This picture is of one of the sunflowers from our garden. We had hoped that they would grow larger so we could harvest the seeds. However, that hasn't been the case. So for now, we just have pretty sunflowers in the garden.

It's hard to believe that Fall is pretty much here already (or at least the weather is). The months that have passed since I turned 40 seem to have gone by faster than any other time in my life.

We've had a busy summer. Busier than usual. Kevin had planted a garden in April and we had planned to keep up with is and harvest as much as we could. We also made plans to clean the garage, get rid of the clutter (the kind that we wouldn't want to take with us if we ever moved), and trips to the Goodwill came up in our planning. Back then, we also started talking about taking a trip to Eastern Oregon and Crater Lake. The last few years for us have been somewhat financially tight and stressful. This year we finally seemed to catch a break, and life seemed to be getting better. Then on the day after Father's Day, my husband started to not feel well. It started with nausea, and then progressed to abdominal pain, and fatigue. He'd still be hungry and would eat, but right afterward, he'd be in pain, and sick and go to bed and sleep the rest of the night until morning. Then he'd wake up still sick and feeling like he hadn't slept. So, that meant that he couldn't always help with parenting after he came home from work or if he was home from work because of being sick (who has the energy to deal with a child's tantrum or meltdown when they feel like crap?). So this illness has been going on all summer. He's seen at least 4 doctors (one of them a specialist), and had pretty much every test done, and we still don't know why he's sick. There are some days when he seems to be fine and then he'll eat and be sick for a few days. It's frustrating for both of us.

We put our summer projects on hold until he's feeling better (of course, even when we're feeling totally great, do we really want to clean the garage? lol). I had been continuing a fairly flexible school schedule during the summer too, but even that just became too much and I decided to take a break until the local schools started up again. It was one less thing to think about. I wanted to harvest & preserve as much from the garden so Kevin wouldn't feel like his early spring efforts went to waste. I froze quite a bit. Our front yard flowerbeds had been neglected all summer, so this week I finally tackled that job. I'm sure our neighbors will be pleased.

This week, we started school. We originally planned to go on our trip next week, but since Kevin is still ill, he wouldn't enjoy the trip. So hopefully by next year, this will be behind us and we'll be able to go on a trip and everyone will be able to enjoy it. My kids aren't that thrilled to be doing schoolwork again, but they do like getting their work finished earlier in the day. Then they have time to read what they like or work on projects or hobbies. There's a bit of a chill in the air and that adds to the "back to school" feeling.

Lp