The Return of the Grind: the Randoms of September

Hey gang.

So September ended up being kinda busy, now that I'm looking back on it - we had plans every weekend, so fortunately our Back to School workloads were pretty easy (thank God.)  Aside from the Return to School and Work, we had our nephews' birthday party, Rita and Smitty's housewarming party, a few different PTO and Girl Scout outings and get-togethers, and weekly hang-outs with our usual circle of friends.  Throw in sleep-overs and play-dates - and yard work, unfortunately - and you have yourself one hell of a busy month.

And here I am expecting September to be nice and chill.  Oh well.

Here's how it all went down. . .

So Kris has been going bat-shit crazy lately on Facebook Marketplace.  Our home has slowly but surely been filling up with all sorts of furniture and home decor purchased from other users from all over Central Michigan.  This lovely, picturesque domicile - in scenic Bay City - is where Kris picked up a set of end tables she plans on painting with 'chalk paint,' or something.  I don't know, something she saw on Pinterest.  She got both for $10, and had zero problem driving all the way up these folks' driveway, which I protested greatly to no avail.  This house was f***ing terrifying, and we're lucky to have escaped it without losing a kidney.

Frickin' Bay City and their bridges. . .

Another one of Kris' Marketplace acquisitions.  This one - that was practically brand new, but at half price - she picked up from some elderly couple in Auburn.  That whole exchange was far less scary.

The First Day of School.  Keepin' it casual.

Abby's going into the Fourth Grade this year.

The Cannonball, headed into the uncharted depths of Middle School, is starting her Sixth Grade year.

Kris dropped Alayna off at Northeast for her First Day, but this year she'll be mostly taking the bus - which will be new for her.  Probably for the best Kris drove her on this particular day, as it was raining like crazy.

At Chestnut Hill with Larkin.

The second day of school, Alayna got to try out the Bus Stop for the first time.  Kris tried to snap a pic with her phone from the living room window (Alayna is the short kid wearing the red fleece), but it's pretty pixelated since she had to zoom in. 

Honestly pretty nice having this kind of convenience - that bus stop is, like, a hundred feet from our front door.

I was a little nervous about Alayna taking the bus to school - middle school buses can get pretty hairy sometimes - but she's really been enjoying it so far this year.

A Ford Edge.  My buddy Morgan - who hooked us up with Kris' new van a few months ago - has been trying to help me out finding a new vehicle, since my old Ford Focus - which I've had since 2007 (no joke) - is starting to show it's age, especially in the winter months.  I've been looking for something that's bigger, with 4WD, and that could handle in the snow and ice better; something with some weight to it (my Focus weighs, like, 200 lbs.)  He suggested the Edge, and let me test-drive it to Chestnut Hill's Curriculum Night, but I didn't care for it - a little too bulky for me.  I think I'm gonna go smaller.

Soooooo this happened.  Alayna came down with a case of the hives.  Whether that was induced by the stress of starting middle school, or some gross-ass virus, or what-not, who knows, but thankfully it flared up on a Thursday evening, so she was able to see a doc on Friday, and had a weekend to recuperate at home while the prescription meds kicked in.

I have no idea what hives are, but they're frickin' gross-looking.

Kris' recent project is to dig up all the overgrown plants and flowers out of these beds of ours.  It's an uphill battle, for sure, and one that I don't necessarily focus on, seeing how I spend a few hours a week on the grass alone. 

This bed, by far our most biggest and most decorative, is going to take a shit-load of work.  It'll probably have to wait until the Spring.  We're gonna have to sand, paint, and seal that bridge soon, too - definitely before the snow starts falling.

One day while Kris was showering, I decided it was time for her to change her home screen wallpaper.  Who doesn't love Damon Loftis?

Later that day, we drove down to Ithaca to celebrate Rita and Smitty's housewarming - they bought their first house, and it's set out in the country.  Lots and lots of elbow room.  And, if you like corn, they have a lot of that around them, too.

Cornhole.  Wouldn't be a Michigan summer gathering without it.

Bonfires are also a mandatory requirement in the summertime.  If you look back on this blog of ours, nearly every social gathering we've had in the warmer months has had both cornhole and fires.  Oh, and beer.  Can't forge that.

Shane, Smitty and I posed this one for Zack and Damon - we played weekly games of Risk my super-senior year at Western, when all those guys lived up on Newton Court (I was living down the road at 1214 Oak.)

