I've been so busy lately, it's been hard to actually sit down and write.

Matt has been gone for the last week, training at the Atlanta corporate office. He's been enjoying the experience, but I haven't. ;-) It's lonely down here. It's been especially difficult because Autumn has spent the last two weeks suffering with a virus and sore gums. I love her like crazy and while we still have had some brief moments of fun, over all she's been very difficult to deal with and occupying just about all of my time. It's been hard to keep the house up since she wants to be held all the time.

When I'm not holding Autumn, I've been trying to get some more scrapbooking done for Grandma K. On Thursday I did the beach pictures from 1974 (3 pages) and another unidentified year (sometime in the 70s, hoping someone will be able to help us narrow down the year at the beach- 1 page). Friday morning I finished the pictures of my mom and myself at the beach in 1981 (2 pages) and decided that while Autumn looks most like Matt, she's very much shaped like I was. Today I did three more pages from 2004. I think in total that makes around 28 or 29 pages I've finished for her beach album in the last month.

For some reason I work in spurts. I'll get a bunch of pages done over a few days and then won't work on it again for a week. I guess it's probably that I realize just how bad the house has gotten while I've been in the office and it takes me a week to get it caught back up again.

I've realized that I really need to stop babysitting lbl sometime soon. He's still colicky and screams so much of the time that it's really stressful and I'm not able to pay much attention to Autumn. Also, it makes it very difficult to get away from home. If I hadn't been babysitting this last week while Matt was in Atlanta, I would have taken off to Indiana, or Ohio, or NoVA and visited friends and family. But instead I had to be here to watch him on Wednesday (both he and Autumn screamed most of the day) and Friday (he behaved in the morning, but the afternoon wasn't so great).

I feel like such a wimp to not be able to handle it, but I honestly don't know how anyone would be able to handle his screaming fits for very long. So often there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, but listen to him yell, and just that is pretty hard to do. I guess if it were just him, I would probably be okay. But when he's here, he monopolizes my attention and I have a hard time trying to keep track of Autumn and make sure she eats, gets her bath, sleeps, and gets some cuddle time too.

But how do I stop? I don't think his parents can afford to hire anyone else to do it and I feel so bad even thinking about telling them I can't do it anymore... Okay, I'm definitely a wimp when it comes to this. But by the end of the day on the really screamy days, I'm about to lose my mind. Matt thinks I should quit. My mom thinks I should quit. My friends think I should quit. I think I should quit. But I still don't know if I'll be able to. I guess in a lot of ways it's easier to just be totally stressed out than to tell his parents they'll have to find someone else.

Anyway...

I'm really looking forward to the beach and getting away from it all for a while. I am sad that Matt isn't going to be able to make it there this year, but still awfully happy that he's getting a much better job. I think Autumn will enjoy the beach too--lots and lots of people to play with and water to play in and sand to eat. Yay!

I've been very homesick this week, too, because it's fair week back home. All the kids are showing animals and getting awards and riding the rides (kiddy night only--too expensive the rest of the week) and eating fair food. :-) I don't miss the actual fair so much as watching my little brothers enjoying it all. I'm hoping that next year Autumn and I will be able to go visit in Indiana for fair week--I think she would like all the animals and stuff.

Oh, and speaking of fair week, I have to mention that Seth's rooster won the rooster crowing contest by crowing 69 times in 30 minutes. He set a record.

We've been getting rain this last week. Yay! But I think it really is too late for my poor tomatoes. I keep hoping that maybe they will perk back up, but every time I go out, they still look just as sad. I need to get out there and pick the tomatoes that are left, though I expect that most--if not all of them--are split because of getting so much rain the last few days.

The eggplant, peppers, and herbs are looking lots better though. As are the few flowers I have planted. The bed under the magnolia tree (the one I had to fight the squirrels over for so long) is doing GREAT. It's really getting established and taking off. None of the bulbs ever bloomed because the squirrels got them, but the annuals and the myrtle from NC have finally won out over the furry little pests. I would never have believed it of myself before, but I was so happy the other day when I noticed one of them had gotten hit in the road. (gasp)

It's getting really late now, and this is getting way way way too long, and I'm getting really tired, and probably completely incoherent, and I'm hoping to make it to church tomorrow morning, so I'd better go.

-kt