RANDOM

Happy Fall, y'all! The weather has been absolutely beautifully autumnly the past few days, and I admit, my spirits have risen. And although I don't necessarily enjoy my dog, I do enjoy getting out and walking him on these gorgeous days. Plus, it wears him out, and then he is much more manageable!

Speaking of fall, a neighbor called and offered some cornstalks from her garden before she threw them into the trash. I said, "No, thanks," and Michael said, "How cool!" So Keri went over to the neighbor's house and dug up cornstalks for an hour. The day was lovely, though, and I wouldn't have been outside enjoying it otherwise, so it really was cool and I do like how they look at our house.

The mud from my shoes that's now in my bathtub is pretty spectacular, too.

Nothing, though, is quite as spectacular as my dinner looks. A little bit like throw-up. Yep. Yummy.

And we really are going to eat it, and it will taste good, kids! Looks can be deceiving.

Nothing is deceiving, though, about how gross this is:

This is not throw-up (although it could make you want to...). This is what you get when you have a bird: poop, poop, and more poop. This is the bird.

I do not have a bird on purpose. I have a bird because I have children. I did have the children, however, on purpose, so I guess it's all the same thing. We have a bird in our house because it flew into our yard and my husband scared it out of the tree and grabbed it out of the ground cover and somehow Lane decided that was all "a sign from God" (his words, not mine) and kept the bird in a hamster cage for three days. During those three days I posted pictures, placed ads, and informed aviaries of this lost bird. Believe me, the ads are still posted (3 months later), but the bird is in a bigger cage. We've had lots of calls, but none for the right kind of bird. I guess I'm just the right kind of sucker who lets her kids rule her life.

That is also probably the best explanation for why there is a dead dragonfly on the top of my microwave and a rubber cockroach in my cupboard. It is NOT because I seldom clean the kitchen enough to throw things away...

...It is because I have kids. And not only that. Because I have boy kids.

I also have a project pile:

An ironing pile:

And a whole lot of fabric to make into couch pillows:

Isn't it pretty (yes) and traditional (yes) and so far from what I really wanted to do in my front room and kitchen (yes)? My dream design would be in bright colors and big polka dots, but the fabric was all sold out, so I sold myself out and went back to pretty and nice.

Now that we've moved all the furniture and I've bought more fabric, instead of doing any decorating, I think I want to knock out a wall. Certainly that will be easier than making throw pillows for the couch, right, Michael?!

Speaking of Michael, this is the present he left me on the counter this morning:

A non-washed, non-rinsed tupperware container from his lunch yesterday. This, from the man who keeps asking me, "Why don't you just make the boys rinse their own dishes?" every time I venture to get some help out with this sort of thing:

I'd make Michael sleep on the couch, but this is what our bedroom looks like, and has looked like (actually, the bed frame just got put together this morning, so that is progress!), for the past 4 weeks or so, so we're both sleeping on the couch!

The mattress is leaning up against a wall in our room, and the box springs is leaning against another wall downstairs, by the foosball table (see the mattress?) that finally got played by someone (Michael vs. our friend David Weekes) now that we pulled the game tables out of the play room (how's that for irony?).

So moving all the furniture around not only means I got to buy more fabric, want to knock out a wall, don't have a bed to sleep on, and now have a foosball table to play on, but it also means that Lane gets a bedroom...or at least he will someday when it doesn't look like this:

Eventually we'll get it all back together, but it won't be right now. Right now I have to practice a song for a baptism on Saturday. Four little boys (Joshua's age, so don't tell him I said they were "little") singing "A Boy Like Me." That's why my entry way looks like this at the moment:

Come on over for a visit! You can see there's still room for more shoes on the floor, we're going to have a yummy throw-up dinner on all our clean dishes with the bird sharing our table, and if we get bored we can do my ironing, play foosball, or start knocking out a wall! And if that doesn't sway you, at least the cornstalks will look good when you come in!