cold and winter-y....

Miss Charlotte Claire, Miss Camille Anaya, and the pups...

My brother visited, bright and early this fine chilly morning, and fixed the oven, hopefully for once and for all. I almost put in some cupcakes just to check it out, but decided not to:)

The kids are all back in school after a long weekend. Yesterday was Veteran's Day, and my son Benjamin's birthday. He always got the day off from school while growing up! He is all the way across the country....and I miss him.

I miss Paul too. He is in Germany, so I let the three youngest kids sleep in our room last night. It was SO hard to rouse them from sleep to send them off on that school bus!

Yesterday, I bought a Singer sewing machine from the thrift store. It works, I just have to figure out how to thread it. I love to sew, but haven't been able to for a few years now, due to complications of my sewing machine, including accidentally throwing away the foot pedal to losing the little thing that holds the bobbin in, to losing the instruction booklet, which I did find right where I put it in the first place, in my sewing box. After finally buying a new foot pedal, it doesn't work. rrrr. So I got another one...and dang it, I really don't feel like messing with it, but I do want to sew.

I haven't walked yet this morning, I have to get over the fact that it is cold out, and just bundle up and go. brrr. The wind is brisk, most of the leaves have fallen off the trees, it is desolate out there. Autumn is sort of scary, with the dismal foreboding of winter looming. It will arrive, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Christmas is just around the corner, and all I want is for Ben and Ashley and my little grand daughter Anya to come home! Oh, I also want to go on vacation with Paul, preferably to Jamaica:) But THAT isn't happening, at least not this year. Oh, I sort of wish we had never gone, now I just want to go again....

Today is another basketball game at the dome. I opted not to work this one because with Paul gone, and some of the kids babysitting for others who are working, it doesn't leave me with enough help here for things to run smoothly....or to say it more directly, the ones who would be home would probably kill each other. Na, not really. Just yell and fight maybe. So it didn't seem wise to leave.

Ah well, I think I will feel better if I get some things accomplished around here today. I have already swept and mopped and put away clothes, washed towels, dusted the living room....but a woman's work...it never ends....