I Guess it's Winter in Minnesota

Although we've been having beautiful September-like weather over the last few weeks, resulting in many gorgeous nights like this . . .

A view from the front porch

. . . this morning I woke up to let the cat out, and she and I were both surprised to find a winter wonderland.  It's been coming down ever since.  Wyatt was excited to get outside and help his dad shovel the driveway.  He even donned some goggles:

All tricked out . . . in a coat Jonas wore when he was seven.

Ready for the white stuff

Wyatt and the cute cute girl who lives next door (whose name I can't EVER remember)

Before all this snow descended, we spent the week in pretty low-key fashion.  Well, at least I spent it that way.  The house is about 90% put together, which means I've shifted from frantic-frenzied-purposeful to puttery-wandery-loose endy.  (Yes, loose endy is not a word, but it's the best antonym of purposeful I could come up with and I'm shooting for parallel sentence structure.)  This loose endiness is a good thing most of the time--I have these long structureless days with which I can do pretty much whatever.  Of course, I have plenty to keep me busy--taking care of the kids and the house is always enough, especially if you do it right--but it's been so long since I've had at least half a dozen looming deadlines or pressing responsibilities that it's kind of weird to not have them pinning down the beginning and ending of my day.

And, yes, I'm enjoying it in lots of ways.  But I also feel a little bit disconnected, which is to be expected when you move away from family and friends and quit your job and don't have a calling.  I'm not completely without distractions--I'm working on my final issue of Irreantum (I'll be stepping down as editor after the end of this year)--but it's almost done.  And, of course, I'm writing too.  But all these things are completely within my own purview.  I can do them for however long I want to, whenever I want to.  Don't have to go to any meetings, don't have to grade any papers, don't have to plan any activities for 10 year old boys, etc. etc. etc.  So I'm enjoying it.  Mostly.  I'm also remembering that this "new normal" won't be the new normal for long, and that even though I would like to have a little more purpose and structure to my days, I'm going to do my best not to overload my plate.  And underloaded plate is always easier to balance than an overloaded one, yes?

Other members of the family have been pretty busy, though.  Mostly Ethan.  He's been on tech crew for the high school production of Beauty and the Beast, which opened to wild acclaim last night.  He's been at the high school every day until late at night over this last week, and I've been feeling his absence.  But it was really fun to go see the play last night and the fruits of all his hard work.  He does wish that he'd actually tried out for the production--he was a little leery of the singing and dancing--but he learned a lot working the lights and now knows for sure that he'll try out for the musical next time.   It brought back so many memories to go to the high school and see the show last night; I so loved being in plays when I was younger.  One of those things I'm so glad I did then, because most of us don't get the opportunity to do it ever again (unless you're Grandpa Hiatt, then you can do it for most of your adult life).  It's so much fun to see Ethan interested in it too.

The other kids have been busy with school--all three older kids did great in their parent teacher conferences.  And Forrest has been having a great time sitting in his tree, shooting videos of the girl deer, fork bucks, and fawns that continue to taunt him.   And Forrest and I sneaked out this afternoon to go see a movie--the new Denzel Washington "Oh My Heck It's a Derailed Train!" movie.  It was actually quite entertaining.  We also have a great deal here in Woodbury; a guy in our ward owns a first-run movie theater where all tickets before 6 p.m. (even on weekends) are only four dollars.  So a first run movie for 8 bucks?  Pretty sweet, even if we don't have stadium seating.

And now I'd better sign off again.  Thanks to all of you who popped in and said hello last blog post after I mentioned that my post-before-that was a little (ahem) lacking in comments.  Seriously, though--no blog commenting pressure.  Blog commenting pressure is the last thing ANY of us need, right?  I know you love me.

And read EVERY WORD of my long winded blog. :-)