One Sunday morning, First United Methodist threw a 'retro' potluck/family fun thingy, so Kris took the girls - and Ella - up there dolled up in 50's-ish clothing (at least what she could throw together at the last minute.)

The Dynamic Duo

Of course you need a backdrop. . .

These two wouldn't know 'rock and roll' if it jumped up and kicked them in their jams.

Alayna was pretty thrilled to discover that Coca Cola came in glass bottles.  She didn't think that was possible.

So, I've always had pretty good luck ordering vinyl from Amazon over the years.  Occasionally there's a problem, and it's easily resolved, so I buy records from there on an almost weekly basis.  This particularly time, I received their cardboard LP mailer, and checked the ID tag on the outside, which clearly stated that it was my desired record.  However, upon opening the box, I found this bullshit. . .

It should go without saying that I was pretty pissed about this, and I got more than a few jokes at my expense throughout the return process.  Seriously - who the hell would spend the money to buy this crap on vinyl?   And a PICTURE DISC???

Kris went thrift store shopping in hopes of finding articles for her upcoming Halloween costume (we're going '80s-themed this year - again, the kids' decision - and she wanted to go as Molly Ringwald's character from the Breakfast Club.)  She was able to find both the top and the skirt in the same shopping trip, which is pretty impressive.

After all the Kondo'ing we did over the summer, our garage had gotten quite filled up with stuff to get rid of.  Some of it was junk - well, a lot of it was - but some of it was worth money, so we decided to have a garage sale.  One morning we woke up and realized that Midland was having a city-wide Garage Sale, so we scrambled to price and put together all of our crap.  We didn't get everything set up until pretty late in the morning, so by then most of the hardcore garage sailors were already done.

Doesn't look like a lot, but there's a hell of a lot of stuff there.

A lot of this was junk, sure enough, but we figured we'd offer it to the masses and see if we could scrounge a few bucks before we just boxed everything up and dropped it off to Salvation Army.

It was reaaallly hard getting rid of those Homer Simpson slippers.  Just sayin'.

A lot of bar ware was disposed of this summer.  It breaks the heart.

I tried selling these five swords (that I've been trying to sell on-and-off for the last fourteen years), and was finally able to sell one of them.  Baby steps, America.

I hauled these two things curbside so folks could pick them up for free.  That old record thing I picked up from our school district (fo' free) in the hopes that I could fix it up and it would look cool in the corner of the garage, but it was in pretty rough shape, and so I decided to toss it.  The glider we've owned since Alayna was born, and it was stained to all hell, so we wanted it out of the house, sentiments be damned.  Both would be snatched up by the end of the day (thank God.)

This chipmunk has been pissing me off for months - the little f***er has been living in my woodpile in the garage, and I haven't been able to kill him yet.  He's like that frickin' gopher from Caddyshack.

Morgan let me take this Ford Escape home later in the month so I could drive it in to work and see how I liked it (definitely helps when you're friends with a dealership manager.)

I LOVED this car.  It was more or less a smaller Edge, so it had the bulk of an SUV but was easier for me - someone who's driven a Focus for the last twelve years - to drive.  I told Morgan to keep an eye out for an Escape for me in the coming months:  this one was okay - it was a 2019 with very few miles on it, but it was an SE (the basic package), and I'd like something fancier.  After all, I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in my next car - at least an hour a day - so I want it to be as close to perfect as possible.

Alayna reluctantly agreed to wear her hair down for Picture Day (she always wears it up in a ponytail), and consequently looked way older than what we're used to.

Creating some signs advertising Chestnut Hill clothing, to use for the upcoming annual Ice Cream Social/School Book Fair (Kris has been spear-heading the clothing sales this year.)

(My contribution was the lettering.)

Later in the week - all ready for Pajama Day at school.

The day after I had my Entered Apprentice Degree at Lodge, I took a day off from work (I had been out with the guys pretty late the night before celebrating.)  Kris has Fridays off, so we went out for a kid-less lunch at a restaurant downtown, and came across this awesome sign.

After picking the kids up from school, we went out Halloween shopping (the annual Halloween stores were starting to pop up around town by this point in time in the month). . . not remembering until it was too late that Abby had just been participating in Pajama Day at school.  Sooooo we're those people.  Walking around in public with our kids still in pajamas.

I think this pet costume kinda fits with the whole '80s theme we're going with this year, right?  Watson could pull it off.

