Another First Day

Getting tired of these yet? I'm not...every time another kid goes to school, my house gets just a little bit cleaner. And I get a little more organized again.

Crazy how the summer just throws me out of whack. So it's Bonnie's turn - eighth grade. How did that happen?!?

This is still how I see her:

I guess she's a little bigger now. And she takes all my texting minutes...sigh, she's a teenager. Well, here's to a great year!

And there's only one more to start school: Sophie. That'll be next week, and you know I'll keep you posted!

What's Blooming

The garden and orchard are tending towards harvest, while the flowers are looking a little spent. I weed and pull up exhausted blooms most of the week and hope that winter is on its way so I can plan instead of work on the landscape.

This week, the dill is in full bloom:

And the peach and nectarine trees are almost laying on the ground because they are so full of fruit. Sadly, they aren't fully ripe, so I find myself picking them - and throwing them away - just to relieve the tree a little.

Hope you have a great week!

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

Please don't tell me much of anything at all!

Collin's room is still on my project list. I picked up a series of small mirrors to put on his wall at IKEA a few months ago, and finally decided to put them on the wall. This required a level, a measuring stick, a hammer and a bunch of nails. When I was done pounding the nails in the wall...

You can barely see the grid in this picture, but trust me, it's there. You can see it better once the mirrors were hung on the wall...

This time, Collin decided he liked my work. Although he did spend the entire time I was putting them up asking, "Why do they have to be so perfect? Just put them up!"

Yup, I even got a thumbs-up. Life is good.

Aaaand...Another One's Off to School!

Malena has been dying to get back to school ever since the boys started almost a month ago. She has been to the school to set up her locker, has started stalking teachers, and has been planning her first day outfit for a long time.

But today is the day - seventh grade, here she comes!

Yes, she is wearing all black. Her current obsession is outer space, so she's showing how "into it" she is by wearing the lack of color that is out there. Whatever, as long as her smile is still sunny!

Hales Happenings

To keep you up to date, I thought I'd share some of the happenings around here.

Sophia is living in a Belle costume, sent to us by her aunt.

Jack and Collin are back in school. Collin was also just in a recital, where he and I got to play a duet. I wasn't able to record it (since I was playing, too), but I did get the last part of his other piece. Since it's only half a song, I'll spare you.

Collin is to the right of his teacher. It was a small recital.

Malena is bored out of her mind and super excited to be starting school this week.

Bonnie finally had a friend do her hair. I've been waiting for this moment for several years...since she won't let me near her hair. Perhaps too many memories of me putting her hair in ponytails when she was younger. Whatever, it was cute. But now she is cute in a different way...

And Doug is still working on the fence. He is looking forward to getting a power hole digger soon - he is going to borrow it from a friend. Digging holes is no fun, which is why I stay far away from that action.

More Musings on a Fence

Doug has finally tired of the entire neighborhood being able to see our backyard.

More specifically, he is tired of having to keep our backyard neat so that the Code Nazis from the city don't write us a ticket. Truly, our city is almost as bad as an HOA. Weeds are expensive, around here. Still better than San Diego, though: in the middle of a drought, they can't water their lawn, but they get fined for brown spots.

Anyway. Doug spent a long day marking the location of the fence, then starting to dig post holes. This is not easy in our yard. The ground is packed clay, difficult for even a tiller to break through. Doug got three holes dug and started on three more before he called it a day.

Here's what it looks like now.

Yup, looks fabulous. But all I care about is that there is progress being made. Actual, measurable progress. Woot to the wahoo!

Some Things Just Don't Work Out

Since painting Collin's room, I've been trying to lighten things up in there...so it looks less like a bloody cave. Here was one of my efforts:

Cute, right? I wanted to give him something graphic and colorful, while lightening up the space. Malena and I found this word map at WalMart while shopping for school supplies, and I thought it would be perfect. Then we spent a few minutes looking for a poster frame...and totally struck out.

