August 9, 2012

Nine months later, and I'm back! I'm in a very different position in my life, now. Harper started Kindergarten, and I have a lot of free time. Housekeeping has not become a daily part of my routine. As much as I love the idea of Homesteading, I haven't become good at it, yet. Our volunteer tomato garden is flourishing. We're probably two weeks past the start date of our Fall garden. But, we haven't given up on it. Colin is a genius with fixing the lawn mower, and he did it again. The girls are happy to be in school. Although, the long day is draining on Harper. However, Harper will never complain about anything. I feel sorry for her, it is a long day for a little girl. She is handling it beautifully. She appears to be the kind-hearted leader in this class as well. Ava loves 4th grade. She was so thrilled to get Aaron as her teacher. They will be studying the state of North Carolina this year among other things. Her class has a trip planned to Hanging Rock State Park next week. Ava's art work from 3rd grade was chosen to hang at the Credit Union.

My schedule desperately needs to change. With the girls being in school all day, I only see them for a couple of hours before I go to work. Not to mention, feeling like two ships passing in the night, when it comes to Colin. The family consensus is for me to get a job at Weaver St. and work during the day. That all sounds good, I'm just doing some soul-searching to decide if a bigger goal should be tackled at this time. I just celebrated my 38th birthday. It was perfect. A small gathering of friends at my third place, Weaver St. Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands performed and we all loved their bohemian, gypsy style. I made a list of 38 good deeds to accomplish on my birthday. I'm still working on that list. I'll blog about it at a later date. Colin and my parents bought me a wonderful Leica camera. I'm enjoying learning how to use all the features. I have wanted to start a street photography blog for a long time, titled Buffalo Stance. I think I have the camera to take decent portraits, now. This is a whole different kind of photography for me, and I have missed several shots so far. This blog will require a lot of sitting and waiting. I may not have the patience for it. I would also like to take photos of Hillsborough and sell them as postcards.

I have been hiking quite a bit, learning about wild flowers and such. I have have been enjoying my correspondence with Ken Moore. And, my friend Sally Heiney seems to always be there to answer all my questions. I ask the girls lots of questions about school, to get them to talk about it. Harper told me yesterday, "This little boy Benjamin is driving me crazy." I said, "What is he doing?" Harper replied, "He gets down, right next to me, and says, "What's fun? What's new? What's fun? What's new?" It made me realize, I guess we all have that person in our lives.