Abby wanted her picture taken with this creepy display, then proceeded to get her hair stuck in its knife.  Gotta love kids. . .

Alayna doesn't grasp the concept of the whole '80s' thing.

After prowling a few Halloween stores picking up costume accessories and home decor, we stopped over at Barnes and Noble to check out some books.  Kris always likes checking out the puberty section with the girls, which I can safely say is something my parents and I never did.

The next week, a bunch of the moms in our social group went out to some local apple orchard.  Not sure if it was a Girl Scout thing, or a PTO thing, or what, but I didn't go with 'em.  So I'm captioning these however the hell I want.  Here we have some kids in a Trash Bin Train. . .

Jackson and Danielle, checking out a see-saw (or is it sea-saw?)

Danielle, Courtney, and some offspring, on some sort of hayride. . .

Why is Jackson so pissed?  Is it 'cause he's the pumpkin?

Ella and Abby in. . . a fire truck?  A semi-truck?  Whatever it is, it's definitely bigger than a Ford Focus.

The Cannonball, I assume taking a dump in her pants.

What's the point of this?

Gotta be honest - this was a pretty good score.  Great selection of jams, and I got it by trading in a stack of old vinyl I no longer wanted.  Paid nothing out of pocket.  I have this whole 'record collecting' thing down to a science.

Heading to Clare to celebrate my nephews' combo birthday. . . at which I took zero pictures, so just imagine my extended family at a pizzeria and you get the idea.

After my nephews' birthday party, my parents led us out to Eight Point to check out a cottage they just bought.  After this year's time on the lake, they finally came around to what we siblings had been saying for years:  there wasn't enough room at the cottage to accommodate our growing families, and we needed to upgrade or else shorten or stays at the lake.  They stumbled across this four-bedroom, three-bathroom house that came fully-furnished and pulled the trigger on it.  While we were talking with my folks, Alayna walked around with Kris' phone and took a few pictures. . . so don't start raising eyebrows at some of these, I didn't take them.  Anyway, here's the kitchen.

And here's the dining room.

Here's the living room - and some handsome guy - right past the kitchen and dining room.  The porch - visible through the windows -wraps around the side and back of the cottage.

Behind Dad, to the left, are a bathroom and bedroom.

Lotta hang-out space here.

If you head upstairs, through the living room, you find yourself at a landing with two bedrooms and a bathroom.  The master bedroom - Dad and Cindy's - is visible in the background.

Abby, posing in the other bedroom.

This is the bathroom on the second floor.

Anyway, long story short, the place is much bigger than the last cottage (there's a lower-level with an additional bedroom and bathroom as well), but you get the idea.  It'll be a lot easier for us to spend time up on the lake from now on, seeing how there's more space and we're no longer forced to use a cottage during a designated two-week period of the summer.  This means we don't have to stress about planning things in the summer in order to make it up there at a certain time - we can go up there whenever.  No complaints here, I'm glad they pulled the trigger on this.

Towards the end of the month, we started pulling out all the Halloween stuff (we put our interior decor up towards the end of September, whenever it starts to get cold out.)  The girls enjoy watching old Halloween home videos while we do so, too - like this one of Abby's first Halloween.

Remember earlier in this post, when I said that I usually have zero issues ordering vinyl through Amazon?  Look how they f***ing shipped this - NO BOX AT ALL.  They just slapped a shipping label on the outside of this and called it good.  I tried complaining to Amazon about this travesty, but I bought this through a third-party seller, so Amazon couldn't refund me unless I returned the item, which I didn't want to do because this particular album is really hard to find, and I got a great price on it.  So, long story short, I kept the record:  it plays flawlessly, and just has some serious bending and creases in the corners. . . but it still pisses me off.

Don't tell me what to do, Lifetouch Photography.

Kris' office participates annually in a pumpkin decorating contest.  They definitely go all-out with this crap.

I enjoy pranking my students a great deal.  It's fun to mess with teenagers' heads.

Abby and Ella decided they're launching some kind of fitness initiative this fall, which I ascertained after stumbling upon their plans for an upcoming sleepover.  I give it two hours.

 No idea what the story is behind this picture. . . 

Kris and Danielle. . . aaaaand some coffees?

Danielle, Courtney and Kris, sorting a bunch of shirt orders for the PTO.  The husbands were all drinking beers in the kitchen, not helping in the slightest.

What a grand way to end the month. 

 - Brian