Friday miscellany: Time makeover responses, back-to-school, etc.

The first week of school for the big kids is wrapping up without any major woes. This is definitely worth celebrating. Everyone got there on time on Tuesday with their backpacks full of new school supplies. Everyone returned home on Tuesday tired but generally happy. Phew.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been sending in notes about their interest in the time makeover project! I’m blown away by the response. I will be taking some time this weekend and early next week to read through everyone’s notes and figure out what will be the best portfolio of stories. This is why my responses are coming a little slower than they normally would. I apologize for this because I want to be accessible but I also want to do a thorough job. Please know that I am on it!

My husband and I celebrated our 15 year wedding anniversary on Wednesday. We did the actual celebration at French Laundry last week, so Wednesday was pretty much just another Wednesday. But I did look through some old photos and wow. We were young!

Sarah (who is on a blogging streak!) and I cranked through three Best of Both Worlds podcast recordings on Thursday. I did these from my rented Regus office, which I’ve been using a lot. We’re redoing our deck and various associated wooden exterior objects (front door, shutters). This project has been going on for a while and is oddly…noisy. Everything should look better when it’s finished. I hope. My husband and I have also been (somewhat idly) looking at real estate listings in the area, but I’ve put so much time and effort into renovating this house that I’d kind of like to stick with it if possible. In case anyone missed the announcement, Best of Both Worlds crossed 1 million downloads recently. I’m really quite excited about this — there are very few independent podcasts that reach this milestone.

I have been pondering a “fall fun list” (an update is coming next week on my summer fun list). I plan to take the children apple picking this weekend. It took me a while to realize that apple picking is more of a late summer activity than a true fall (as in mid-October) activity, at least if you like Galas and Honeycrisps, which are my favorites. We’re watching a fair amount of Texas A&M football, and my husband is flying to College Station for a game. We have tickets to Hamilton here in Philadelphia, which was rather exciting to go through that lottery. I suppose that isn’t fall specific, but hey, I can put it on the list. I’ll go camping with the Cub Scouts in early October. I am giving my almost-10-year-old tickets to an Eagles game later this month. I’d like to add an autumn-specific book to my reading list, and I welcome suggestions on that.

In the meantime, I hope everyone has had a wonderful start to September. It’s been a good week, though tempered by constant checking of the Hurricane Dorian status. It’s so sad to think of the storm raging through the islands we sailed through a few weeks ago on the cruise. Here’s a list of places taking donations; I’ve often gone through listings on Global Giving too.