Am I caught up?  I am not.  At least 2/3 deliveries have been achieved at work and I've gotten some fall decorations out in the house.  Along with that later activity I did a bit of cleaning, so that's a win too.

Avery has two half days to end the week, so I'll need to engage with her a bit after she rolls out of bed.  It's welcome, don't get me wrong -- I wish the third item was out the door so I could indulge and drop off early both days.  We will step out tomorrow for parent-teacher conferences.  I don't expect it to be a negative thing, but it's always nice to see and talk with her teachers.

Earlier this week I got new tires for the car and then drove across the street to their sister company for an alignment.  The car is officially old enough that something in there has given way and it isn't something that can be adjusted so something needed attached - toe joints or something?  Either way, that wasn't inexpensive, but it still is cheaper than a few months of a car payment.

I'm still waiting for the siding/trim guys to come.  We were on the schedule for last week but it needed to be pushed out to this week and I'm waiting for the call that they're coming.  That too will be a painful check to write, but it'll do good for the house -- and at least give me something to say I wisely did at the end of the year!  (Yes, I think about my end of year blog post to nudge me to get things done.)

Life remains crazy busy.  Tonight's swim practice was cancelled and kiddo wants to just stay home.  I'm here for it.  I told her we could light the fireplace and have some cocoa.  She doesn't have school tomorrow so she'll get a bit of a mini-vaca out of these little extras.

Me on the other hand, I have to work - all three of my tasks are pressing hard to get things delivered before the end of the month.  I'm fighting a sore back (not sure if I tweaked it or if it's understandable muscle tension) and my sinuses/head are doing the normal pressure change freak out.  At least the cold has come so we can expect a bit of allergy relief soon.  I even gave in and turned on the heat the other day.

I still don't have any Halloween out in the house.  If we get anything out I think I'll stick with the pumpkins and fall leaves so we can rock them through Tgiving.  Maybe a year off will reinvigorate me for the Halloween decorations I have.  Maybe there's something up w/ me because I wasn't even all about the Halloween hunting this year.  I'll blame the abnormally long warm weather.

The emails are screaming that a frost is coming, so I took a few minutes over lunch to go pull the non-volunteer tomato plants.  Gathered a small bowl of non-ripe tomatoes, much less than previous years, but it is much later in the year so some have turned naturally on the vine instead.

There are three volunteer plants out there that I need to bring into the basement, we'll see how far they can get.  Two have bit hefty vine; I'm trying to not be too hopeful.

To my surprise, post butchering back of basil the one is booming again.  I should probably bring her into the kitchen and see how long I can keep her going.

Got one more pumpkin off of the vines that I had put out front and pulled the last of those.  The little tiny pumpkin that was trying to grow didn't make it, but I will put it back into the ground and we'll see if she seeds herself.

Last weekend we went to the Houston Pumpkin Festival and the requisite Halloween parade in the morning.  Later in the weekend we went to Monessen to visit daytime hours at Castle Blood.  It was very nicely appointed and we enjoyed it.  Avery commented that it was fun but boring - meaning, it wasn't scary.  Well kid... careful what you wish for or I'll break you in right proper.

I guess I know what I'm "getting myself" for Christmas - tires.  Whee!  I got my oil changed and they noted that my tires are wearing oddly, in need of replacement, and I'm out of alignment.  I've noticed a bit of a ... feeling? ... when traveling at high speeds, so I shouldn't be overly surprised.  I had considered getting in earlier to get it looked at but put it off because, who wants a $$$ fee levied for taking a look. 

I had also just reached out to someone to get a deep clean at the house and maybe a quote to get back into regular maintenance cleaning.  I am just not keeping up the way I would want to in order to say I am ready to receive guests.  It's embarassing.

I did tackle another overdue clean up by dealing with my laundry room the other day.  The top of the dryer is cleared off - and not surprisingly I found something I had looked for a while back.  I also went through another bag of miscellaneous cables. It allowed me to show Avery some really old cell phones.  I miss phones being this small.  A few are the old Sony Ericsson ones labeled "walkman".  I wonder if they still charge.

I really need to get in gear.  My exterior Halloween is set up reasonably well, but I haven't done a thing inside.  Good thing I have some spooky items out all year long, right?

The weather has cooled, so I used the temps this morning to knock down a few more wasp nests that were forming under the deck.  They've been quite persistent this year, much more than years past and trying to build nests all summer, not just spring.

I was only going to empty 1 or 2 of my potato buckets, but when my haul was incredibly sad I said screw it and harvested all 5.  I barely have one small bucket of potatoes from all of that.  I give up man.  This year really left me feeling like there is no point to having a garden.

One tomato plant was completely done, so it was pulled.  I filled yet another garbage can with clippings from the back as I get that area ready for winter.

I also emptied, cleaned, and refilled the hot tub.  At least if I am going to go lazy (not gardening) I'll have somewhere comfortable to do it.

It had my back barking a bit last night.  I was already aching a bit up on my left side near my ribs, but kind of in the side-boob region.  I'm so tender that I expected to see a big bruise there, but nothing.  I have no idea what I did to myself to cause such a feeling.

When family was in I found curtains at At Home for the dining room I thought would work.  I wanted something that wasn't too dark (shocking) but also something that would be dark enough to hide the smudge/ick from a dog that likes to push them aside and look out the window so I wouldn't be washing them weekly.  Solid color "linen" but I would say they are darker than what I'd expect from that name.  They of course only had 1 pair, so I looked on their website.  They had the matching SKU listed as "white" but the photo clearly looked to match (https://www.athome.com/2-pack-cillian-white-light-filtering-grommet-curtain-panel-set-84/124394689.html).

I decided to get enough to also do the windows in the office and a few cabinet organizers to put me over the $150 mark for free shipping.  They're here, they are definitely not white, and they're meh.  I don't hate them, but they also don't do much for me.  I guess I should have gone with the Lush ones I found on Amazon - I still love the curtains in my entry from the same maker.  At least I don't have ripped curtains on my window anymore.

The weather continues to be very pleasant but the cool evenings have crept in.  I started cutting things back and loaded one bin with last week's garbage collection.  It's always a process that takes a good 5-6 weeks here, one bin at a time.  Still pulling tomatoes and haven't harvested my potatoes yet.  I have three volunteer tomato plants that decided to make a run for it.  I don't know that they'll get to fruit in time, but I'll give them every opportunity and bring them in the house when it becomes necessary so they have their best chance.  I cut back the basil a few weeks ago to dry a significant amount and it's been trying to fill back in, to my surprise.  The brussels never got more than 6 inches up from the dirt, but I'll let them keep trying.  My asparagus crowns are still alive!  In theory I'll be able to get a small harvest next year.  I need to think about getting it into the ground.  After babying it for 2 years I'm leery that I could lose it in a transplant to our terrible soil.

I cut the peppers I had and, adding them to the significant pile of peppers I've gotten from the CSA cooked up both a large batch of peppers/onions for fajitas (portioning and freezing them) and a double batch of stuffed peppers.  Last night Avery and I played pepper roulette.  She and I both landed a spicy one that had us grabbing for our water bottles.