Ta-DAAAAA!

The Wifely Art of Nagging

Me: Tomorrow is going to be gorgeous. We'll be able to rehang the shutters in the morning.

Daddy Shortbread: If it's going to be nice, we need to finish painting the garage.

Me (sweetly): You mean after we hang the shutters?

Daddy Shortbread: *grumble*

Autumnal

As much as I love fall, it does bring with it that sense that it's all downhill from here. As a season, it's glorious and dramatic but all too short. You wait impatiently for the peak leaf color ... waiting, waiting, waiting ... until one day you realize that it's past, most of the leaves are falling, and you won't be seeing leaves for SIX MONTHS. Then you think about how much that sucks, put on comfy pants, and go eat something chocolate. Really? Just me? Huh.

This is a typical Maine fall morning. Daddy Shortbread has trouble getting up without the sun to prod him out of bed. I know this because every single morning from mid-September until April, the alarm clock goes off and he snarls, ""I hate getting up when it's dark outside." And then he does a performance piece called Hugely Exaggerated Sighing and Moaning While Stomping to the Bathroom. You should see it sometime.
The fog is especially thick along the creekbed and down by the river. It will burn off by mid-morning and give way to such warm, blue-skied afternoons that you don't even need a jacket.

These foggy mornings are both eerie and cozy. I like the contrast of the bright flowers enshrouded by mist. Even though the gardens are going by at this point in the season, I enjoy them all the more because I know that any morning now I'll wake up and find wilted black flowers dangling from frost-frozed stems. And let me tell you, that SUCKS. Within two weeks, I'll be paging through seed catalogs and planning next year's gardens.
The wild New England asters in my backyard and along the roadsides will persist for a while still. I've been seeing a lot of Monarch butterflies around them, fueling up on them for their migration to Mexico this week.

I'd kind of like to fly down to Mexico, too, and catch just a few more days of summer. As long as I'm not required to, you know, wear a bathing suit in public.

Saturday Was Work Day

We awoke early-ish (for us) and felt industrious, so we tackled some long-overdue projects. I painted the shutters green, which I've been meaning to do since last summer when I painted the garage door green, but it was too cold, then too wet, then too hot, then I really didn't feel like it anymore. It was a seize the moment kind of thing when I felt the urge to get it done. It was surprisingly zen, and they turned out well. Now I need to figure out how often and at what decibel level to whine to get Daddy Shortbread to rehang them.
Bug was looking to earn some extra money, so she volunteered to haul all the toys out of the garage, weed out the broken ones, and put the keepers back into the garage in a more organized fashion than the Towering Pile of Plastic Crap that has served as the toy corner for most of this summer. I figured that even if she did a half-assed job of it, it would be an improvement over the TPPC.

What I did not anticipate, but would have if I hadn't already been sucking in paint fumes for an hour, was that she would drag all the toys out of the garage, sort through about half of them, get bored and wander away. She meandered back to say that she guessed she was done and how much money had she earned? I pointed out that by taking everything out of the garage and strewing it around the driveway she had actually created more work for me than if she had left the TPPC. Therefore, I felt she should pay me. We didn't see eye to eye on this, and eventually she condescended to haul the toys back into the garage, albeit in a Very Crabby Manner.
Daddy Shortbread decided to sweep the side of the garage. Apparently.

No, really. He's a nutter that one. Officially, he was "getting ready to paint," but this looks like a made-up job if I've ever seen one. Slacker. Next week I'm going to exfoliate the cats or something as my job.

Bear played the hormonal cranky preteen card and escaped a work assignment. She acted as photojournalist and took all the photos in this post.

I think she knew exactly what she was doing, don't you?

Bug's Picture Day (less angst, more goof)

Bug is a somewhat easier kid to prepare for picture day. Actually, it's just different hassles. She, for example, is more concerned with what color backdrop I circle on the order sheet than what shirt I make her wear. She was hell-bent on a purple backdrop this year. I was informed that I always circle blue. I agreed to purple, if she would agree to whatever shirt I pick. Deal. (Ha! I didn't care about the backdrop, but I really wanted her in this shirt. See how tricky and manipulative I am?)We went with braids for the hairstyle. Bug wanted her hair straightened a la older sister, but I was firm. I can only handle one kid growing up at a time. Despite what she thinks, she's still a little girl and I want her to look like one in her third grade picture. I gave her braids a fair shellacking with hairspray since this is also her gym day. Bug sniffed and said, "Ahhhh....that reminds me of the dance recital!"

Last year, Bug told me, a little boy in her class went into the bathroom just before the class walked down for pictures. He dunked his hair in the sink and used his fingers to rake it into a mohawk. I was dubious that any teacher would let him get away with that, but I just dug out her class photo from second grade, and there he is in all his dripping mohawk glory. Can you imagine his mother's reaction when she saw that picture? I would have cheerfully throttled the little monkey.

"Show me how not to smile for your school picture," I told her. Prepped, primped, and ready to go...

It's Bear's Picture Day!

The school picture outfit is always an act of negotiation. When she was little, I could pretty much dictate what she would wear. Now she has opinions. Luckily, this year I was in favor of the first shirt she chose.
She wanted her hair straightened. Fine. But I told her that if she has her hair swooped over one eye in the picture, as she is wont to do, there will be Trouble.
I insisted on earrings. Cause I'm mean that way.
And a smile. This after passing the bathroom and noticing that she was practicing moody, serious faces in the mirror. For $45, I want a smile. Preferably with teeth.God knows how the school picture will turn out, but I did send her out the door looking presentable. Last year, despite my efforts, I pulled the school picture out of the envelope to discover that she'd stuck a hair elastic on her wrist at the second, and it was featured in the picture. It looked bracelet-ish, so I let it slide. Don't ever tell Bear, but the mere thought of hassling with Picture Re-Take Day is enough for me to let quite a bit slide.