How many cats must one have before officially being a crazy cat person?  Asking for a friend.  On a related note, it's official - we applied to adopt Barnabas.  He and Church get along so well and hang out together more often than not.  Barnabas comes in to cuddle with me at night.  He told us from his first meow that he wanted to come home with us - I just finally recognized it was time to agree.  Welcome home sweet boy.

On that note, the rescue did another round of trapping where Barnabas came from.  Of those, 3 more have come home for fostering.  They will need some more time to get them to understand how cool people are, but we'll do it.  2 boys and 1 girl.  Time for some names!

I just used a moka pot for the very first time!  I'm not little miss refined pallet, but I think it takes pretty good for my first attempt.

The worst part about having a garden isn't planting.  It isn't tending to them and watering them.  It isn't even chasing the dog away so he doesn't steal the tomatoes.  It's the end of season -- and even then it isn't the activity of clearing things out, for me it's the emotions of it.

Every year I find myself thinking "if this plant only had another month!"  I feel guilty plucking every last tomato off of the plants, especially those that are continuing to offer me blossoms despite downright cold overnights.  Good job ladies.  You served us well and I am grateful for your bounty.

Two lipped plates of tomatoes, one cherry sized and the other larger tomatoes, have been brought inside.  Unfortunately, I cannot leave them on the counter - ahem, CHURCH - so I have to put them into the cabinet and monitor them for ripening.

When I take another 10 minute pass I'll pull the remaining peppers from those plants.

The hours aren't that much longer than they were in pre-k, but for some reason the time seems to be going faster and the amount of time to do things outside of work hours feels a lot shorter.  I'm feeling pretty wiped out.  I guess the seasonal allergy thing doesn't help either.  So grateful to have indulged and headed upstairs to ready for bed at 7:30 last night.  I was asleep by 9 and I needed it.

I need to find the time to clear out the remaining garden plants out back.  There are a few tomatoes that I was trying to give every opportunity to ripen on the vine.  The basil never tried to go to flower/seed on me, which is crazy - I'm going to try taking a snip to grow through the winter, we'll see how that goes.  I am also going to cut back a couple of the pepper plants and try to winter them over again.  At some point I'll get good at that if I keep trying it, right?  The last round of lettuce looks nice, so that has to come into the basement as is.  We're looking to hit 35 on Sunday, so time is short - I need to make it all happen.

For today, I have some running to do while I pick Avery up from after-school activities.  I'm also going to hit the newly opened (this morning at 9am) Ollie's in Washington.  I'm so excited to have one closer!

I caved and turned on the furnace this week, mostly for the sake of the cats overnight and the kid in the morning.  Church is still cuddled up against me overnight, which is nice.  Barnabas, our current foster, was out running about most of the day yesterday.  He's still not thrilled with the dogs and gives them hisses when they come near, but he has made great progress.  I am very proud of Zero, who has been very chill around Barnabas; it isn't often I get to tell him what a good boy he's being!

They say you don't smell things when you're asleep.  I have to disagree (light up the internet calling me a science denier).  Saffy had a banner day yesterday - she was hungry.  Saffy ate 4 times, which is insane for her.  Probably about 2x as much food total than she would normally eat on a good day months back.  What goes in must come out, and if you have a dog that isn't 100% in control of her pooper it isn't a surprise when it happens overnight.  My point, yes, at 12:30 I smelled it and got up to clean it up.

I would consider one ding in my sleep to be a good night because I've had a few in the past couple of years where I was awakened after an hour of sleep every time I went out and the going out was hard taking an hour or two itself.

Nope, that wasn't the last waking, but not Saffy, instead the exorbitant amount of water the kiddo drank did exactly what I warned her it would do, she peed a little.  At 4:30 I hear "moommy."  So now I'm up striping  a bed and starting a load of laundry.  She's cleaned up and back into a fresh set of warm pjs and into my bed because I am not making a bed at 4:45 in the morning.

Thank God for that one more hour.  I still curse you alarm.  Getting up earlier since school started (another 35 minutes) has been draining me.  Can I schedule a nap on my calendar?