The Whirlwind of Summer

 Labour Day today. The last several weeks have flown by. The tops of the trees are turning yellow to signal a change coming. 

There have been a few gatherings with the kids and grandkid. Big meals to put together. Trying to line up everyones schedules and outside social lives is not easy. 

Kid #3 is away off again and will be home the end of October.  Our water and grocery bill will drop substantially! He put on 9 lbs since the end of March. Still wears the same size pants so its all muscle. The heavy manual labour, daily workouts and high protein meals did the trick. (He has been trying to gain weight for the last year) Needless to say I don't feel like eating or cooking chicken breasts for awhile!

Kid #2  Employed and self sufficient but makes me pull out my hair!

Kid #1 and spouse and grandbaby are doing great! I will be on grandma duty for daycare pick ups sometimes. So this week I'm going to do a couple runs.  Kid #1 had a car seat gifted to them that expires in 2 years that we will use. Thankfully as a car seat for a toddler is several $100's. Their 2 seats are over $500 each!! So this gift is very generous!

Things for free:  I also got a notice from one of the facilities that I retired from that I get a retirement gift of my choosing.  Mostly jewelry, watches, pictures, luggage, housewares etc. and a pressure washer.  I chose the pressure washer!  I am thrilled!  It should be here this week.  It's valued at $300. We used to use a friends to clean up the deck and outdoor furniture but he bought a huge one that doesn't travel easily. Our giant recycling compost bin for the city totally reeks! We spray it out with the garden hose, but it doesn't really blast all the stink out! I'm going to be blasting water everywhere for the next month! :)

This summer I was "gifted" boxes full of chaos from my parents that have all the family genealogy information for my dad's side.  After sorting through and recycling about half the paper (copious poorly photocopied duplicate papers) there are also pictures that date back to 1860's that are on tin!  Nothing was organized in any fashion so I have been putting the giant family puzzle together with pictures.  I always thought that I was 3rd generation Canadian. I'm actually 4th. The things you learn. I have found pictures of cousins that were veterans of WW1 that I was able to share with their immediate family so that was very nice. (I had only heard the name mentioned by my Grandma, but thanks to Google, Facebook and emails I found them)

My Mothers side has some Latter-Day Saints in it so I go back almost to Adam and Eve on that side! 

Today is quiet, the wind blew in forest fire smoke from somewhere. It looks like heavy fog and my eyes hurt.  Luckily we did plenty of walking earlier this week to enjoy the heat and flowers in a nearby park.

I love hydrangeas but don’t have a great spot for them in my yard. Found some beauties the other day!

The Good Things: warm weather, toddlers and bbq’s and my pension went up!

Things that suck: smoke, a blister on my toe, housing market.