I was in Target the other day (September 19) and noticed they had the Halloween candy and costumes out already; however, the thing that caught my eye was the Christmas decorations! Christmas is still over three months away and they are already selling stuff. Pretty soon there will be Christmas decorations for sale (at a non all-the-time-holiday store) all year round. When I was in China, many restaurants had decorations of Santa up all year round. I hope this doesn't happen here!

The Santa decorations are way at the top of the picture.

Productivity

My husband had the week off of work this week, so I put him to work at home. He painted the hallway to the basement, seeded the yard, sanded the deck, mowed the lawn, stained the stairs in the garage amongst the many other things he did.

So, this weekend is my weekend to live up to his productivity that he started during the week. Today I have stained the deck (most of it...everything but the spindles and the area near the cocooning caterpiller, made muffins and cookies, putting together our itinerary for vacation a week away, packing for the vacation, dust the house, and did some laundry...plus my daily three mile run. Tomorrow I need to finish the laundry, vacuum the house and continue planning the vacation if I don't get it done today.

There's always so much to do and not enough time!

My caterpillar friend is now cocooning on our deck. Here are some pics of it!

It's hard to believe that we've been in this house now for a year. Time flies! While I would like to think that we've gotten a lot accomplished in terms of making the house a home, we haven't done as much as I wanted to have done within the first year. This summer we worked hard and added six new trees (two of which have already died...thank goodness for warranties though!) and a new patio.


Our most recent addition was done last Saturday (yes...done in one day thanks to help from my mom and dad). We added landscaping on the south side of the house. The grass there was quite bad as the builder didn't do a good job putting down topsoil (I think there's maybe 1/2 of an inch) and they conveniently forgot to water it right before we moved in. We've been apologizing to our neighbors who have had to look at it for the past year. But, now we are done! If we can just get the north side grading fixed before the snow flies and the yard re-seeded then I would say it was a successful home improvement year!

The growing season is almost gone, but I was really proud of my garden this year. I had tons of tomatos, carrots, green onions, and a few green peppers and broccoli. The disappointment was the pumpkin...it grew big, but didn't grow any pumpkins.

I am trying to "go green" more. I have always been environmentally conscious, but not necessarily when I go to the grocery store. I always have used paper bags since they can be used to put recycling in; however, now that I have single-sort recycling, there's no need for those extra grocery bags. Now I have gathered up some reusable bags and take them to the grocery store.

The other day when I got home from the grocery store and was unpacking my stuff, my cat jumped into the bag. When I reached down to get the next item out of the bag, I ended up with a Fred-the-cat instead.

After a little internet research I found out what my caterpillar friend is. He (or she) is a Cecropia Moth. It looks he is already making a cocoon on my deck. In the spring he (or she) will emerge into a big moth like this. Here's a link to find out more. http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/5479/

This week we got a new patio. James and I have already made s'mores and just "hung out" on it. Even though I first balked at getting it, I really love it and it already adds so much to our backyard.

This little guy was hanging out on my patio tonight. Look at his colors...isn't he cool!