arg.

it's been almost a month since last i blogged!!! that's a record.
i've been overwhelmed, to be honest. october has been the month of feeling like i'm in over my head. thankfully, i'm gradually coming out of it and starting to think i might be able to deal with it all eventually. i've decided that it has to do with being a delayed reactor. 3 months after getting married and i'm finally realizing that it's an adjustment to share your life with someone. it's a blessing beyond compare in every regard, but it's an adjustment at the same time. you know what they say though, admitting it is the first step to recovery :-)
starting a new job with very different things happening there - huge class sizes, huge school and whatnot hasn't helped. i didn't expect to struggle with teaching - it's something i've done for 4 years, i figured i'd breeze in and be fine. it's been harder than my first year of teaching, though, if you can believe it. the main struggle is getting used to such big classes every single hour and the amount of energy that goes into that. it's exhausting, but i'm starting to acclimate.

anyhow, all that to say, i'm finally back to blogging and i have a various assortment of odd things to report with the random picture to back it up...

these first two pictures are to share with you the state of disarray our bathroom has been in all week. the tiling and grout had just finally gotten too horrible and we think the wax ring on the toilet is leaking or something (notice the darker wet wood around the toilet... gross, i know.) so tomorrow nick and his buddy zach kuenzle are tearing out that last plywood layer, putting in new stuff, then retiling. what with moving out a cast iron tub, it's not going to be an easy job. but i'm excited that we'll finally have our bathroom retiled! it's been a long time coming. i'll post 'after' pictures.


then, in the spirit of 'when it rains, it pours', i went downstairs to use the bathroom this morning at 5:30 a.m. and actually thought it was raining - in the kitchen! a pipe came loose under the kitchen sink and flooded the house. upstairs wasn't too horrible, but the basement was under about 3 inches of water. in these pictures nick had already sucked up over 60 gallons of water. it wasn't even close to being done - he said he'd keep counting to see what the grand total would be.

i guess we'll be throwing out the rest of the carpet (which is pretty ghetto anyhow...) and eventually tiling. within the next decade, that is.

poor guy.
he's going on a boar hunting camping trip with the men from church tonight, then tiling tomorrow all day...

last week we went to allison's for a pumpkin carving party - so fun!

here's mine. it only lasted a few days on my porch before it caved in and looked like an old man with no teeth. i think the frost got to it, and the huge mouth cavity. not much support.

nick's is the one on the far left. it's a ghoul. casey made a great pirate there but really, everyone's looks super duper. we were all impressed with our skills.

my old college roomy was in town last weekend and we had a delightful afternoon hanging out. her two girls LOVED the cats, anna especially. she kept picking them up and carrying them to someone to hand off. the cats would then promptly run away but she'd find them, pick them up, and bring them to someone again... it was quite the hilarious little cycle. for some reason samwise and maeby really didn't seem to mind. they were even purring occasionally. perhaps it reminded them of being carried around by their mother.


the weekend before that, drea, erica & i went to springfield to find bridesmaid dresses for erica's upcoming nuptials (dec. 28th!). here's drea modeling the chosen dress (but they'll be marine blue) with the creative bow option. it reminds me of minnie mouse.
it only took us an hour to settle on dresses so we celebrated by going to cheddar's for lunch.


last sunday nick and i wanted to go up to the cemetery close to our house and see the beautiful fall colors - the trees there are always the most gorgeous. sadly, they had already mostly fallen. we missed them. but it was a lovely sunny day so we enjoyed the peacefulness anyway.



a long while ago, nick and i went bike riding after he proudly fixed our bike tires. it was so much fun whizzing down the sidewalk! we went on a long road with big, gradual hills. it was almost too fast for me at times. the outing ended in disappointment though - one of nick's brakes was dragging on the new tire in a way it shouldn't have and it shredded the side. we had to stash them in some shrubbery and go back for the car.
but someday, we will return to biking land. we like it. we also probably need helmets.

so that about sums up my last month. i'm sure other things have happened, but i don't have pictures of them, so i don't remember. that's part of the reason why i need this blog - to keep my memory timeline in order.
alzheimer's not far away, i fear.