Falling Behind and Catching Up

I have fallen (It's fall. Get it?) terribly behind in getting things posted on my blog. Autumn is such a busy season. Winter, spring, and summer are pretty busy, too. Okay. Okay. It's all busy. But life is fun!

Are you ready for pictures and details from the past several weeks that really have no reason to be contained within the same blog entry?! The only thing that the following images have in common is that they were taken on my phone, or ended up on my phone by way of an iMessage. 

I truly have tried to find some common denominator to tie this entry together, but it simply cannot be done. If I keep looking for a common thread, I'm going to waste even MORE time; resulting in falling even further behind. It's a vicious cycle. The struggle is real. #bloggerproblems

Projects are not the only things that stack up on me. Teenagers tend to pile up around our house, too. See! We do have a lot o' fun at the Smith Haus. Maybe that's why I don't get everything checked off my "to-do" list or get INOKWACA updated very often. We simply are having too much fun.

Sufferin' succotash! It appears that my blog is not the only thing that has suffered from a little neglect. Our produce may be puny, but that won't stop us from trying to produce produce next growing season. I'm glad that Kroger, Sprouts, and Costco are nearby and have well stocked produce departments -- otherwise, we'd starve!

The "wildlife" 'round here suffers, too. This lil' guy got smashed in the garage door as it was closing. I didn't notice this until I returned to the crime scene many hours later. I'm still having bad dreams about this incident.

Hopefully, this pot of fall color won't be horribly neglected and turn brown.

Millie Girl helped me create this focal point for our front courtyard. We make a great team! I think it's gourd-gous.

I absolutely love autumn decorations and flowers. It makes me sooo happy that the fall-ish stuff gets to be out for nearly three months before the big seasonal switcheroo to Christmas decor. 

Moving from front yard to back:

The backyard is looking spruced up a bit after my sister came to visit. An imposing pile of ten and a half cubic yards of hardwood bark proved to be no match for Biff and Butch, The Thompson Sisters. (I can never remember if my seester is Butch, or if I am. We never really cared who got called what moniker, just as long as the vowels were not swapped between the two names. Oh, dear.) 

We took it one wheelbarrow load at a time, and we made it a point that no pictures were taken of the two of us as we toiled. It was hot. And a little breezy. We were sweaty. Suffice it to say that we looked akin to Burt, the chimney sweep, from Mary Poppins. 

As we "shoveled, wheeled and barrowed," we were smilin' -- just not for the camera. :-)

The job is not quite finished, though. We will need to order more material to finish covering some of the planting areas. My sister has long since returned to Washington State, so I guess I'll be barking without my sidekick, Buff, Biff, or whatever her name is.

When we are not tending to projects at home, there are plenty of things to do to help others.

One Saturday morning, we all rolled out of bed early to go lend a hand, or two, with the packing of 500,000 meals. Bags of rice, soy, dehydrated veggies, and vitamins are assembled and boxed by volunteers...LOTS of volunteers! These boxes then get shipped to Haiti. 

This is the second year that our family has helped our church, Compass Christian, with this effort, and it is a lot of fun. It is amazing that so many meals can be done in a traditional 8-hour work day.

My girlie and I worked on the supply side of the production, specifically with making sure the work tables were supplied with soy. We were literally dusted from head to toe with soy powder, our muscles ached, and we were ready for a nap after our five hours on duty. 

Look! Millie is still smiling after working sooo hard. She's the only one who looked good wearing a hairnet, so that's why there are no pictures of the rest of our fam. The Smith men had jobs that required a little more muscle, but they, too got to wear the same stylish headgear. 

We did not stay until the goal was reached, but with 700+ volunteers, the adage of "many hands make light work" was evident. The goal of a half million meals was actually surpassed -- and we had a hand in it!

These girlies needed two hands to hold the props for this picture.

Millie and Mak took a liking to this goosenecked gourd. It is pretty cute. And so are the girls.

We are already eight weeks into the fall semester of school, and everyone has fallen into a nice routine. Monday through Friday, Mr. Smith is always out the door by 6:45 AM. I sleep in just a few minutes later than that -- usually because there is at least one big, brown, warm, snuggly, purring cat curled up next to me. Sometimes Bart and 'Mima double team me. I usually am up by 7:00 so I can make beds, shower, feed the furry beasties, start a load of laundry, and pack Millie's lunch.

Napkin art is still alive and well. I really sorta, kinda hope that I will embarrass my teenager with my silliness. On this day, I felt as if my girlie needed a little punishment. Some days she gets Scripture or an encouraging message, and some days I get artsy. It all depends on how much time I've got. Some days are more creative than others.

Rabbit Trail Alert: The silly messages I write on the lunch napkins takes me back to the '70s when there used to be jokes and riddles on Dixie Cups. I rarely convinced our mother to buy these, but I certainly thought they were far out! Groovy, even. My corny jokes on Millie's napkins are probably funnier than the ones on the Dixie Cups. Well...maybe not.

I always seem to have plenty of pictures of the Smith cats. Purrhaps that is what is eating up so much memory space on my phone. 

Aren't they adorbs?

And these three are doggone adorable, too.

Keller High School football, friends, and a selfie makes for a fun Friday night.

We make time to FaceTime the Pepperdine girl several times each week. This was a screenshot from a recent conversation with our daughter. She had just been awarded the traveling trophy for catching a wave (her very first one!) at Surf Convocation. Swell!

I'm thinking a well placed, "Cowabunga, Duuuude!" would be appropriate right about here.

Never mind that she didn't hang ten, or five. But this surfer girl took the drop and rode a wave! No bailing, no falling or wiping out. She claims that it was not very pretty. 

Who cares how it looked?! A caught wave is a caught wave.

And with that, we are all caught up.