Falling into October

We were surprised by how easy the transition between seasons was this year.
It's always so dreaded....packing everything away, hunkering down, moving from outdoors all day everyday....to solely indoors.

But shockingly, all those items on our to-do list, were knocked out in two weekends.

We decided to skip the professional carpet cleaner, and instead, I busted my ass by doing it myself for an entire morning. I tried to wait until all the animals were eating well and not making messes all over the house, which seemed to be the norm for the last few months.
Everyone is on a much better schedule these days.

I deep cleaned our entire house, top to bottom, in all the little crevices, for an entire weekend.

The following weekend, I spent an entire day cleaning out our basement, organizing and packing away all the summertime patio items, de-potting plants, re-potting some for indoors, and pulling out the Halloween items.

Mark took a day off of work and closed our pool.

And when I got home that day, he had lit all the tiki torches and placed them around our hot-tub, and we drank wine and talked through a minor thunderstorm.

It was glorious.

I took some of the money I had been stashing away and got ahead of our mortgage for our rental.

The rental has been making me insane recently, between late payments and appliances all going out at the same time, it seems there was always un-necessary stress from them.

We sold the four-wheelers. Kind of a sad day, but we are inching ever-closer to paying off the remaining debt from this year. I would love to head into our final transfer debt free, but who knows what'll happen.

We decided to forgo taking our oldest bulldog, Crash, to the vet, to have his second hematoma checked out.

After an extensive amount of research, I realized that a hematoma will fill up with blood and be rather squishy, but by the time it gets hard, which his is now, there isn't much that can be done except wait and see if it gets re-absorbed....or pay out the ass for surgery just to make it look better.

His ear doesn't hurt, as is obvious when I massage it daily, but rather, the weight of his ear may have be bothering him a tad since he wasn't used to it, and while I hated to watch him shake his head constantly, he seems to be getting more and more accustomed to it.

My mom guilt has been erased on this one, and we get to save hundreds of dollars in the process.

After all, it was just an aesthetic surgery, not necessary for his well-being, and if the damn dog wasn't so stubborn about dragging his ear on the rocks outside, this wouldn't have happened in the first place. (and no, he doesn't have an ear infection or mites or anything, he just likes rolling around on those damn rocks!)

Plus, bulldogs don't really do well with anesthesia and surgery with their short snouts, and he's an old man with a temper.
It's a win-win for all of us, really.

Work is work. We are getting busier, and I don't mind it, because when we're slow, it's when I start thinking too much about all the variables with IVF.

And then there is IVF.
Our protocol and time line have been set for our final FET, and for whatever reason, there will be less of everything this round, which I am completely okay with.

I will have a few less pills, a few less shots, and a few less questions, making the process less of an event, and more of a natural progression.

These October weekends are filled with a car show, a haunted house, a final boat ride, time with friends and family, and of course, Halloween.

I hope you guys are transitioning as easily as we have found it!
Take care! XO