What’s Been Going On in September!

Whew!

Since school started in early August for me as a teacher, it has been survival mode over here. I’ve slowly added routines back in each week and I’m starting to feel like I kind of sort of have a little bit more of a grasp on life than I did three weeks ago. But blogging has been the last thing that I’ve been able to pick back up since I dropped all my “extra/nonessential” responsibilities like a hot potato 🙂

Here is how things are going at the end of September….

Food/Eating– I finally feel like I have a pretty great menu planning routine and Theo mentioned last week that I’ve been making some amazing meals lately! My problem right now is that I’m kind of in the stage of life where I follow a basic recipe but often do a lot of tweaking or need to double a recipe and I am HORRIBLe about saving a recipe! So if we have something great, it’s usually only that great one time. LOL.

Loving Lately:

My sunflower egg collecting apron and my clothespin bag! Can someone say homesteading Grandma? That’s me! Haha. My Mom made the clothespin bag for me and it makes hanging laundry SO much easier. And my MIL made the egg apron for me. We tested it out and it can hold up to 40 eggs! Now if only our chickens weren’t being decimated by predators, I could actually be collecting 40 a day!

What’s Been Going On in September….

SO MUCH! We have finally gotten into the groove of school and while the school week routine is exhausting, it also makes everything go by so fast!

We got a new van! Well, new to us at least!

We have enjoyed one on one dates with each of the kids..

We’ve been getting back into the school groove. Two days at school and three homeschool days a week…

Theo got to take a rifle class at work…

We had a visit from my in-laws….

I ran a 10k…my first one in YEARS (since 2019, I think?)…

Homecoming weekend at our school! Tera got to hand out flowers to the homecoming court, and Theo and I got to play in a homecoming soccer game.

It’s been a full and fun month!

What I’m Disliking Right Now…

Adulting. GUYS. This past month there has been a lot of required adulting. It’s been exhausting. Our van died and we had to find a new one. That was NOT fun at all. Theo went to 18 car lots in one day. And that was just one day of the search. We finally found one…it was over our budget, but we needed a vehicle that can carry 4+ kids, and we ended up biting that bullet.

Then, our rental properties all needed quite a bit of attention this month. One tenant wanted us to replace a couple thousand dollars worth of household items. It’s a long story, and while we disagreed with their reasoning, we ultimately abided by “the customer is always right” rule and did decide to pay them. Then another stove went out in a rental and we had to get that replaced. Then another tenant gave us his 30 day notice, so as soon as he left we had to clean, fix, photograph, list online, interview tenants and find a new one. And then a second tenant gave us their 30 day notice, so we get to repeat the entire process again. Thankfully, we work hard to find REALLY great tenants and this is the first time (since 2020) that we have had tenant turnover.

Then we found out that due to negligence in the HR department, Orion was never put on our medical insurance. So we have to pay every single one of his medical bills out of pocket. And I don’t know if you have ever had a newborn, but they receive A LOT of medical care in the first 6 months of life…and each pediatric visit is $3,000+ dollars. It’s honestly horrifying. AND he won’t be able to be added to our insurance until January 1st, so let’s hope he doesn’t need any medical care for the next 4 months (major eye roll). Thankfully, the union is working hard to handle it, but it has been a bit of a nightmare.

See? Adulting! 0 stars. Do not recommend.

What I’m Looking Forward To…

October is going to be a FULL month! I was lesson planning and got to the end of October and had to do a double take that NOVEMBER is next. And the DECEMBER. Basically, from here on out if I blink it will be the New Year!

We have a Great Wolf Lodge trip, a family get together on my side of the family, a family get together on Theo’s side of the family, and a Hines sisters trip all coming up and I can’t wait!

What I’m Watching/Reading…

Theo and I have been loving Clarkson’s Farm. The language is R rated but the farming content is great. And for sure our favorite character is Gerald.

I’m currently reading The Woman with the Cure and Life in Five Senses. I’m still working through my summer reading list, and probably will be until next summer haha. I also got an advanced listener copy of Well Said* and have been loving reading it! But I cannot wait to get a hard copy of it on release day so I can read it!

What I’ve Ordered on Amazon Lately…

My SIL had this massager at our family reunion and after using it for 5 minutes my migraine went away….so we ordered one of our own!

Tera and I went ahead and combined our earrings, and they were just a jumbled mess on the dresser. I ordered this earring holder and only filled about 1/2 of it!

We are in that stage where everything is a fight or competition, so I finally just decided to order the EXACT SAME water bottles for every kid in my family. They can decorate or put stickers on it as much as they want. But now I don’t have to hear “BUT I WANT THE RED ONE” 🙂

I’ve really been enjoying preordering books and having them show up at my door on release day… here are some that I’ve ordered recently

And that is a wrap for September! My goal for October is to actually blog. Trying not to be unrealistic but also hoping for a little bit of a return to my writing groove!

I’m linking up with Shay and Shaeffer for What’s Up Wednesday