We had a very busy weekend.  Very busy.  I’m very tired now, but I know it’s been a few days so I’ll bang out a quick update :)  May or may not proof-read!

Saturday was nice weather and we spent the day outside raking leaves.  No kidding, it was 5hours of raking!  Ridiculous!  My current leaf handling solution is to put them in the leaf compost pile in an effort to make leaf mulch.  Last year we shredded them up and put them in.  This year I moved last year’s leaves from one pile to another (to turn them) and was disappointed at how little composting actually occurred.  I guess I need to turn them more often, or something.  The process of moving them all from one place to another took a long time and I did it over the course of a week or two.  The process of raking and filling the big container with new leaves from this fall took about an hour!  I didn’t shred them first because I can’t figure it out logistically (deep leaves, SLOW leaf blower, can’t mulch with the mower with both kids running around, etc.) so I just put them in the pile whole this year.  Probably even less composting will occur :(  This is our 4th fall here and I still don’t think we have a good leaf removal system.  Next year (when our ship comes in!) I’d love to just pay someone to make it happen.  Wouldn’t that be cool if we could rake and play in the leaves and then they would magically just disappear?  I know I sound like I’m whining, but if you saw the vast amount of leaves on my lawn you’d understand.  After 5yrs of dealing with it Saturday I still have a whole side yard untouched, a backyard full of pine needles, and 3 large leaf piles in the front/side yard.  PLUS two giant leaf composting piles.  Ugh  I ran out of room in the composting piles so I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the remaining leaves.

The lawn, mid-raking

Two leaf composting piles, the one on the left is last year's leaves.

Today we got up bright and early and headed over to the hospital for their free flu shot clinic.  They do several of them throughout September, October, and November, but yesterday’s newspaper said that the remaining clinics (after today) may be canceled due to a shortage of the vaccine.  Sooo…. today’s clinic was INSANE!!  The parking lot was packed, there was a line out the door, down the driveway and into the parking lot!!  A nice guard told us that since we have young kids we could go to the kid’s clinic inside, which was nice.  The line there was equally long, but at least it was inside and the kids could play in the hallways.  There’s nothing like carrying heavy winter coats and bags while trying to maintain your place in line and simultaneously keep an eye on two active, excited kids in a mobbed hallway to EXHAUST a person!  After about an hour it was our turn.  Alan and I got shots, Eve got her with some tears of pain, and Lex got his despite a HUGE fight with tears and screaming.  Fun, fun.  Then we went to the cafeteria for lunch and more overexcited energy.

After the flu shot clinic we stopped at the pharmacy to pick up a “spacer” for an asthma inhaler… yes, you read that right.  On Friday I took the kids to the doctor because Lex and I have had a deep cough that just won’t quit for about 10 days now.  He checked us both, and Eve as well, and said that we sound fine other than the cough (no phenomena or flu or anything) and prescribed Robitussin with Codine for me (to finally sleep through the night, though it hasn’t worked yet!) and an asthma inhaler for Lex and I to use for a week.  Apparently it’s a common thing to help ease a heavy cough and end the “cough cycle.”  I’m now the proud owner of an Epi-Pen and asthma inhaler.  How did this happen??  The spacer piece we picked up today is an adapter thing to make it easier for kids to use the inhaler.  I’ll tell ya, the whole inhaler thing looks a lot easier than it really is!  I’m using the spacer too!  :)  Hopefully by the end of the week we will all be cough free and inhaler free!  Maybe in a year or two we’ll be Epi-Pen free too!!

Lex's drawing of a tree.

This picture makes me happy. After nap today the kids helped me clean the upstairs (change sheets, dust, vaccum) and then came down and drew pictures while I made dinner. Lex likes to draw abstract art, but when I asked if he could draw a picture of something, he made a tree :)