Day by Day

Life continues over here. As I've written before, Facebook seems more accessible in this season of life - but sometimes I want to say a little bit more. And I miss my blog. I'm hoping to get back into more of a regular day-to-day blogging schedule. It's such a wonderful way to document our life. So here are some odds and ends of what we've been up to, in no particular order of importance or sequence.

• I resigned my position as a Jazzercise instructor. While I feel just a tad bit sad about it, I mostly feel fine about it. My free time can now be my free time and not my plan-my-set-and-practice-until-my-booty-falls-off time. In interesting Jazzercise news, Cheryl Burke of Dancing with the Stars has signed on for a promotional partnership with Jazzercise Inc. Pretty exciting - it's such a fun and effective way to exercise.
  

• I've been taking as much advantage of the harvest season as time and energy will allow. Of course, I wish I would have picked more blueberries, gotten to my corn before my chickens did and had a friend with an overflowing Italian plum tree but such is life. I DID:

Can Tomatoes

Can Applesauce

Make Jam

ok - that's an applesauce picture but I forgot to take jam pictures...

I also dried some apples but honestly, you get very little return for the amount of work you put in. And my kids didn't care for them... how is that even possible?

• Xochi Maia is the sweetest baby ever. It's very affirming to be her mother - she smiles at me every time I look at her. And she's HUGE! Growing nicely. I think she weighs about 17 lbs. As a point of reference, Adia weighs 23 lbs.....

• Justin and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary last week. We went on a wonderful date. Out to a movie (a rare and sacred occurrence lately) and then to dinner at a wonderful new restaurant. More than ever, we are loving being married and enjoying the sweet life God has blessed us with. We're in a good groove and we both agreed that the first few years of marriage kind of went by in a blur... we're happy to be able to more fully savor these times together.

Then...

and now.

Sorry - I got a little carried away with the wedding pictures...

• We went on a family vacation at the end of August. Justin's parents have a little cabin on Hood Canal. We all had fun relaxing, eating, clam digging, fishing off the dock and just being together. While there, we also celebrated Justin's 33rd birthday. His parents, grandparents and one of his sisters came to celebrate. It was great.

• Fall has arrived... for the most part. The weather has been particularly sunny - great for yard work, not so great for my body which is screaming at me to Please, please put the summer clothes away and dress me in some more comfortable sleeves, sweaters and long pants! Please! I am starting Jillian Michaels Master Your Metabolism eating program today though so I may be pulling the summer clothes back out when the snow starts falling. I'm very excited about it - more on that later. Speaking of her though, did you watch the Biggest Loser last week??? Oh. My. Word. BAWLING!
  

• We're seriously considering putting our house on the market and have even called a realtor. We're hoping to move closer toward our goal of more land and less debt. Along those lines, and just because I always want to get organized in the fall, I'm going to clean out our hallway closets today. While I don't particularly enjoy cleaning, I do LOVE organizing. And it's a great day for it!

Loving this crazy life,
Cutzi