Fall. Day 2.

There is a 40 degree difference between Monday’s high and today’s!

Our air-conditioner went out on Sunday. I was able to slug through the next near-90 degree days (83 inside our house) only by looking repeatedly and hopefully at the weather app on my phone and its projected weekend weather. Finally it is here. And it has not disappointed! It rolled in yesterday (the first official day of fall) with highs in the low 60s and a tremendous rain-storm (hail and a tiny tornado touch down for my siblings 20 minutes from here) that has continued off and on for the last 22 hours.

(Note: these pictures – eager to be seen, and breaking up text pleasantly as they are – have nothing particularly to do with this topic.)

It arrived with spicy sausage and potato soup (the kids weren’t too big on the “spicy” [sissies] ), cut up peaches from our nearby, Perry fruit stands, and a chilly walk (wherein Mike gentlemanly insisted I wrap myself up in his Carhartt coat as he often will) up the street to watch our local high school’s Homecoming parade (and to send Abe off with friends for his first big “bonfire the night before the Homecoming game” . . . thing).

And today? I kept the windows open (so we could hear and smell the rain) until our house was near-freezing. Then, after doing several things that absolutely needed doing around here, I dumped out a bucket of toys, grabbed a pillow and a blanket, and threw myself down next to them in a state of exhausted half-sleep. I knew that if I was right there the little people wouldn’t lose interest as quickly as usual. And I was right. Anders piled four blankets next to me (from what I could gather in my sleepy state, he was a koala and those blankets were his koala tree . . . ?). Mette seemed completely content crawling over me – back and forth, back and forth – occasionally stopping on the toy-pile side of me to play for a bit (which I slept remarkably well through – except for when she would crawl over my head [then I slept slightly less well]). And Summer loaded a Scooby-Doo Mystery Van with an odd conglomeration of figures and drove it about.

By the time I roused myself the house was in shambles, the girls’ needed diaper changes and naps, and Summer had snuck into the basement and pulled out about fifty small bags of chips from the kids’ school lunch supplies. But! It was still raining. And now the older kids will be home soon. . . . And, if I’m lucky, I will be able to talk one of them into making pumpkin chocolate chip muffins to go with dinner!

Nicely done, fall!