Okay, so we were stuck just sticking it on the wall. Not a big deal. We went home, I leveled it and attached it to the wall, expecting Collin to be excited.

Nope. He ripped it off his wall. Argh. Sadly, it's not even in one piece anymore, because he wasn't gentle. He wanted to keep it for a treasure map, though, so I guess it won't be exactly wasted, but it still feels like a waste of good money to me.

Sigh. Better luck next time, I guess.

Chicken Updates!

Mondays is usually when I show you a flower or two. Sadly, there isn't anything new blooming this week. I spend quite a bit of time trimming back the spent flowers these days. Perhaps I need to look into something that blooms in August? Ah, maybe next year. In the meantime...

It's been awhile since I've shown you our new chickens (the last ones were eaten by some predator roaming the neighborhood). So, I thought I'd show you a picture. It's difficult to get any picture of them, since they do not stand still. But what do you want - they are chickens.

They are just beautiful, no?

Doug can sit for hours and just watch them roam their little pen. For me, watching him is much more fascinating than watching the chickens. However, they're all pretty adorable.

Taking Back Control

This week, I feel like my life is spinning out of control.

My boys are back in school, which means homework fights every night. Sophia is finally getting the hang of using the toilet, but that requires hourly reminders. The older girls are bored stiff because I'm back in "school mode": the day has a defined shape again, with available time for "fun" at a minimum. Bummer for them. Bummer for me, too, since I have to listen to the whining (when I'm not hiding from it). And that's just the tip of the iceburg.

So I've been imposing order on this chaos. This tends to make me feel like I'm doing something to make things better. Even though the things I really want to solve are the kids. Kids don't typically have a "solution," so I'm stuck with organizing closets.

Seriously. I organized my closet - donating three bags of clothes that I never wear in the process - and also Doug's bookshelves. He had all his books just thrown in there, and it was driving me nuts.

Doug's cowboy hat still has a place on his shelves

Sorry for the picture quality...my camera officially gave up the ghost. Having order in one corner of my life truly does make me feel more in control...and less stressed.

What's Blooming

Last week, nothing was blooming. So I just skipped the blooming post about it.

So there.

This week, there's not much going on, either. More glads...

And my sedum gave me a few pink buds...

But that's about it. I spend a lot of my gardening time these days cutting back flowers that are spent. I could leave them for the birds, but then I'd have lots and lots of volunteer flowers next year. That's what happened last year, and there are cosmos all over the yard. Some of them look great, but some just look like weeds.

The cosmos are the pink flowers just waving in the wind.

This year, I'm cutting them back. Hope you have a great week!

Can We Do a Re-Do?

We've been here for three years, so it is definitely time to repaint some of the rooms.

Well, one room in particular. The "Garden Room", now officially known as the "Library Room" is now also Collin's bedroom. It has been for a while, actually, but he doesn't like to sleep there. First, there were the fairies. He hated those.

Then there was the lack of curtains. Although there were blinds, so I'm not sure why this freaked him out.

Then he also hated the paint job.

Personally, I think he just doesn't want to sleep downstairs. This is true of all of the kids, though...and since there are only two bedrooms upstairs, some of them just have to deal and sleep downstairs.

In an effort to get him to sleep downstairs, we finally repainted. It took several days for me to clean out his room (Legos are a pain to pick up...and where am I going to put all these books with the living room still unfinished?). Then we took a day or two to hash out a color for the walls.

I wanted purple (dark, like eggplant). Collin wanted yellow (when doesn't he want yellow?). We compromised with red. I had just primed with white, so I just painted over that. This is breaking one of the cardinal rules (get it?) of painting with red, but so be it.  It actually turned out just fine, so maybe using a tinted primer is overrated.

Now my challenge is to use light-colored items to decorate, so he doesn't feel like he's in a blood-covered cave. Although I think that might be what he likes about his room now. Luckily, we already have a few things, like the hooks and the clock.

There is still a long list of to-do's for this room (a door without holes in it, anyone?), but hopefully he'll move back in soon.