October...Barely

Where has the time gone? It is now officially October. Here is the update of the week, which may have to suffice until next week when we get home from our trip to West Virginia. In no particular order.
The taxes? They are finished. Not e-filed yet, but that should happen later today. Eagerly awaiting medium-fat refund.
The ticks? We have successfully removed 3 enormous ones from our dog in the past 2 days. Those little guys hide well. We are assuming they were from backpacking last weekend and not a local infestation in Central Park. Our new tick tool seems to work pretty well. Good to know before we try it on a human. I am morbidly fascinated with these disgusting creatures. Can't stop staring at them through magnifying glasses after we pull them off. Their bodies so plump you can barely see the legs. That they glue their heads in and keep regurgitating while feeding to secrete things that keep their host's blood from coagulating. Included in the vomit, of course, is the nasty spirochetes that cause Lyme disease, along with a host of other things. Second only to the mosquito in the amount of disease they are capable of spreading. They don't need to breathe more than a few times per hour so they are very difficult to suffocate or drown.
The mice? We are currently at war. They refuse our traps and continue to flaunt their existence by occasionally running across the kitchen floor in broad daylight or by leaving little tiny mouse poops in the cast iron skillet I store inside the oven. We continue to set the live trap, but right next to it is the super snapper. And we don't even feel all that badly about it anymore either. Just wish they would go for the bait.
The kids? They are great. School is going well, but must admit it is on a back burner when compared to all the activities and outside time we have going on. I am OK with that for now. We are falling a tad behind my weekly goals. But the weather has been magnificent, and our days are full of homeschooling activities that evolve into 2 hour playground outdoor sessions afterward, with groups of homeschooled kids. It is a lot of fun. They were in bathing suits in fountains twice last week. We switched soccer for a Central Park zoo class, temporarily, and have a couple field trips coming up--the fire museum and some of our first theater/music events. Jonah is still doing his book club/reading class and Maya is still doing singer/songwriting. They both do sign language and choir. Every week there are new classes forming--Art! Robotics! Dance! Whatever you want! Brett had Maya out riding her bike today and she has officially grown enough that she can start and stop without jumping off it completely now. Jonah is reading simple sentences. We are just starting Harry Potter #6.
The travel? That is a moving target. Brett was supposed to be in CA all last week, but it got cancelled, not many hours before he was supposed to leave. I think it was a good thing because then his FL project got more stressful, with part of the report due before he even finishes the actual diving. He is still supposed to go to FL next week sometime, but he may not come back to NY before the inspection work begins. The kids and I are trying to decide a good schedule for going to FL to meet him. He will be there for 4 or 5 weeks. Unfortunately Halloween falls right in the middle, and we have loads of stuff on the calendar that we will have to miss here. But Ft. Lauderdale in the fall sounds pretty fun, so we will probably head down for a large portion of the trip.
The visitors? Yes, my parents are wrapping up their month in Europe and we go to pick them up on Tuesday in Philadelphia. Looking forward to the family reunion this weekend in West Virginia and then having them visit The City for a week afterward.
The apartment? It is OK. I still haven't posted photos for you of it, have I? We are almost there, really we are. We have made tremendous progress with the desk area since we have been working on taxes. We had huge file boxes to be sorted and filed and that project is nearly complete. We still have some things to sell on craigslist and ebay and a bunch of tapestries/art to install. And there are several things that need to be emptied out and reorganized (like the pantry and the bathroom stuff. But the place is coming along. Brett refuses to hold on to my legs while I clean the windows from the outside ledge. And we have left our windows open a lot the past month which has left oodles of what I'm sure is toxic exhaust dust to settle over everything. The space feels pretty small sometimes. Like sometimes I feel like everywhere I turn there is a child doing something that involves frenetic movement and lots of noise. Sigh.
The City? Love it. Really, I do. Maya and I went to the NY Botanical Gardens on Saturday (free passes for the national Smithsonian something day). It was amazing, magnificent. And we only saw a fraction of it in the 2 hours we were there. Also we had never been to the Central Park Zoo until Maya's class last week--it was a lot of fun. Small, but lots to do and see. Getting the groove of things like grocery shopping and finding our way around and not panicking when the subway lights go out and it stops dead in its tracks. Finding little eateries that are fun and ethnic and also discovering new corners of the park to play in.
The West Coast? Ummm...we miss you guys. Not sure whether it is the time of year or just that it has been a while. But we miss everyone--those of you who have known us our whole lives or at least with whom we share an extensive history. Halloween in our neighborhood where we knew everyone, picking apples in the Fall, blueberries in the summer, the kids making lemonade stands in the park, Book Club, movie nights, dinner dates. We miss annual events and the familiarity of being home in a place that we know so well.
Cheers to all of you and Happy Fall.