Stuff.

 These are all going to be such random photos, but since I don't do photo albums, and since I don't FB anymore right now, and since this is a documentation of our life, here it is :). This is fall, at our home.

 We voted! Nate was out of town, so the kids and I went to our polling place at 8:30 am en route to the gym on party day. The lines weren't too long, we waited about 10 minutes,  go to see Aunt Dee there, and got to talk a lot about the privacy of voting. I would not (and Nate would not) tell our kids who we were voting for. Is that weird? We told them that it was private. Still wondering if that meant that means that I/we felt shame for whom we voted for. Yes is the obvious answer. I can say that I was not happy with either candidate. 

 The house. After almost 5 years of living here it is starting to sortov a little bit look like a grown up home. Sortov. I can't wait till the basement is finished and those lovely toys are stashed away downstairs. It feels like groundhog day to me in how often I clean up the playroom. Crowns and markers and coloring books and legos just kill me. By March, this should hopefully all be in the basement. We plan to turn that long bank of windows/sunroom into a homework room with built in desks and workstations and a big comfy chair and ottoman for me so that I can oversee their homework and their computer access can public and easily monitored in the house. I hope the plan works out like we envision it. 

 This was where dessert was set up. Unfortunately people seemed to be too focused on wine and jewelry and missed a lot of the dessert thing.....which meant that I was left with 3000 desserts. I promptly started eating them for every meal. I put them in the freezer thinking to save them....but that just meant that I've been eating frozen desserts for a week. 

 I think that the holiday season has officially been kicked off. 

I couldn't resist these when I saw these at Carlinos :). I ate both while cleaning up. 

The aftermath. The kids and I devoured this cheese plate for like......3 hours? It was ugly. My week was a blur of tomato pie and cheese plates and spinach dips and humous and quesadillas and every other sort of fattening food you can think of. 

It was a fun party, but really exhausting. 

The kids were upstairs with Erika, who I love. 

I can tell you this, I will never, ever host another selling things party. I told myself this after hosting one for my friend a year and a half ago, and I forgot. I can't do it. Too much stress. Nate was away all weekend and all week leading up to it, I get too worked up about who is coming and who is not, I get way too sensitive about it, and generally I hate it. 

So, that was it for me,  NO MORE HOSTESS PARTIES. 

I will gladly attend yours. I will buy stuff. I will eat, I will mingle. But I will not, can not, do this to myself again.