One month since

I last posted 30 September and now it's 30 October.

I am trying to figure out how to really enjoy blogging and make it truly work for me, without unnecessary pressure--self-induced, of course. I need to figure out what my goals are.I need to figure out what I really want.  Blogs I love to read always have beautiful pictures accompanying each post and I haven't gotten pictures off the cameras for over a month. I've also not taken very many pictures either.

Facebook is a super easy way to keep many of my loved ones up to date on our lives, but it also can be super time consuming and hard to make boundaries with it. I want to post there, but then I'm drawn to check to see if people have "liked" or commented, and I want to see what my friends are up to too and then I have a few groups I've been heavily involved in and somehow feel the pull to check those too, and before I know it, I've wasted many precious minutes/hours on other people's lives/articles I didn't know I wanted to read/answering questions I really didn't have time for when all I got on line for was to find a cracker recipe and "check my  news feed really quickly". Famous last words.

I went to the Mother Earth News Fair in Topeka, KS this past weekend and the girls and my dad and I had an AMAZING time. We're thinking about milk goats and bees. We're contemplating making more things from scratch. We're looking at how we can be living even more sustainably. (And then I come home to all the Christmas catalogs in my mailbox!)

I got to stay with my sister and her beautiful family and have a too short of visit with one of my besties. The kids did wonderfully traveling and it was a glorious trip.

I took a little internet break while I was gone, and now it's been a full week. I miss it and don't miss it. I miss knowing what my friends are up to on a regular basis, but I don't miss all the mental and emotional clutter it brings with it.

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Today Aviana made bread for the first time all by herself. It's not wanting to rise, so I'm not sure if she made an error, or if our house is just too cold.

Today (and yesterday) we had chicken soup with rice for lunch.

We've put all the bikes and riding toys and wagons in the barn for the winter. It's staggering how tidy the yard suddenly became! Kevin is winterizing all the equipment as we are supposed to get a hard freeze tonight. He's done combining the soy beans and has about 100 acres of corn to do. He's rained out today. Hopefully this afternoon we'll get to planting my bulbs and mums. I am totally a fair weather gardener.

Cadrian is having a hard time with his reading lessons every time, but then every time he makes a break through and shows me he really is ready for it. It's frustrating and challenging to know what's truly best for him.

Brielle played well with Elivette this morning so I could read to the boys. They've been into these Star Wars books we got from the library but I am done reading that drivel. It's time to introduce them to Little House or Narnia or something. Cadrian does well listening to read alouds but Denton is still a classic interrupter.

I have plans to make some pumpkin butter this afternoon too, so I'd better be starting.