October moment

Guess what?  I almost don't want to say it, for fear of losing it, but for the present moment, I have a quiet house.  Just the washing machine spinning downstairs, two sleeping kids, and me. 

Tuesday mornings are busy--first, because I leave home early with the kids to help out with math in RVC's classroom.  Grandma comes to play with MEC for an hour (she finds many other things to do while she's here, like help keep my laundry going, empty the dishwasher, etc...even when I tell her she doesn't need to).  Then, MEC and I pack up and drive down to Grammie's where he plays and I meet Boba for an organ lesson.  Right after that, we head back to the school to pick up CAC from kindergarten.  Today, we also squeezed in a trip to the store before going back home for lunch.  Maybe all this running around, on top of both kids fighting colds/allergies, was enough to wipe them out.  MEC is usually napping by now; CAC told me today she was going to take a "little rest," which she sometimes says, but which never really turns into a true rest.  Today, though, it has.

So I'll take a minute to write about where we are.  October just might be my favorite month.  Fall colors.  Cooler weather mingling with the warm.  And then, there's the end of harvest season.  Even though I so enjoy having a garden all summer and those wonderful weeks of tomatoes, zucchini (before I'm soon afterward overwhelmed with them), and then heavenly peaches, and the good foods other people share with us from their abundance, it's also a nice feeling to be done with it.  It's nice to not have buckets of or counters covered with fruits and vegetables, and all the fruit flies that come with them.  I write that, but we do still have a bucket of pears in our kitchen, so I'm not quite there, but we're close.  At least I think I'm done with canning for the season.

We had a fun pumpkin harvest this year.  It was funny, because we never planted pumpkins.  Somehow seeds from our compost got mixed into the garden and sprouted this spring.  For weeks, we kept seeing little seedlings and pulling them up, but we decided to let a couple go and see what they were.  The "mystery plants" soon became "some kind of squash," but it wasn't until actual pumpkins appeared that we figured out what they were.  And then those plants pretty much took over.  Our carrots didn't stand a chance and our lone pepper plant only managed to squeeze out two or three peppers in it's tiny corner of the garden.  Tomatoes did just fine, though. 

We had a day off of school after SEP conferences a couple of weeks ago so I took the kids up Big Cottonwood canyon to get our ski passes all set for the season. It turned out to be a beautiful trip into fall color and snow!  Luckily we had dressed warm enough to walk around Silver Lake for a few pictures. Of course, pictures don't quite capture how stunning it was. 

This past weekend was General Conference.  I love the renewed motivation I feel after hearing from our Prophet and other Church leaders, even when I'm not as centered and prepared as I feel I could be to receive their messages.  I'm trying to figure out my role as a mom of still young, but bigger kids.  Right now I have more kids at school than I have at home.  I don't know what I imagined that stage of life to be like, but it's a busy one.  Piles of paperwork, multiplied by four, come home every day, most outlining good things and holding us accountable for good learning and development.  I sincerely want to stay on top of it all.  I want my kids to value reading, even if it means I have to log onto 4 different pages to record reading for each of them.  Piano practicing is not as simple as sending my kids off to do it.  I need to be undistracted myself and willing to sit with each of them.  Again, that is something I want to do, but the reality of keeping the other aspects of our household running at the same time makes it all so tricky.  And then there's the learning-to-read kindergartner and almost-ready-for-potty-training 2 year-old who also need their own unique attention.  Again, I'm thankful for the many timely (for me) messages of General Conference, and the hope they have given me to carry on.

Thank goodness I have good kids, too. They really are good.  They put up with my endless efforts of charts and job wheels, and so far they haven't just dismissed me as a hopeless cause as I try to find that perfect system of everything for our family.