September so far

Oy. Apparently I haven't posted anything at all this month. Sorry! Guess it's time for some catching up...

1. Adjusting. Some of September has been about adjusting back to being a household of three now that Asher and Micah are back at their respective colleges. That's meant things like less laundry and more food being available, lol.

Simultaneously, Asher and Micah have been adjusting to their new schedules. Asher's got 17 credits this semester and is taking on more responsibilities with the UNC PE club. They have some fundraisers in the works and Asher will be going to a big convention in Denver specifically for physical education people next month. He's also still very much enjoying the UNC Taekwondo club. They've added new members this year, doubling their numbers, and have some events coming up, too. He's also working this month on finalizing his full admission to the Professional Teacher Education Program at UNC, which involves a decent amount of paperwork and is a requirement in his journey to becoming a PE teacher. Also, Asher and his three new roommates seem to be getting along just fine, he continues to ride his OneWheel to get around campus, and he comes home on the weekends. (He's not doing Karate West demo team any more but volunteered, along with another former member, to lead a practice earlier this month to help the new members with their combat fighting choreography. They may do more of that.)

Micah's gotten himself two part time jobs (at the Boulder Escape Room on the weekends and on campus at the biotechnology building on weekday mornings), is taking 15 credits, and continues to help lead the CU Taekwondo club. Yup, he's busy. :) He'll finish his BA in May and is now looking at applying to graduate programs. He's been meeting with advisors and seeking input from those in the field. He's doing a great job of juggling everything and is thoroughly enjoying college life. He and his two roommates are doing well so far with home life--cooking for themselves, paying bills, tackling maintenance, and whatnot. He's going to concerts, shopping, climbing, and everything else. He seems pretty happy. :)

2. Chilling. Amid all of that, life for me has been fairly chill. Mostly, I've been helping to make sure everyone else is getting what they need...plenty of paperwork and errands and listening. 

This picture is of my fun little robot tea infuser. I feel like he exemplifies "chilling" pretty well, lol. (Nathan was gifted some delicious oolong loose leaf tea and I've taken it. Given the steeping instructions, I dug out my little robot and it works perfectly.) When he's not in the tea glass, I let him hang out in the little white dish...and I think it looks like he's chilling in a little tub.

3. Medical stuff. I mentioned before that Micah switched treatment plans for his arthritis. Some of what I've been doing has been getting that all sorted. The new plan involves deliveries in these "critical" boxes that require opening "immediately" and refrigerating. (That's why we're having them delivered here rather than to Micah in Boulder...since I can be home to receive them but Micah and his roommates aren't reliably home, given class and work schedules.)

So far the weekly self-injections have been working well, and Micah feels considerably better than he did at the end of the summer. Yay!!

Beyond that, Micah also had a laser eye surgery earlier this week to repair a hole in his left retina. Seems to have gone well, though I suppose we won't really know for sure until his follow up appointment in December? In any case, the procedure went smoothly and he's doing well. Plus, we got to spend some time with him while collecting him from Boulder the night before the procedure and then driving him back down in the afternoon after the surgery. (By the way, Micah was far and away the youngest person at the eye center, lol. I'd not really thought about it before but apparently it's mostly older people who need eye surgery?)

4. Boot camp in Old Town. Last week (Wednesday), one of the guys in boot camp was the speaker for a Ram Talk in Old Town. George is an elephant expert and professor at CSU and spoke about what we can learn from elephant language. It was honestly fascinating! Knowing that he'd be talking, the rest of us at boot camp (aside from the three who were out of town that week) all went to offer our support. (There was discussion about heckling, but we were good, lol.)

We all sat together and enjoyed the event! (George is the one standing with his picture on the screen behind him, lol.) If you're local, there are a number of additional Ram Talks scheduled and the event space is fabulous. I'd highly recommend attending, even though George won't be speaking again.

5. Conference in AZ. While I was doing that, Nathan was at a conference for work. It was pretty swanky...at the Four Seasons in Scottsdale. Nathan enjoyed the scenery...opted for the morning hike as his chosen conference activity...and even managed to get together with a friend and his family while he was there. 

6. Filipino Community Hall National Historic Site. Many decades ago (more than 70 years ago), my mom's dad (who immigrated to the US as a teen) was a leader in his local Filipino-American community in the Yakima Valley in Washington state. He helped found the Filipino Community Hall in Wapato, the first Filipino hall built in the west. This year, the hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places! They're having a big celebration next month and putting together a commemorative book. Given the family significance and the years of memories we have there, my mom wanted to put together a full page ad for the book. I helped with that while Nathan was out of town. Here's how it turned out:

(It's nothing particularly fancy...just featuring family. :) The hardest part was gathering all the photos, lol.)

7. New tree. And while Nathan was still in Arizona, I oversaw the planting of the new tree we purchased last month. You may remember that we planted a new tree a couple years ago (see the top middle photo below). We got a 5 gallon skyline honeylocust through a city program and planted it ourselves. It made it through the first winter but sadly perished last winter due to the extreme cold. 

So. This time we opted for a 20 gallon tree through the Fort Collins Nursery and had them plant it for us. It's an Espresso Kentucky Coffee tree, which is similar to the honeylocust but felt like it had a bit more character to us. Rob & Thomas did a great job of amending the soil and planting the tree and fertilizing and staking it. They also left me with clear instructions for its care and high hopes.

8. Raccoons. Last weekend, while Nathan, Noah, Asher and I were playing a board game in the kitchen, we were visited by FOUR raccoons. They were quite curious about us and can clearly tell that Nathan feeds the squirrels right there. On that particular day, the squirrels hadn't finished off the day's last pile of walnuts and the first raccoon got a nice little treat. (He didn't share with the others.) 

Don't worry. We didn't put out any additional walnuts. :)

9. Date lunch. And, yes, Nathan and I still go out for date lunch every other week or so. Yesterday, we enjoyed lunch and hard ciders at Locust in Old Town, walked over to The Exchange for ice cream, and then wandered across the street to the new Fort Collins mural.

So. I think that's most of what's been going on in September with us. Whew. It's strangely warm and summery here right now. It's a little confusing but okay with me. Also, I'm in the middle of reorganizing my office...which has been quite the project. (More on that later.) 

I'll do better about posting in October. :) Have a wonderful weekend!