October Challenges

I realized one day last week that September is always kind of a blah month for me. Larry lost a grandma in September the year we got engaged...and I lost my grandma 1 week later. Larry wasn't close to this particular grandma, but I was close to mine.

When I lived in Kentucky, Grams lived with us. She was there 4 days a week for me to get off the bus. We played Yatzhee or Rummy each day and had a snack together. She liked her oatmeal with honey, but knew I liked a little peanut butter added to mine. She came to live with us in Germany too -- for as long as her Visa would allow. And when we moved home to Indiana, she split her time between our house and my Aunt Sharon's house. My cousins and I were pretty lucky to have this woman to help mold our lives. She wasn't perfect, but she was a wonderful Matriarch to our family.

This year on our anniversary Larry had to go out of town for work. Now, we weren't going to do anything big on our anniversary...but at one point it looked like we weren't even going to SEE each other on this day. But he changed his route a little and came to our house to eat dinner with the boys and me. Loved that action.  And his boss felt bad for taking Larry away on our anniversary, so Darrell gave us some money to go out on a "proper" anniversary date.

Other than that, September just kind of proved to be challenging. It was sort of one small thing after another. Many of those I cannot even remember today (other than thinking we might have to put our dog down and coming out one day to a flat tire)...but the entire month felt off.

So in October, I'm challenging myself to a few things. I'm not sharing them here...but I will say that this weekend I succeeded at 2 of those challenges. I will also say that the weekend of the 21st - 23rd, those challenges are OFF because we are going camping with my friend Karyn and her family. I feel kind of sorry for that campground --- because I'm pretty sure our 5 kids are going to REALLY like one another.

In other words, September was kind of BLAH, but I am VERY much looking forward to October.