Four Christmas bulbs shattered in 10 minutes! We didn’t even put the shopvac away after the second one. There is something wrong about vacuuming an oriental rug with a shopvac (much like eating burgers at a fancy four-star restaurant).

We recently got a new zebra finch to replace the one that died and keep the female company. We finally agreed that his name should be Ebeneezer (great trivia question, “What old fashion guy’s name has either four or five e’s in it?”). This way the birds can be Ebb and Flow!

The month of September has gone already, and now Jack must really weep, for it is wet and somewhat cooler. We have even been making fires in the woodstove and making a big pile of brush for our bonfire up by the red barn. Yesterday, we bought a new peach tree, four “fall gold” raspberry plants, 18 boxwood hedge plants, and a big box of assorted spring flower bulbs. Let the planting begin! Meanwhile, our summer garden begins to look a little peaked, especially our wilting tomatoes.

First day back to work after Labor Day. Actually, beside the first day back to work, it was a day of a few more firsts! First, my team at work was relocated down the hall so today was my first day in that office. It’s a mirror of my old office and I found that all day I was going the wrong direction for things – going to the left when it was now on the right! Another first is that I ride a Community Transit Vanpool to and from work each day – one that we’ve had going since 5/20/98 with a ’97 GMC Safari van. Today we traded it in for an ’05 model! When we mentioned that we just got this one broken in and really hate to give it up the CT representative said if we really wanted to they could easily move us up to a nice ’98 model. Ummm…sure, the ’05 would do just fine. Surprisingly the interior layout is almost the same – good thing. If it was different, like my office, I might put it in gear when I really was hitting the turn indicator – especially today! -Jack

The whole family (well all those that can write) is working on journals. I’ve been designated as the blog organizer/uploader – we’ll even publish it online! So far our family website is over a year out of date and sorely needs an upgrade. For now we will start our family blogosphere locally – eventually it will posted for the world to see in real-time.

Today is Labor Day and the whole family did labor; working on those end of Summer chores. Mentally I’m not ready to leave Summer behind. Not enough kick-back time; not enough time kicking back in one of the hammocks, not enough time exploring the back acreage with the kids, not enough time on the boat, not enough time where everything is done and you stop and say, “Hey, I’m all caught up and there is nothing else I can think of that needs to be done. Maybe I’ll go online and read the sports section.” Actually I’m not a sports fan, so I’d have to pretty bored to even suggest this. Needless to say, things are always hopping here and there will always be one more thing that needs to be done – good thing I don’t really care how the Mariners are hitting this year.