We've been in the news a lot this year," which of course doesn't really solve anything, just makes people more curious! Sometimes I just shrug my shoulders and say, "I don't know." If they ask for my name and put it together, that doesn't seem as difficult. I guess it's because I don't have to be the one to bring up the fire.

But something else sometimes happens, which I think is great. Sometimes the person is a blog reader, and that's just neat. I've met a few people who read my blog in interesting places, and I love that. I like knowing whose reading. I like to hear their stories. And it makes me feel connected beyond just being "that woman." I've been missing out on connectedness, and this blog is one way for me to reach beyond our year, our situation, and once again be connected.

Tabby is missing

Our cat who survived the fire is missing.

I let her out Sunday night and had a bad feeling about it. Our neighbors saw her Monday morning, and that was the last time anyone saw her.

She's pretty resilient, but we don't know what to think since she's been gone almost a week.

Please keep our kitty in your thoughts. We miss her.