I'm not sure if it's just compiled from being away for a week or pure thankfulness to come home to a still intact 'home', but the past two days I've been cleaning like a mad woman.
I started in the yard on Thursday morning, picking up all the shingles. I filled an entire 40 gallon rubbermaid tub with the tiles that had jumped ship from our roof. Then I set about to picking up the big branches, next the smallers and finally trying to sweep up some of the tons of leaves that our tree and the neighbors just dropped. It will definitely be a sad fall this year, since most of our leaves have already withered or fallen from the sheer force of the wind. Eli was a tremendous help to me with the cleanup. We are mostly done, except for the leaves that can only be raked. I have yet to find a rake in Baytown, but I'll be on the hunt again tomorrow.
Then I moved inside, starting in the kitchen. Between today and yesterday I basically scrubbed the kitchen from the cabinets down. We did have some water blow in from the back door, and though it had all evaporated, the floor was incredibly sticky and gross. I also tackled the kids rooms and they both look worlds better. Right before we left in the middle of the night last week I had taken a video of our home for insurance purposes. Man, I will never show that video to anyone, our house looked so bad!! Inspired me for some deep cleaning. :) I've been doing laundry all day today and I'm finally caught up, just a bit to put away now. Yay! I've also been really good about making all of our meals this week, and that's encouraging. I've forgotten how great it is to be a homaker, it's just been really hard with all the craziness over the past summer and I'm thankful to take some time to get back to my roots.
I also got all of our bills paid today, save one we haven't received yet and I'm truly thankful because I didn't know how badly our unexpected trip North was going to hit us and I think after this pay period we will be through and back on to our Financial Peace plan. yay. It's been a good day but I'm absolutely beat. I hate to admit how much my thighs hurt from all those up and downs cleaning the yard. It's like I'm almost 30 or something. ;)
Ok, so these are the past weeks photos in reverse order. I don't have a lot of Baytown photos since I have not left my block since we returned home late Wednesday night. I will go out tomorrow - to visit a family friend in the hospital and go to the grocery store. I plan on bringing my camera.
Our neighbors tree. I've enjoyed this weeping willow since we first moved in and I'm so sad to see it gone. It literally uprooted, it's hard to tell from the photo, but there's an 8 foot diameter hole in the ground where it had been. Took out all of her fence on two sides. I've never even seen the side of that house before because it's usually that big. Finally got to meet the neighbor though, the kids and I helped her clean for a while yesterday afternoon.
The front of our house, you can see the shingles on the ground and all the leaves ripped from our rosebushes. They were in full bloom when we left on Wednesday. Also, a patch of shingles missing on the roof. All the patches look small in these photos, but remember it's my ground-looking-up perspective. There was 6 inches deep of debris in our entryway.
The biggest patch of missing shingles are on the back of the house and sides.
This is our fence down in the back. Totally changed the view out of my back windows.
These fence panels are six or eight feet long and 6 feet high. The posts just snapped off at the ground like twigs.
This is Eli at Grandma Ginny's. He was working on jewelry with her. The other photo with Grammy did not turn out at all. I wish I had gotten out my camera more. I was really in a funk most of the week and it was hard to think creatively. That's the trouble with being an artist, your product is greatly affected by your current mood!
Some beautiful flowers in Mom's yard, a little under exposed, but I was going for an artistic effect for a worship slide for Rob.
Eli playing ball with his dad. a difficult shot in full sun. I was playing around in manual with a new lens, so that was fun.
Rob looking Sith-like.
Love this shot, with me in the reflection of his glasses. It's so him.
Sarah was going wild in the yard. It was so cool and dry in AR that day. I was downright cold. She was thrilled. My new lens is manual focus and I had a very hard time getting the shot because she just moved too fast for my manual fingers. :)
but I did get this shot and it's a beauty, so indicitive of her joyous and fun personality. She's been incredibly entertaning lately - notice the lilt in her shoulders? she's dancing. te hee.
Me and the kids and my wonderful Aunt Char. It was such a treat to get loved on by her. I'm so glad we had the time. She was exactly what we needed when I was trying so hard not to fall apart. This woman has been a rock in my life all of my 29 years and I thank God every time I think of her. It is so amazing to me that she has been even more of a blessing to me as an adult than she was when I was a child. Amazing only because she was so influential on my personality, and now continues to be so. Love her. Everyone should have a role model like her.
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